Monstrous maestro: why is Cate Blanchett’s cancel culture film Tár angering so many people?; The Guardian, January 16, 2023

 Xan Brooks, The Guardian; Monstrous maestro: why is Cate Blanchett’s cancel culture film Tár angering so many people?

"Great art asks us questions. Confounding heroes do too. It’s not a film’s job to pander to our preconceptions, parrot back our opinions and reassure us that we’re right. Nor, for that matter, is a film obliged to stay in its lane and give us clearcut goodies and baddies; that simple, bogus moral structure. Fictional characters don’t have to be exemplars of anything. Cinemas, like colleges and libraries, should be physical safe spaces, but intellectual and emotional danger zones.

Books aren’t mirrors, they’re doors, as the critic Fran Lebowitz likes to say – and the same goes for films. Doors can be scary: we don’t know what’s behind them. But without opening a door, we all remain in our own silos. We miss out on a life of adventure and a world of interesting people we haven’t yet met. Some of them will appal us. Some we might quite like."