Tár (Todd Field, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

Todd Field’s TÁR

[Quote Perf Unquote]

Todd Field’s TÁR

Perhaps my most awaited film, along with Glazer's "Zone of Interest." Field did such smart work adapting existing sources for his first two (especially "In the Bedroom.") Of particular interest this time is his sole, and original, screenplay credit.

[therewillbeblus]

An enticing new trailer for Todd Field's TAR.

Wow, looks fantastic, like Field is making his own bent-version of Larrain's Ema, or at least capturing its spirit!

[Persona]

An enticing new trailer for Todd Field's TAR.

Wow, looks fantastic, like Field is making his own bent-version of Larrain's Ema, or at least capturing its spirit!

Yes, I think I'm picking up on a slightly meta element to the narrative from this latest trailer and if it's there, then this might be the perfect film for Field to make as his return from a 16-year drought of him trying to get various projects off the ground.

[Computer Raheem]

An enticing new trailer for Todd Field's TAR.

Between this and the teaser for Noah Baumbach's White Noise, it's nice to see teaser trailers that actually tease rather than behave like regular trailers before the real trailer is released.

I'm most intrigued by what appears to be a mixed-format smorgasbord, with everything from what appears to be digital (the only camera info I could find for the film mentions the CineAlta being used), color and black-and-white, what appears to be brief moments of 8mm or 16mm, and potentially still images interspersed concurrently with moving. It's to be seen if this is all for the trailer, but if not, this is some swing-for-the-fences goodness. Easily my most anticipated film for the rest of the year (presuming Babylon actually releases on Christmas)

[DarkImbecile]

[Persona]

Difficult even to skim reviews of this film without running through all the plot points, but it sounds pretty great.

[DarkImbecile]

Unsettling, mysterious, provocative, and masterful, Todd Field’s TÁR is both a remarkable artistic achievement and a deeply involving and often thrilling dissection of art, power, hubris, and responsibility. The film is somehow both crystal clear in its vision and yet contains enough questions, ambiguities, and deliberate misdirections for the audience that it invites revisits to tease out its complexities — and to bask in its technical brilliance.

I used the the word ‘masterful’ above, and while Todd Field is in total formal control as a director and has produced one of the great screenplays as a writer, there are two masters guiding viewers through the film: this is an instantly legendary lead performance by Cate Blanchett, one that surpasses anything I’ve seen from her and belongs in the highest tier of all-time film roles. Nina Hoss and Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Noémie Merlant are stellar as well, but it’s the consistently remarkable quality of some of the smaller supporting roles that points to Field’s acumen not only as a technician and visionary, but as an actor’s director.

Perhaps the thing I’m most excited to watch as this film becomes more widely seen is the inevitable debate over its intent regarding some of its main themes; I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an audience so expertly led in one direction and then just as cannily nudged into a complete U-turn on a film’s thematic intent. I’ll be more specific below, but I’d highly recommend experiencing it for yourself before reading my take on the game I think Field plays with one of the film’s more timely elements:

SpoilerShow

I think Field’s treatment of issues around identity and ‘cancel culture’ is deliberately misleading for much of the film, as are the ‘culprits’ he comes to identify; as with so many current events it echoes, it will be very easy for a superficial reading centered on the irritating moralizing of young people to completely elide the role of the structures of power around the institutions that exalt and abet those they place into positions of authority — for exactly as long as they remain useful to them.

While many of the adjectives I’ve seen and heard attached to this — cold, aloof, alienating, Kubrickian — aren’t entirely incorrect and I’m sure it won’t be a roaring success with general audiences, it’s also quite funny, suspenseful, and engaging as well, and the 160 minutes flew by for me.

Just an absolute triumph on multiple levels, and one I will savor discussing and debating for what I assume will be many years of cultural relevance and, I suspect, reverence.

[hearthesilence]

I think I'm going to have to see this twice. I saw it last night and I'm still processing whether everything came together. There was a Q&A moderated by Laurie Anderson (who said she saw it last year - I guess it's been completed for a while? - and again last night) and it was interesting to hear Field talk about the details of making it.

IIRC he was contacted about writing material for another project involving a conductor and that inspired him to do this film, which was his first time writing original material. He really liked the idea of the power dynamic between a conductor and orchestra, especially how that translated visually onstage. They also compared that to performance in general, especially theater - as Blanchett argues, in theater, the actors are very conscious of the audience (i.e. every sound they make), but in concert, it's virtually the opposite experience. Anderson points out that having your back to the audience through an entire performance is also a strange idea to most performers, but that's what you have when you're a conductor.

Apparently the script came out really fast - I forgot the exact time he gave but I think he finished writing it all in less than two months (maybe even one month?). During the editing, he half-jokingly mentioned that there were moments where he thought "why did I write so many fucking lines?" He does mention it's a very top-heavy film in that regard and Blanchett said it was interesting to her how it started off really dense before the amount of dialogue gradually faded as it progressed. I almost wondered if the first two scenes (before the Juilliard class) were even necessary - they were kind of a slog to get through, but Blanchett did believe that they laid out a lot of necessary material. I'm still debating whether that's true or not, but regardless, there was actually quite a bit of material that was cut out - for example there's a 50th birthday scene that was cut. I think Field made the point to his cast that even though these scenes were ultimately cut, they still were used in the sense that the information they provided were still there for their characters, so they did provide more context for the cast in creating their performances even if they weren't ultimately included in the final cut.

Sound design on this film was great, and not surprisingly they spent a LOT of time on it in Scotland. They apparently did foley work on the entire film. One of Field's classmates (I think John Roesch?) is a renowned foley artist now working for George Lucas (I'm guessing he means Skywalker) and he contacted him quite a bit to get suggestions or advice. But I don't want to take credit away from their actual sound team because Field really praised the work they did for the film.

I didn't realize Nina Hoss's mother was in the film - she has only one scene and it was very memorable. Hoss herself was great and Anderson really liked the way she played in the film (which was all acting or miming).

Costumes deserves a medal. There's a scene (you'll know which one) where they asked, "how many people are in the audience?" Field said "1000." And he made it clear to them that it's how he scripted it and he already knows how it will be shot, so yeah, they need a THOUSAND costumes. A huge headache because it means re-adjusting the budget to accommodate that and then the actual excruciating labor. But they did it, so you actually have a 1000 elaborate individual costumes in that scene.

[Mario G.]

I think I'm going to have to see this twice. I saw it last night and I'm still processing whether everything came together. There was a Q&A moderated by Laurie Anderson (who said she saw it last year - I guess it's been completed for a while? - and again last night) and it was interesting to hear Field talk about the details of making it.

I was at this screening too and it was a really great moderation job by Anderson. I mean she spoke a lot, but she did a really good job of incorporating everyone and articulating her own thoughts in a way that allowed Field et al. to run with them in their answers. I mean I was almost more excited to see Laurie than the the rest, so I didn't even mind her loquaciousness.

He does mention it's a very top-heavy film in that regard and Blanchett said it was interesting to her how it started off really dense before the amount of dialogue gradually faded as it progressed. I almost wondered if the first two scenes (before the Juilliard class) were even necessary - they were kind of a slog to get through, but Blanchett did believe that they laid out a lot of necessary material.

I agree that the beginning is a bit of a slog and it doesn't help that Blanchett is doing a lot of ACTING in the first scene. I understand where the choices are coming from (Lydia's public face would probably be more rehearsed), but compared to her scene partner (a real life New Yorker moderator who has probably done a million of these types of talks) she doesn't come off natural. Anderson even made a comment about how we've seen this type of conversation in real life so many times before and the movie really nails all the details. All that being said, I still think the opening scenes are pretty necessary for setting up the kind of person Lydia is. Blanchett puts in a wonderful performance in the rest of the movie and I think she's able to go so minimal because we set up a lot in those first few scenes.

there was actually quite a bit of material that was cut out - for example there's a 50th birthday scene that was cut. I think Field made the point to his cast that even though these scenes were ultimately cut, they still were used in the sense that the information they provided were still there for their characters, so they did provide more context for the cast in creating their performances even if they weren't ultimately included in the final cut.

I think Blanchett actually said this and she also mentioned that she was a bit disappointed a lot of that material wasn't in the film, but reasoned that even if we don't see it, it informs the characters and their performances. For example, she said the fact that Lydia is turning 50 was a major influence on how she played her as if there was a biological change she's undergone. As it is now, there's only a stray mention.

I didn't realize Nina Hoss's mother was in the film - she has only one scene and it was very memorable. Hoss herself was great and Anderson really liked the way she played in the film (which was all acting or miming).

I understood this to mean that it wasn't her actual mother, but I may have misunderstood. It was a bit confusing when Hoss was talking about her and the character's scene revealing a lot to Hoss a lot about her character. She sounded like she was almost talking about herself. To add on: Anderson was referring to how Hoss almost becomes a "narrator" in a couple sequences set in an orchestra as her face is frequently cut to in order to inform the audience about the underlying politics of the orchestra as events are transpiring. Overall, Anderson and the points she made really made me appreciate the Hoss performance on another level beyond just being a capable scene partner to Blanchett.

A well done Q&A and I'd like to see Anderson moderate more in the future.

[hearthesilence]

I was at this screening too and it was a really great moderation job by Anderson. I mean she spoke a lot, but she did a really good job of incorporating everyone and articulating her own thoughts in a way that allowed Field et al. to run with them in their answers. I mean I was almost more excited to see Laurie than the the rest, so I didn't even mind her loquaciousness.

Me neither - I actually skipped the NYFF screening because Anderson was at this one! It was nice to know Blanchett was a fan of Anderson's work and vice versa - Anderson mentioned a visual art piece featuring Blanchett, and they discussed it a bit as well - I wasn't aware of this work having never seen it, but maybe someone else is?

I agree that the beginning is a bit of a slog and it doesn't help that Blanchett is doing a lot of ACTING in the first scene. I understand where the choices are coming from (Lydia's public face would probably be more rehearsed), but compared to her scene partner (a real life New Yorker moderator who has probably done a million of these types of talks) she doesn't come off natural. Anderson even made a comment about how we've seen this type of conversation in real life so many times before and the movie really nails all the details. All that being said, I still think the opening scenes are pretty necessary for setting up the kind of person Lydia is. Blanchett puts in a wonderful performance in the rest of the movie and I think she's able to go so minimal because we set up a lot in those first few scenes.

Agree with this. One of the knocks on Blanchett is that her acting can be a bit too mannered, but sometimes having a performance come off as a performance actually says something organic to the material. While the scene played out though, I kind of wondered if there was a better way to get this all across - they're framed with some bits and pieces that are effective (like emphasizing how the intro is scripted, etc.) but once it gets going with the very long takes of non-stop talk, I kind of got what Field said later on. There didn't seem to be a good place to cut away and it's framed prosaically, and the result kind of felt like witnessing a podcast interview. I have to think back to what's said during the scene, but at the moment I feel like there could have been a better and more effective way of getting the important things across in cinematic terms. (Not in terms of re-interpreting the scene but just coming up with something else.)

I think Blanchett actually said this and she also mentioned that she was a bit disappointed a lot of that material wasn't in the film, but reasoned that even if we don't see it, it informs the characters and their performances. For example, she said the fact that Lydia is turning 50 was a major influence on how she played her as if there was a biological change she's undergone. As it is now, there's only a stray mention.

Yes, Blanchett definitely brought it up. There was some back and forth, but it was mainly her.

I understood this to mean that it wasn't her actual mother, but I may have misunderstood. It was a bit confusing when Hoss was talking about her and the character's scene revealing a lot to Hoss a lot about her character. She sounded like she was almost talking about herself. To add on: Anderson was referring to how Hoss almost becomes a "narrator" in a couple sequences set in an orchestra as her face is frequently cut to in order to inform the audience about the underlying politics of the orchestra as events are transpiring. Overall, Anderson and the points she made really made me appreciate the Hoss performance on another level beyond just being a capable scene partner to Blanchett.

You are correct, I either misheard or misinterpreted what was said - I just looked up her mother on imdb and she passed away in 2014. One thing I'd pay attention to on second viewing is the contrast between Blanchett and Hoss. I feel like their acting is fairly different on a technical or at least physical level, but it may also be a reflection of their characters - it probably shores up the role each character has in each other's lives.

And yes, would love Anderson to do more Q&A's. It's possible she agreed to this one partly because she understands that world of concert performance and can relate to it more, but even when venturing beyond that aspect of the film, she did an excellent job.

[Finch]

UHD forthcoming as per Universal's own store

(also happening, a UHD of Spike Jonze's Adaptation)

[Black Hat]

Where was this screening you guys went to, BAM?

I'd say this is pretty much a shoo-in for the Oscar and I'm more or less in line with what you both wrote, that New Yorker scene, is a lot of clunky exposition and, in general, silly to the point of making you wonder if there's a bit of mocking of that social scene going on. Overall, however, while I have complicated feelings towards it, I mostly did not like it. I don't believe one should ever criticize young people, even more so these days, and the film does a lot of that in the worst angry dad ways possible. The film's politics have been and will be discussed more, I'm sure, they are bad but, I think it's actually to appeal to upper west side/hollywood liberals over 40. Having said that, what I mention is more subtle than overt so you may not even notice it if you become engrossed in the parts of the movie that are well done.

SpoilerShow

her ending up in vietnam or wherever that was bugged me too, very unnecessary and uninteresting

Even on its own terms, the parts I'm aggravated by, aren't done particularly well. They're pretty lazy.

HTS: The costumes:

SpoilerShow

are you talking about the end?

[domino harvey]

I don't believe one should ever criticize young people, even more so these days, and the film does a lot of that in the worst angry dad ways possible.

[Black Hat]

Ha, color me shocked. On a more serious note, if I recall correctly, you work or worked in education and lord knows I hear plenty of critiques from people close to me who work in that field, there's a great "Teachers Be Talkin' at Happy Hour" doc out there for someone to make but, I'd be curious to know, when you see TÀR, if you felt the depiction of student behavior is accurate.

[swo17]

Would everyone posting in this thread from here on out please begin by identifying your age so I can know how easy to go on you?

[domino harvey]

Ha, color me shocked. On a more serious note, if I recall correctly, you work or worked in education and lord knows I hear plenty of critiques from people close to me who work in that field, there's a great "Teachers Be Talkin' at Happy Hour" doc out there for someone to make but, I'd be curious to know, when you see TÀR, if you felt the depiction of student behavior is accurate.

You recall correctly. I will be sure to weigh in on this film’s depiction of students when I see this

[hearthesilence]

Where was this screening you guys went to, BAM?

I'd say this is pretty much a shoo-in for the Oscar and I'm more or less in line with what you both wrote, that New Yorker scene, is a lot of clunky exposition and, in general, silly to the point of making you wonder if there's a bit of mocking of that social scene going on. Overall, however, while I have complicated feelings towards it, I mostly did not like it. I don't believe one should ever criticize young people, even more so these days, and the film does a lot of that in the worst angry dad ways possible. The film's politics have been and will be discussed more, I'm sure, they are bad but, I think it's actually to appeal to upper west side/hollywood liberals over 40. Having said that, what I mention is more subtle than overt so you may not even notice it if you become engrossed in the parts of the movie that are well done.

SpoilerShow

her ending up in vietnam or wherever that was bugged me too, very unnecessary and uninteresting

Even on its own terms, the parts I'm aggravated by, aren't done particularly well. They're pretty lazy.

HTS: The costumes:

SpoilerShow

are you talking about the end?

It was MoMI, and yes the final scene. I actually have mixed feelings about the last act as well.

With regards to the classroom scene, I think a common trap with what they're trying to do is that the writer only has a good grip on one perspective, not both. Even though they made Blanchett very unlikeable, it also felt like they set up the argument to make it easy for her to dismiss.

[DarkImbecile]

Richard Brody on TÁR

In my opinion, a wild misreading of the film's intentions and substance, almost willfully obtuse about fairly unambiguous plot and character elements. I've read dismissals of the film that I disagreed with but at least respected the thought and critical effort; this is not one of those, and frankly will make me look askance at Brody's criticism going forward

[hearthesilence]

I was actually talking about this film with a friend who just saw it - she liked it, but she said she wanted more clarity on the misbehavior even though she understood that might have been intentional. I agreed on the basis that if anything warranted more clarity it was how Lydia damaged the unseen girl

SpoilerShow

(beyond just the emails telling people not to hire her)

because one big reason why certain people were able to keep their heads down and let an employer like Harvey Weinstein prey on women is that how those women were hurt by him remained unknown and abstract, and keeping it that way made it easier for them to ignore what was happening. So I also had reservations on that aspect of the film and was a bit unsettled by the moral implications of it. This is the first time I've seen a critic bring it up, but I guess we'll see if anyone else does.

EDIT: I guess I'll elaborate on the earlier point about the class.

SpoilerShow

Even within the confines of the works mentioned in the scene, "Mass in B minor" alone had loads to unpack - right away the religious aspect brings up plenty of debate, especially for someone who may object to anything that worships a set of beliefs that declares his own being/sexuality a sin worthy of punishment or ostracization. (It's also an idea complicated by the fact that its composer was an atheist - IIRC the work was commissioned.)

Years, decades before, we've already had the debate over Wagner - one instance that immediately came to mind was Jewish CSO conductor Daniel Barenboim who attempted to play Wagner as an encore while in Israel, and right on the spot he engaged in a long, passionate debate with others in the audience. So the idea of arguing over a canonical work on moral grounds, particularly with regards to one's own identity, isn't new.

But all we get in the film is that Bach fathered a lot of children, and it just felt like a lost opportunity. As written, it did feel like a thin and derisive portrayal of what we're seeing in the current culture.

[therewillbeblus]

Unfortunately I thought this was little more than an interesting failure. I'm typically a fan of ambiguity and ambivalence, but Field's impartial(?) positioning didn't gel with his material in a manner that provoked the substance the script, and that certain incendiary or distinctly-stimulated scenes appear to demand. I couldn’t tell if Field was really interested in Blanchett's character or using his neutral formal choices to put the film in the audience's hands to drive ourselves towards or away from Lydia. But is this a generous move to put the ball in our court, or a cop-out itself? Does justifying a three hour spectacle revolving around her ego -acknowledging the feelings embedded without grazing them- itself endorse the process of emphasizing her ego? Is it all intentionally self-reflexive to ignite these conversations on priorities and the elusiveness of truth, since objective truth and subjective truth cannot be measured against one another in essence, divorced from court held by a social media zeitgeist?

I don’t know, but I’m not sure it succeeds at any of that. What it does do, however, is continually abandon the unsolved mysteries behind her ego-driven paranoia and objective obliviousness to return to

SpoilerShow

her neglected daughter and the ghost of Krista

both of who are deliberately elided to produce a deeply emotional effect every time we see/hear of them. For me, this is where the film was at its most promising; but, in the absence of venturing into this relationship, this also signaled the irony of concocting a lavish saga around an ignorant character undeserving of the attention next to these neglected 'characters'. Now, I'm not exactly keen on relinquishing humanistic sympathy for the 'canceled'. I believe in rehabilitation and subjective realities as inherently valid wholeheartedly. But while Lydia's genuine delusions and denials are worth leaning into, the contrast between her sterile existence and the tragic warmth in scenes with her daughter in particular seems to be puzzlingly understated. It's a relationship that's mentioned outright as the only non-contractual one, Petra returned to repeatedly by the camera, and yet outside of these overstated drive-by offerings, Field seems to be neglecting her as well in favor of his star's journey. With the way the film operates, it would be a reach to assume that this is all part of Field's plan, and the film kinda collapses under its own rhetorical nature for going to those places and then backing out of the thematic concerns they raise. I was oddly reminded of Caché, though instead of a denouement of pronounced sobriety to the youthful casualties of parental egos, Field doesn't suddenly force their participation with unearned power. But he doesn't exploit the issues in a meaningful way either, while sobering the audience to a whole lot of other goingons with urgency, and isn't coy about posturing at profundity. It's as if he was continually shaking us to tell us that These Are Important, and then avoiding those subjects to focus on the vapid Importance of a hazy ego. I'd get on board if this was all emulating Blanchett's own brain, but I don't think the film follows that conceit closely enough to earn such a charitable reading.

Otherwise, I agree with DI that this was pretty funny. The classroom scene is meant to be scathing toward teachers who say nothing tangible for their students while aggressively inflating their self-worth through patronizing, even if she is making some decent points. There are scenes on either side of that one that explicitly deride Blanchett's condescending behaviors and flawed imperviousness, and while some might interpret the student-own in that scene as eviscerating catharsis, we see it at the expense of another's feelings, and the rest of the film is built around Blanchett doing just this but to everyone from strangers (that poor, traumatized peer of her daughter) to people she loves (the film's best moment is in how she doesn't rationalize or justify, but deludes her drug-stealing completely in the span of a second when indirectly confronted), all with an assumed power dynamic where she's the dominant, with or without the target's consent. And the sad reality of how Lydia does not have a clue how to react to the one woman who isn't completely entrenched in or entranced by the imbalanced power dynamic was very effective, as a condensed ball of dry comedy and antisocial tragedy. There's clearly a fine-tuned juggling of mockery and validation in layering Blanchett's character that is consuming Field's interest, but it's ultimately a story of the abuse and neglect we cause when caught up in ego, and I have a hard time locating an excuse for not digging deeper there, especially when digging relentlessly in other spaces to arrive at... another ambiguity seemingly existing outside the scope of the narrative into full-illusion.

I also agree that the film does an okay job at detailing how the power systems themselves are to blame, but the lack of specificity about these also deflates the attention here. There's just as much of a reading that Blanchett's narcissism and solipsism that propagate harm have their roots in wealthy milieus of higher-education and reinforced superiority complexes, or as coping mechanisms for escaping from a poor childhood, as it is about the nods at institutional practices (and institutions themselves) that reflexively avoid responsibility or apologize without consciousness. This feels like a film of half-measures disguised as a full-measured epic poem, and while I want to praise its ambitions for spanning its gaze so far and wide, the end result feels rather myopic, failing at its aims, and not reflexively so.

[Black Hat]

Richard Brody on TÁR

In my opinion, a wild misreading of the film's intentions and substance, almost willfully obtuse about fairly unambiguous plot and character elements. I've read dismissals of the film that I disagreed with but at least respected the thought and critical effort; this is not one of those, and frankly will make me look askance at Brody's criticism going forward

Really? Richard's review was as straight ahead and specifically pointed as it gets. In fact, one of his many problems with the film was its bad attempt at obtuseness which he, rightfully, skewered. No idea what you read.

[therewillbeblus]

I didn’t like this very much but I agree that Brody is misreading.

SpoilerShow

I mean, yes we’re supposed to feel Blachett’s experience of suffocation with the protesters in a way that doesn’t align with with their surrogate outrage- which is a strength- but how can anyone watch that and see them as “goofy”? The tone doesn’t even allow for it, and this is another annoying example of how people seemingly need to reduce nuance to binary terms of either unconditional sociopolitical support or invalidation. And how can anyone watch her groom another woman for the bulk of the film’s (long) runtime, continually manipulating systems with her power to place herself into deeper and more intimate position with this woman, and come away believing that the sympathy lay solely with Blanchett and that the claims of Krista were definitive lies… What?

She steals meds from her wife, acts as a neglectful parent, plays around with people’s careers as it suits her own ambitions of id, and all for the sake of the Art? It’s significant that we only hear of her genius and never really see her succeed in action ourselves, in any way that could support the ‘ends justify the means’ argument; or even the initial one she makes in the first interview, revolving around the belief that the conductor is the most important role when the players are so good. That all said, I’m much more interested in what Field might be saying about his own role as a director vs actor, or auteur theory, than anything the film is trying to say about cancel culture. The substance doesn’t feel there, even if the conceptual strategy is right on.

[Black Hat]

Well, there was plenty of us at the press screening Richard was at who saw them as goofy. Similarly, the sentiment amongst the people I spoke to was that Blanchett was portrayed sympathetically. The ambiguity, Field believes is there isn't, specifically because, as Richard pointed out, the film's power dynamics, what it chooses (or not chooses) to emphasize makes it that way, unless one starts projecting. As for what Field is saying, mostly bullshit if you ask me, the lament of an angry dad who hates his kids. A film perfect for fans of Bill Maher.

[therewillbeblus]

As I expressed more throughly upthread, I agree with you that the way Field concocts the narrative of the film has its own set of power dynamics in what is shown and not, and I don’t think he ever reflexively engages with this idea in a meaningful way. The film and audience deserve that kind of engagement when he sets the chess pieces as they are, and the film comes off as disingenuous and clunky rather than imitative of its complex subject. But Brody is getting awfully specific about what the film is definitively saying and he’s grasping at air in some instances (the music we never see being an ends justify means statement of some sorts- who cites an elision along with palpable stimuli as equitable pieces of evidence with such conviction?) so a decent argument kinda collapses in on itself. I think we’re allowed to sympathize with an experience without sympathizing with the character, but I also don’t think this was done effectively. That doesn’t mean it magnetized towards an ‘either/or’ pole though