[Tár (dir. Todd Field, 2022). Click for a much larger view.]
Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) has quite a stash of Blackwing pencils — no doubt to suggest a tie to her teacher Leonard Bernstein, another Blackwing user. Yes, Tár was his student: the Bernstein estate has confirmed it.
If you click to see the screenshot at full size, you’ll see Eberhard Faber Blackwings on the left, followed by Palomino Blackwings, followed by more boxes of Eberhard Faber pencils. I like seing that Tár chooses an Eberhard Faber Blackwing to sharpen. She’s using the real thing first.
I have nothing against resurrecting a brand name, but I have an admitted animus against the company that makes the Palomino Blackwing, whose business practices I find ethically dubious. See, for instance, these two posts: Duke Ellington, Blackwing pencils, and aspirational branding and The Palomino Blackwing pencil and truth in advertising. And from Sean Malone, the Blackwing’s own historian,
Facts, fiction, and the Blackwing experience.
Related reading
All OCA Blackwing posts (Pinboard)
Monday, December 18, 2023
Tár pencils: Blackwings
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comments: 8
Have you or are you going to see the new movie about Leonard Bernstein?
Going to see it with friends who have Netflix. I’m not sure it’ll be my cup of tea (and I like many kinds of tea), but I’m going to see it.
I watched a preview of “Maestro” and felt rather dubious… will be interested to read your review!
I hope it’s at least better than Tár. And without Adam Gopnik.
Hear, hear regarding that company.
And the film image is reminiscent of a photo Sean Malone took in Eberhard Faber IV's house.
Wow! Stephen, do you think that’s coincidence?
Hi Michael, I really don't know and I have no reason to think it isn't coincidence.
To me, the image from Tár showing one shelf with hidden lighting and devoted to pencil storage - amidst the bound volumes on the other shelves - seems unnaturally staged.
A little searching tells me that director Todd Field is a longtime Blackwing fan and has mentioned owning 50 boxes of Blackwing pencils! (I found that story via a link at reddit.) W Magazine suggests he is still writing with them and sharpens them with a KUM Masterpiece.
So that’s where all those boxes come from. : )
Interesting that the W piece refers only to “vintage, discontinued Blackwing pencils.”
And yes, that shelf seems a bit too perfect to be plausible.
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