As pointed out on Wikipedia, the Focus Features website also renders the titles for Belfast, Captive State, Dark Waters, Harriet, Emma, etc, in all caps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:T%C3%A1r

The verified twitter account and has it listed in all caps, whereas Belfast's and Captive State's are lowercase. I think it's intentional this time.

Are you talking about the Focus Features account? It does render single-word titles like EMMA, HARRIET and BELFAST in all caps more often than not.

• https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Afocusfeatures%20emma&src=typed_query&f=top
• https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Afocusfeatures%20harriet&src=typed_query&f=top
• https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Afocusfeatures%20belfast&src=typed_query&f=top

The shortness of these titles makes it more likely that people will resort to using all caps to make them stand out in a body of text.

This is the exact same argument that played out over David Lynch's Inland Empire, where it was initially listed everywhere in all caps, and certain people insisted that the capitalisation was somehow meaningful and worth reproducing, although no one could explain why, and then eventually everywhere settled on normal title case.

Tár is the character's name. As far as we know it's not doubling as an acronym. We have no reason to assume it has any other meaning. It's much more likely that capitalisation is simply being used as it often is for titles in promotional materials and publicity. Reliable sources like Variety, THR and Deadline are listing it in normal title case.

No, I was referring to the twitter accounts created for the films.

Captive State: https://twitter.com/captive_state Belfast: https://twitter.com/BelfastMovie

Both are lowercase, whereas TÁR's is uppercase: https://twitter.com/tarmovie

If you search up the websites, the name of TÁR's is listed as uppercase while Belfast's, Emma.'s, and Harriet's are all lowercase. Tár is the main character's last name and it is lowercase, but this doesn't seem to be just for promotion as is often used by Focus.

As far as I can see, the title isn't used in text on the website, so there's no point of comparison between it and eg, https://www.focusfeatures.com/vengeance where the title is rendered in normal title case in prose, whereas "Tár" is just referred to as "the film" https://www.focusfeatures.com/tar

Anyway, if Focus Features is in fact adopting an all-caps stylisation with this title for no apparent reason, then this will be an exact re-run of the whole Inland Empire dispute. It will be up to mods here to decide whether to reproduce that style or just use normal title case.

I should've been more specific. If you look up "Tár movie website" the first link from Focus that pops up says "TÁR Official Site | TÁR Tickets | TÁR Trailer - Focus Features" and it's uppercase. Where with Emma. or Harriet, they're lowercase: "Emma Movie | Official Website | Trailers and Release Dates", "Harriet | Official Web Site | Trailers and Release Dates". Also the Instagrams for Belfast and Harriet are also lowercase where with TÁR it is uppercase.

But yes, it will be the mods who have the final say.

The title has been locked as TÁR for now, as per our rules on officially stylized titles.

Most publications are writing the title in all caps on their headlines and, as @kidsocarides1 says, the website also has the title in all caps. While Tár is the surname of the protagonist, Focus Features looks to be using a stylized capitalization for the title as it's also in all caps on the News section of their website.

Feel free to re-open this discussion if there are any updates to this stylized capitalization between now and when press materials are available / movie has been released.

Capitalization of titles is common in publishing. It does NOT mean the title is actually all-caps. Sometimes it's done for emphasis in lieu of italics or to simply draw attention to the title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps

Therefore, lots of advertising materials will have titles in all caps, especially if it's a shorter title (see Stephen King's It). This should not be all-caps, despite how it's being promoted, as it's just a stylized capitalization for emphasis, not how the actual title should be normally written. CODA (2021) should be capitalized since it's an acronym. There are no other cases where titles should be in all caps.

While true, Focus Features does not do this with their other films on websites or news sections. The fact that it's different surely means something.

@kidsocarides1 said:

But Focus Features does not do this with their other films, whether through websites or news sections. The fact that it's different surely means something.

It really doesn't, maybe they have a new marketing director. I think it just comes down to it being a short and unusual word and they're capitalizing it simply for emphasis and legibility. But the facts of how titles work cannot be based on marketing materials. The titles on posters are also often in various colors, how do you retain that information?

Well, I think it's best to go off what the website itself says, as this isn't a usual practice. And while I can't show this, when invited to a screening for a film, a friend was told by Focus to have the title in all caps. And if they have a new marketing director, why is Armageddon Time not in all caps on their website, a film that came out this year? https://www.focusfeatures.com/

@kidsocarides1 said:

Well, I think it's best to go off what the website itself says, as this isn't a usual practice. And while I can't show this, when invited to a screening for a film, a friend was told by Focus to have the title in all caps. And if they have a new marketing director, why is Armageddon Time not in all caps on their website, a film that came out this year? https://www.focusfeatures.com/

Because "Armageddon Time" is a normal and recognizable phrase and is easily understood as the title of the film. "Tar" is a short and unusual word for a title, so making it TAR makes it stand out and evident it's the title. Again, it DOES NOT mean it's ACTUALLY all caps, but it's simply emphasis and readability (as I just did in this sentence).

Speaking of It, see this headline and article: https://comicbook.com/horror/news/hbo-max-it-prequel-series-welcome-to-derry-demented/

The use of "IT" is to be unambiguous that it's the title, not a pronoun. But the actual title of both the novel and the movie is It:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(2017_film)

At that point you're just making a pure guess on their intentions, though. If all of their films aren't in all caps on the website, and this one is, I think we should go with that. I agree it's probably for emphasis and readability, but it seems they've made the actual title that. And Comicbook.com is not the official website. The website I listed for TÁR is.

@kidsocarides1 said:

At that point you're just making a pure guess on their intentions, though. If all of their films aren't in all caps on the website, and this one is, I think we should go with that. I agree it's probably for emphasis and readability, but it seems they've made the actual title that. And Comicbook.com is not the official website. The website I listed for TÁR is.

Why would I need to refer to their official site in the first place? We're talking about how titles are capitalized. Titles in English are always sentence case with specific rules to capitalization. All-caps is not proper capitalization of a title.

It's not, but a creative choice can be made by the filmmakers in question. The reason I bring up the official site is because they are the ones who decide if the title is capitalized or not. Not Comicbook.com. So it's better to look there. And if we look at Focus' website, TÁR is capitalized while other films aren't.