In ‘The Brutalist,’ Size Matters

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As I delve into the enigmatic world of filmmaking that is “The Brutalist,” I find myself utterly captivated by this masterpiece, a testament to the power of storytelling and the human spirit. Having spent countless hours immersed in the rich tapestry of cinema, I can confidently say that this film stands out as one of the most remarkable cinematic experiences I’ve had.

During the pre-production phase of “The Brutalist“, writer-director Brady Corbet was having trouble finding an appropriate location in Italy, where he wanted to shoot a crucial scene involving Adrien Brody’s character, László Toth. In this scene, László and his wealthy patron, played by Guy Pearce, travel to Carrara, Italy, to obtain white marble for their architectural project. Corbet and his co-writer, Mona Fastvold, had written the stunning landscape of Carrara, where Michelangelo sourced his marble, into their script to provide a powerful backdrop for a pivotal moment in the story. However, it wasn’t until Adrien Brody intervened that Corbet found a suitable location. “I told him I’d help,” said Brody. “And I connected him with one of my friends who owns a quarry in Carrara.” Within hours, Corbet sent Brody a photo of himself enjoying a drink with Brody’s friend, marking the beginning of a fortuitous collaboration that ultimately gave “The Brutalist” a sense of grandeur and destruction. “It’s otherworldly,” said Brody of the Carrara sequence. “These vast, hollowed-out caverns filled with the Earth’s wonders are harshly excavated.

In U.S. cinemas on December 20, “The Brutalist” – a film produced by A24 – unfolds the tale of a fictional architect who specializes in brutalist design, having migrated to America following World War II in search of a new beginning. This low-budget epic, costing under $10 million, is the result of serendipitous inspiration and tireless dedication that filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos experienced during his time in Carrara, spanning seven laborious years. Filmed on actual film and clocking in at a lengthy 3 hours and 35 minutes – complete with an intermission – the movie harks back to an age of cinema while carrying a decidedly contemporary message: that the American dream is nothing more than a myth. As Lanthimos puts it, “The first half of the film embodies optimism, while the second half offers a stark depiction of reality.” The narrative delves into the cyclical nature of trauma, with the entire movie revolving around this theme.

36-year-old Corbet, who began his acting career at the age of 11 and has starred in independent films like “Thirteen,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Melancholia,” has previously directed two films – “The Childhood of a Leader” (2015) and “Vox Lox” (2018), both co-written with Fastvold. His latest project, “The Brutalist,” is his most ambitious work to date, earning him the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival in September. As stated by Nick Gordon, one of the film’s producers, “If Brady was granted the chance to realize his vision, it could very well make him the next significant American filmmaker.” It seems that this is currently unfolding.

In 2020, Brookstreet joined the project following the submission of Corbet and Fastvold’s script by CAA. Upon reading it, everyone at Brookstreet agreed that it was the finest screenplay they had ever encountered in their company. Although it didn’t seem commercially viable in today’s independent film scene, they felt compelled to find a way to produce it. After reviewing Corbet’s previous works, they concluded that he was the ideal director for the project at hand.

It’s clear that leading a movie production and creating a building share a striking resemblance, as stated by Fastvold: “You manage around 250 to 300 people, all working together to bring your vision to life.” Corbet and Fastvold, who bonded during Fastvold’s 2014 film “The Sleepwalker“, combined their unique talents in writing to refine Corbet’s concept, which bridges the artist’s and immigrant’s experiences. “Mona has a remarkable ability to just get things done efficiently that I lack,” Corbet admits. “I’m meticulous, and it’s hard for me to move on from something until I am completely satisfied with it. Without our meeting, I can imagine myself as someone who would never have finished anything.” In the making of “The Brutalist“, they chose to write without worrying about financial or practical constraints, Fastvold explains. “I want the narrative to be as vast and ambitious as we desire it to be, and then figure out the details later,” she says.

In “The Brutalist,” Pearce’s character resonates with me as a representation of some unpredictable investors an independent filmmaker might face during their career-building journey. As Fastvold puts it, “Making movies is tough, and persuading individuals to invest in something daring or ambitious, only to battle for its originality, it’s intricate.” Writing this story felt like an intense, cathartic release, almost like an exorcism.

For the film “The Brutalist”, the filmmakers had a beneficial collaboration with their producers. The team expanded to include Kaplan Morrison, ALP, Proton Cinema based in Budapest, and Intake Films. Initially, they aimed to start production in 2021 with Joel Edgerton, Mark Rylance, and Marion Cotillard in the cast; however, this plan disintegrated due to the high costs of new COVID safety measures. Later on, Corbet filmed the movie in Hungary and Italy during the spring of 2023, with Brody and Pearce as lead actors, and Felicity Jones playing László’s wife, Erzsébet.

Brody seems destined for his acting roles, particularly his character in “The Brutalist.” His family, including his mother Sylvia Plachy, a photographer, and grandparents who fled the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, have a striking connection to his characters. This is evident in his Oscar-winning role as a Polish Holocaust survivor in “The Pianist” (see page 32), which shares both thematic and practical similarities with “The Brutalist.” Director Corbet explains that Brody’s heritage, talent, and inherent grace made him the perfect choice for the emotionally raw character. Capturing vulnerability in a man between the ages of 40 and 50 is challenging, but Brody possesses that fragility naturally. Brody himself feels he was ideally suited for the role, drawing from his personal experiences as an immigrant and understanding the struggles his family faced to create his path.

As a gamer, I’d rephrase it like this:

In the movie, László’s wife, Erzsébet, who had been severely affected by food scarcity during the war, astonishingly portrays a character of remarkable resilience. Fastvold remarks, “There were indeed many women who were devoted spouses to these brilliant male artists. However, I suspect that more frequent were these partnerships of equals, intellectuals who truly appreciated each other’s company and comprehended one another’s work.” Corbet had a history with Jones dating back to his teenage years, and they nearly collaborated on a film before. “I have a fondness for casting in an unconventional manner,” he says. “In this case, I felt that her presence would be an unexpected surprise to the audience.

In his own acting experience, Corbet finds it straightforward for him to understand and connect with anyone on-camera. He explains, “There are times when it’s evident that someone could use a rest, and there are instances where they need to shoot 20 more takes. A significant part of the job is gauging the atmosphere.” On the set of The Brutalist, the cast was typically filming between seven to ten pages full of dialogue per day. Corbet comments, “Achieving perfection often involves testing people to their utmost limits. I always tell my crew, ‘I understand you’re feeling uneasy, but today is today and cinema endures forever. If you can’t continue, let me know. But in my view, we haven’t found it yet.’ Rarely does anyone refuse to try again.

The success or failure of “The Brutalist” film hinges on the audience’s perception of László as a talented brutalist architect from the 1950s, known for minimalist construction and use of raw materials. As Corbet points out, displaying extraordinary talent is challenging. The task of creating this impression fell primarily to production designer Judy Becker, who was a fan of brutalism and had been eager to collaborate with Corbet since his first film. When she heard about “The Brutalist,” she arranged a meeting over bagels and lox and presented Corbet with her design for The Institute, which referenced László’s past in Nazi concentration camps. Becker won the job with her vision and also constructed an impressive library in Van Buren’s rural Pennsylvania home, shown in the film as a remarkable feat by this anonymous immigrant. Regarding the Van Buren house, Becker remarks that they found only one suitable location, a grand house in Hungary. The only room fitting for the library was a glass winter garden with three walls of glass. To transform it into a library, Becker proposed constructing floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves enclosed by forced perspective, which she sketched on the spot. Corbet found this idea “a pure, simple, beautiful touch,” as Becker dared to keep things minimal, which is incredibly difficult due to the lack of hiding places.

In contrast to its simple aesthetic, “The Brutalist” is rich in grandeur, evident in its extended running duration and its adoption of large-format VistaVision cameras. Cinematographer Lol Crawley, who had worked on Corbet’s previous two films, was tasked with unveiling the library scene, as well as the film’s expansive Carrara sequence, all while working within the scarcely used format. “There’s a lot of room for exploration in what we’re discussing,” Crawley explains, “and thematically there’s an abundance. However, it’s also paired with an intimate portrayal of these characters. So, we’re visually contrasting vast VistaVision images with numerous sequences of handheld footage.” Fewer than ten cameras remain that can film in VistaVision, a format once used by Alfred Hitchcock in films like “Vertigo” and “North by Northwest,” and only one of them can synchronize sound. According to Corbet, the format is particularly suitable for architecture because it allows the camera to be close to structures, capturing intricate details such as wood grains and the texture of concrete, while simultaneously framing an entire building within the shot.

In the film, one hurdle faced was finding a way to sonically portray the brutalist aesthetic, which director Nick Corbet accomplished with the aid of British experimental musician Daniel Blumberg. Blumberg utilized brass and piano in the soundtrack, infusing it with 1950s-style jazz instrumentation. As Corbet explains, “There’s a lot of music in the film that might go unnoticed by viewers.” This includes trumpets producing bird sounds and news events like presidential debates incorporated into the score. “This was a means of capturing the spirit of the era so that even when something isn’t visually present, it can still be heard,” Corbet adds. He further notes that the sound design, including voiceovers and music, significantly enhances the film’s impact. “If anyone were to watch the movie without sound, they would notice that the visuals appear rather small because we couldn’t afford to make them larger. In reality, it’s voiceovers amplified to a high degree, music at maximum volume, and various other elements like design and effects all competing for space.

Ever since the groundbreaking debut of “The Brutalist” at Venice, director Corbet has been preparing himself for reactions to some of its less conventional elements, such as the intermission. “I struggle to sit still for over two hours,” he admits. “It’s a shared event, and I believe it’s an intriguing one, but it’s not meant to be highbrow. It stems from a desire to offer audiences a comprehensive experience.” He is also expecting the film to spark debate, given its uplifting beginning and devastating ending. “Naturally, you want people to relate to it, but if everyone loves it, that’s rarely a good sign,” Corbet notes. “It’s a bit like saying, ‘I suppose we ticked all the right boxes.’ A work of art should be something that invites and challenges at times.

The latter half of the film, where László and Erzsébet’s dream of a fresh start in America falls apart, is its most challenging part. According to Corbet, this is a unique aspect not often portrayed in movies: “What’s striking is their decision to leave America; it’s something I rarely see depicted on screen.” In the end, he suggests, the country has swallowed them whole and spit them back out.

Originally published in a special December edition of The Hollywood Reporter magazine, you can get a copy by clicking here for a subscription.

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2024-12-13 23:56