“The Brutalist was written as a sort of exorcism and response to what my wife and I had been through,” says writer-director Brady Corbet, who co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Mona Fastvold, drawing from their personal experiences in the film industry to craft the story. “Corbet mentioned that the film was “It was a way to “exorcise“ the challenges and frustrations they faced, particularly the struggle to maintain creative control and protect their artistic vision.
POINT OF VIEW: The Brutalist is a thought-provoking and visually stunning film that addresses complex themes and encourages viewers to consider the intersection of identity, displacement, and art. The film delves into the struggles and resilience of immigrants, particularly Jews, in post-World War II America. It portrays the challenges they face in establishing themselves and preserving their cultural identity. The film highlights how art can be a powerful tool for healing and making sense of one’s experiences. The film offers a critique of American society, particularly its history of oppression and exclusion. It challenges viewers to reflect on the darker aspects of the American dream and the systemic issues that persist. The film is noted for its technical achievements, including its use of VistaVision and a hauntingly beautiful score by Daniel Blumberg. The cinematography and editing are deliberate and evocative, enhancing the narrative’s emotional impact.
REVIEW
From writer-director Brady Corbet comes the story of László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who, after surviving the Holocaust, emigrates to the United States to begin a new life while awaiting the arrival of his wife, Erzsébet, trapped in Eastern Europe with their niece following the war. What László finds upon his arrival in the West is an America far different from the one he expected. The promise of the American Dream proves to be illusory as his stature and reputation as a successful architect in Budapest do not translate to his blue-blood Pennsylvania surroundings.
“It’s a journey of a refugee connected to his past who has also been stripped of his past. He’s trying to find his way in a new land with a new set of rules.,” says Adrien Brody, who plays László Tóth.
“It examines how the immigrant experience mirrors the artistic one in the sense that whenever one is making something bold, audacious or new — like the Institute László constructs over the course of the film — they are generally criticized for it,” says Corbet, who spent seven years making the film. “And then over time they are lionized and celebrated for it.”
Adds Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote The Brutalist, as well as Corbet’s features The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, “We loved the partnership, friendship, and love story that developed between László and Erzsébet as we wrote the screenplay. These were the first sparks and ideas that became The Brutalist.”
It’s not the journey, it’s the destination.
Brutalist architecture came into style in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Minimalist constructions showcasing bare elements like exposed concrete or brick, Brutalism emphasizes structural elements over decorative design, as demonstrated in the works
of Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, William Pereira, Moshe Safdie, Denys Lasdun, and Alison & Peter Smithson.
Corbet and Fastvold became fascinated by Brutalist architecture for its physical and psychological resonance. “For us, post-war psychology and post-war architecture — including Brutalism — are linked, something we bring to life in the movie through the construction of the Institute, a manifestation of 30
years of trauma in László Tóth, and the ramification of two World Wars,” says Corbet. “We found it poetic that the materials that were developed for life during the war were then incorporated into residences and corporate projects in the ‘50s and ‘60s by the likes of Marcel Breuer and Le Corbusier.”
Adds Corbet: “Brutalism can be austere but it’s also monumental in style — these strange objects that are loved and loathed in equal measure and take time to unfold in the public imagination because people can’t seem to figure them out in the moment. This for me mirrors the immigrant experience — and Brutalism is a style of architecture that was predominantly created by immigrants. In scope and scale, Brutalist buildings are begging to be seen — but the people who designed or built them were fighting for their right to exist.”
Corbet has made two previous features, both historical movies: The Childhood of a Leader (2015), the story of a young American in France who grows up to be a fascist dictator, was set between 1918 and 1940; his follow-up, Vox Lux (2018), took place between 1999 and 2017, tracking the rise of a female American pop star against a backdrop of gun violence and the 9/11 terror attacks.
Corbet’s features wrestle with the defining moments of the 20th century. The Brutalist, his most expansive work to date, focuses mainly on the mid-century era in American and European life — the decade immediately following the two World Wars. “It’s a time period that has always fascinated me, primarily in the way that post-war psychology had this extraordinary imprint and influence on post-war architecture,” says Corbet. “Something all three of my movies have in common is that they are very much about the cyclical nature of history. The Brutalist is a historical film, and the characters are written to their circumstance. The film has much to say about the immigrant experience in America, and how the American Dream fails László and Erzsébet Tóth.”
While researching The Brutalist, Corbet consulted architectural scholar Jean-Louis Cohen, whose works on Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry are widely respected. Visiting him at Princeton, where he teaches, Corbet asked Cohen if he knew of a real-life figure in history who established an architecture firm in one part of the world, only to experience displacement and exile in the war that forced the designer to start over again abroad.
Cohen couldn’t name anyone, so Corbet and Fastvold set about creating the fictional components that became László and Erzsébet Tóth. “The story chronicles 30 years in the life of an architect that was well established before the Second World War,” says Corbet. “He and his wife get stuck in the quagmire
of war and emigrate separately to America — László in the late ‘40s and Erzsébet in the late ‘50s. The Brutalist is essentially about László trying to re-establish himself in America after being separated from his wife for a decade.”
While a figment of Corbet and Fastvold’s imagination, László’s experiences in America reflect those of key artists of The Brutalist movement, including Louis Kahn, Mies van der Rohe, and most of all, the Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer, who designed the Whitney Museum in New York City, now the Met Breuer.
“The truth of the matter is that most Eastern or Central European Jewish architects that got stuck in Europe during the war did not make it out alive,” says Corbet. “In Breuer’s case, he was a well-regarded academic who was invited to work with Walter Gropius in America in 1937.”
As they researched and wrote, Corbet and Fastvold became interested in Breuer’s relationship with his wife — not to mention his volatile relationship with his own critics, who were often merciless towards his work in both Europe and America. “In the latter part of his life, Breuer was not a particularly celebrated architect,” says Corbet. “Now he’s considered to be one of the finest architects of the 20th century.”
Brady Corbet with his wife, Mona Fastvold during the filming of The Brutalist. © Universal Pictures
The Brutalist is the story of how the American Dream becomes toxic in the eyes of both Tóths after László meets and accepts the patronage of the wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren, in exchange for constructing a memorial to Van Buren’s late mother on the oligarch’s sprawling Pennsylvania property. Over the course of the film, that monument becomes a testament to Tóth’s genius, his struggles in the war, and the epic battle he engages in with the capitalist Van Buren to get it made.
“It’s wonderful to have a storytelling approach that allows enough time with a character to see and experience a life in total, which is what Brady and Mona have achieved in The Brutalist. Oftentimes you jump into the action and things happen in a story — but you don’t know the person you’re on the journey with. This film encompasses a 30-year span of one man’s life.”
To add air to the The Brutalist’s expansive running time of 3 hours and 35 minutes , Corbet and Fastvold incorporated a 15-minute intermission into the script, which arrives at the film’s mid-point, separating into two distinct chapters László’s arrival in America with his wife’s.
“It’s a rolling intermission because it’s a long story that plays out across multiple years and decades,” says Corbet. “We didn’t want exhibitors to stop the movie and turn on the lights, which messes with their routine.”
For the editing process, Corbet turned to Dávid Jancsó, his collaborator on The Childhood of a Leader as well as Fastvold’s on The World to Come. A Hungarian native, Jancsó is the son of lauded filmmaker Miklós Jancsó, who achieved international prominence in the 1960s for his historical allegories featuring
long-sequence shots; the elder Jancsó went on to influence Hungary’s most famous filmmaker, Béla Tarr, who turned Slow Cinema into an art-house phenomenon.
“David was a no-brainer for this project because there’s so much Hungarian dialogue, and he has such a unique sensibility in his cutting — he has no trouble letting a scene or sequence breathe,” says Corbet.
“So many scenes in the movie feature dialogue and conversation; David went out of his way to distil
every scene to its essence.”
For Jancsó, László Toth’s monumental work in the film became the stylistic reference for how he thought about structuring the film’s equally monumental runtime: “The architectural motifs were also mirrored in the editing style,” he explains. “The clean, geometric precision of brutalist architecture influenced the
cutting patterns, with long, unbroken shots interspersed with sharp, abrupt cuts, creating a rhythm that reflected the tensions in László’s life.”
It also gave Jancsó opportunity to rewatch and reconsider a wide range of epics from Hollywood and international filmmakers over the last sixty years, films that similarly told something of a generation and a nation by tracking the stories of their ambitious, single-minded protagonists: from Bernardo Bertolucci’s
chilly and chillingly modernist The Conformist, with “memories and flashbacks woven seamlessly into the present” to Francis Ford Coppola’s era-defining The Godfather, which showcased editors “William Reynolds and Peter Zinner’s ability to slowly build tension within quiet, emotionally charged scenes.”
Jancsó’s deep knowledge of celluloid filmmaking, including shooting in the antiquated VistaVision format, helped Corbet and Crawley develop peace of mind during the film’s 18-month post-production process.
“The film couldn’t have been in better hands because David’s technical prowess in the editing room is unmatched,” says Corbet. “Very few people are as dialed into the analog post-production process as David is, which gave Lola sense of calm when he was handing over the footage. David handled everything with expert gloves.”
Brady Corbet is a writer, director and actor. Brady made his feature directorial debut in 2015 with THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER, starring Academy Award nominee Bérénice Bejo and Robert Pattinson. The film was lauded with critical acclaim and decorated at the Venice Film Festival with the Orrizonti Best Director Award and Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Film.
His previous directing effort was the short film PROTECT YOU + ME, which won an award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was shot by legendary cinematographer Darius Khondji. His second feature film, VOX LUX was hailed by critics after it premiered in competition at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, London Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. Starring Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman and Academy Award Nominee Jude Law, with original music by Sia, the film was picked
up for US theatrical distribution by NEON.
His next original feature is THE BRUTALIST,which premiered at the Venice Film Festival to huge critical acclaim, with Brady being honoured with the Silver Lion award for Best Director.
As an actor, Corbet has worked with world class filmmakers such as Michael Haneke, Olivier Assayas, Ruben Östlund, Noah Baumbach, Lars Von Trier, Gregg Araki, Lisa Cholodenko and Antonio Campos, among many others.
Mona Fastvold is a New York and Oslo based director / writer. She made her directorial debut in 2012 with THE SLEEPWALKER, which went on to premiere at Sundance in U.S. competition and was later distributed by IFC Films. THE SLEEPWALKER was co-written by Brady Corbet (who also starred). Corbet and Fastvold continued their close collaboration with THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER, which had its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Director and Best First Feature, and earned Fastvold an Independent Spirit Nomination. Fastvold frequently writes for and in collaboration with several directors, including Brady Corbet with VOX LUX and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre with MUSTANG, a feature film distributed by Focus Features. Her latest collaboration with Brady Corbet on THE BRUTALIST which premiered at the Venice Film Festival to huge critical acclaim, with Brady being honoured with the Silver Lion award for Best Director. Fastvold directed her second feature THE WORLD TO COME, starring Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby. The acclaimed film premiered in official competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2020 and was distributed by Sony Pictures worldwide.
Fastvold is currently in post-production on her third directorial feature, co-written with Brady Corbet.
