When the writer-director Brady Corbet accepted his second Golden Globe of the night for The Brutalist on Sunday, he uttered a nervy appeal straight down the camera lens: “Final-cut tiebreak goes to the director,” he said. Many filmmakers are familiar with this struggle, butting heads over creative decisions with their producers, who often have the contractual authority to make the ultimate call. Corbet went on to acknowledge that his opinion might be “controversial” in an era when studios seem to err on the side of bland caution with every project. It might have seemed like an odd time to mount this sort of protest—arguing for the right to achieve his cinematic vision while accepting an industry accolade for conceiving one of the year’s best movies—but Corbet has made plain in interviews what a monumentally difficult time he had getting The Brutalist made. The film itself captures a similar experience; it’s an expansive but stark look at the successes and challenges involved in making personal art in a capitalist system.
Corbet’s production woes also bear out in a way that most potential viewers are likely already aware of: the film’s run time. The Brutalist is very long—215 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission that essentially divides it into two 100-minute parts. The bifurcation is good for anyone in need of a bathroom break, but it’s also thematically purposeful. The first act follows László Tóth (played by Adrien Brody), a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor who moves to the United States after World War II and begins to scratch out recognition for his work with the help of a wealthy patron; the second act sees Tóth ever more alienated and dismayed by the strictures he needs to operate within.
On paper, the movie is a very American epic—the rise and fall of a master builder, told as extravagantly as possible on 70-millimeter VistaVision, a largely obsolete film format that was predominantly used in the 1950s and ’60s. What starts as a triumphant tale later curdles into violence and tragedy; as the events drag on, it becomes apparent that Corbet is using this grand canvas to explore his own frustrations with the limits that commerce places on the arts. He’s never been a subtle filmmaker—his first two movies, The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, also tend to dispense with subtext as they probe the rise of fascism and the constraints of modern pop stardom, respectively. But The Brutalist is his grandest cri de coeur yet, a gamble with the audience’s attention that on the whole pays off. Vox Lux was a film that had me crying out “I get it!” in frustration; with The Brutalist, I said the same line with more satisfaction.
Much of the credit goes to Brody. The actor’s performance as Tóth is pained and lived-in: In the film’s opening moments, Tóth’s ecstatic relief upon arriving at Ellis Island from Hungary—even though he’s been separated from his wife and niece—feels palpable. The viewer gets a sense of his creative talent just as quickly, when he designs a chair for his cousin’s furniture store in Philadelphia that’s as bold as it is impractical. Soon, he’s contracted by the foppish Harry Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) to build a library for his father, the local land magnate Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Tóth creates a space that’s serene, light-filled, and utterly unique; the books themselves are hidden away, tucked behind fanlike shelves that open up in unison. To him, the space, not the possessions within it, should be celebrated.
Harrison Van Buren is initially horrified upon seeing the library and kicks Tóth out of his home. Only later, after learning that the architect was somewhat revered in his homeland, does Van Buren realize that he’s stumbled on a diamond in the rough. Pearce plays Van Buren as hungry and avaricious even in his kinder moments, a man of immense wealth whose primary desire is to own more and more. It’s an excellent performance of a preening cartoon character, with Van Buren’s name (a combination of the names of two largely forgotten presidents) explicitly underlining the craven, dull establishment he represents. That’s the experience the viewer simply must embrace with The Brutalist: giving themselves over to the sheer loudness of it all.
Tóth appears to know right away that Van Buren won’t fully understand the work he wants to do. He also recognizes that he’s hungry, poor, and desperate to get his family to America—and working for Van Buren could be a secure way to realize many of his ambitions. The Brutalist is at its most subtle during Tóth’s interactions with his benefactor, and then with the small-town Pennsylvania community around him. He engrosses as many people as he can with his sorrowful backstory and soaring artistic language, in an effort to win their approval of his aggressive blueprints. The thrill of The Brutalist’s first half is in watching him navigate these relationships in pursuit of creating something truly grand. But Corbet uses the second half to remind the audience, in excessive detail, just how many strings come attached with those aspirations.
On a first viewing, the latter part of The Brutalist is something of a slog. It’s involving, but it’s also unrelenting in its despair—especially when Van Buren violently betrays Tóth, which feels like one obvious hammer blow too many. This section plays both better and worse on a second viewing, because the blatant contours of the plot are less jarring. The pleasure mostly derives from picking out the remaining ambiguities, especially related to the film’s flash-forward coda; the finale has already inspired a lot of heated social-media debate over its intention. My read is that Corbet is pointedly leading the viewer to pore over the specifics of Tóth’s fate: Although the director’s disgust for the hollowness of the institution that Tóth tries, and ultimately fails, to navigate is thuddingly clear, what happens next to the character is more oblique. To me, the ending leaves as an open question whether Tóth has retreated to illusory safe ground or found a more hospitable home. The obscure epilogue has me pondering yet another watch of The Brutalist. The highest compliment I can bestow on it is that Corbet’s drive has paid dividends, leaving much for me to puzzle through.
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