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The Brutalist
The Brutalist is a 2024 epic period drama film directed and produced by Brady Corbet[6] from a script he co-wrote with Mona Fastvold. A co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hungary, starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States, where he struggles to achieve the American Dream until a wealthy client changes his life. The cast also features Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola. The Brutalist premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2024, where Corbet was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Direction, and was named one of the top ten films of 2024 by the American Film Institute. The film earned 10 nominations at the 97th Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Brody, Best Supporting Actress for Jones, and Best Supporting Actor for Pearce), and at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards won three awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama.[7][8] It was released in the United States by A24 on December 20, 2024, and in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures and Focus Features on January 24, 2025. PlotOvertureHungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth, forcibly separated from his wife and orphaned niece after being sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, emigrates to the United States. A Bauhaus-trained architect, László stays in Philadelphia with his cousin, Attila, and Audrey, Attila's Catholic wife, while he looks for work. Part 1: The Enigma of ArrivalIn 1947, Attila offers László work with his furniture business. They are soon commissioned to renovate the library of a home owned by wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren at the behest of his son Harry, while his father is away. Harrison arrives home early, enraged at the surprise renovation, and fires the men; Harry does not pay them their fee. Attila demands that László leave their home, blaming him for the failed project and falsely accusing him of making an advance on his wife Audrey. Three years later, László, now a heroin addict, is living in charity housing with Gordon, a single father László befriended soon after emigrating. Harrison turns up to tell him the architectural community has lauded his modern library renovation, and to pay the money he owes László, which the men then spend on heroin. Harrison invites László to a party in his honor where it is revealed that László was an accomplished architect in Europe. Aware of László's desires to leave a monumental legacy, Harrison commissions him to construct a grand project in tribute to his late mother: a community center comprising a library, theater, gymnasium, and a chapel. Work begins immediately with László living and working on site, employing Gordon, both now fully functioning heroin addicts. Harrison introduces László to his personal lawyer, who expedites the immigration of László's wife and niece. Part 2: The Hard Core of BeautyIn 1953, László greets his wife Erzsébet and niece Zsófia, to discover that due to their suffering in wartime, Erzsébet uses a wheelchair due to osteoporosis, and Zsófia is unable to speak. During construction, László clashes with contractors and consultants hired by Harrison, who depart from his design, and Harry derides László as being merely "tolerated", making lewd remarks about Zsófia. László warns Zsófia to avoid Harry, who it is implied has assaulted her. Following the derailment of a train carrying materials and ensuing legal costs, a furious Harrison abandons the project and fires the workers. In 1958, László and Erzsébet have moved to New York City, where he works as a drafter at an architecture firm, and she is a writer. Zsófia, who recovered her ability to speak, is expecting a child with her new husband, Binyamin. They announce they are making Aliyah and moving to Jerusalem. Harrison restarts the project, and László resumes construction. While in the mines of Carrara to purchase marble, Harrison rapes an intoxicated László in an act of domination, calling him a social leech whose people invite their own persecution. Back on site, an increasingly traumatized László begins to unravel, becoming more belligerent, impulsively firing Gordon during an argument. He laments to Erzsébet that they are not welcome in America. After László almost kills Erzsébet by giving her heroin to soothe the pain from her osteoporosis when she runs out of medication, she proposes they live in Jerusalem with Zsófia and her family, to which he agrees. Shortly afterwards, Erzsébet, now using a walker instead of a wheelchair, visits Harrison at his home and calls him a rapist in front of his family and associates. An enraged Harry violently escorts her out. Unable to find his father, Harry organizes a search party to find him with his fate ultimately left unclear. Epilogue: The First Architecture BiennaleIn 1980, Erzsébet has died, and a retrospective of László's work is held in Venice. The exhibition includes the community center, finally completed after a decade's hiatus. Now the adult Zsófia, accompanied by her young adult daughter and an aging László, gives a speech highlighting how the Van Buren Community Center was designed by László to resemble the concentration camps that imprisoned the Tóths, and functions as a way of processing trauma. She ends by recounting what László once told her: "No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” Cast
ProductionDevelopment In September 2018, Deadline reported that director Brady Corbet had chosen the period drama The Brutalist as his next project following the world premiere of his second feature film, Vox Lux.[9] New York-based Andrew Lauren Productions (ALP) developed the screenplay with Corbet and financed the film.[9] Corbet co-wrote the screenplay with his partner Mona Fastvold, with whom he co-wrote the 2015 film The Childhood of a Leader and the 2018 film Vox Lux.[10] The film was originally announced as a co-production between Andrew Lauren and D.J. Gugenheim for ALP, Trevor Matthews and Nick Gordon for Brookstreet Pictures,[11] Brian Young's Three Six Zero,[9] and the Polish company Madants,[12][13] and executive produced by Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, and David Hinojosa of Killer Films.[11] On September 2, 2020, Deadline announced that Joel Edgerton and Marion Cotillard had been cast as the film's leads, László Tóth and Erzsébet Tóth, respectively, and that Mark Rylance was cast in the role of László's mysterious client.[11] Sebastian Stan, Vanessa Kirby, Isaach De Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy and Stacy Martin were also announced in unknown roles.[11] Corbet described The Brutalist as "a film which celebrates the triumphs of the most daring and accomplished visionaries; our ancestors", and the project which is so far the closest to his heart and family history.[11] Filming was scheduled to begin in Poland in January 2021.[14][11] Protagonist Pictures presented the project to buyers at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.[11] The film takes place in Pennsylvania and was shot in English, Hebrew, Hungarian and Italian.[10][11] The character of László Tóth was inspired by several real-life architects and designers, including Paul Rudolph, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer[15] and Ernő Goldfinger.[16] Several of Tóth's furniture designs in the film are highly reminiscent of Breuer's work, including the Cesca Chair and Long Chair.[citation needed] .jpg) Director of photography Lol Crawley, editor Dávid Jancsó, and costume designer Kate Forbes were announced on March 9, 2023.[17][18] Production designer Judy Becker was announced on April 11, 2023.[2] Daniel Blumberg composed the film's score.[19] On April 11, 2023, it was announced that Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Jonathan Hyde, Emma Laird, and Peter Polycarpou would star in the film, while Edgerton, Cotillard, Rylance, Stan, and Kirby were no longer attached.[2] It was also announced that the film would be co-produced by the US-based companies Andrew Lauren Productions and Yellow Bear along with the United Kingdom's Brookstreet and Intake Films, and Hungary's Proton Cinema,[2] and financed by Brookstreet UK, Yellow Bear, Lip Sync Productions, Richmond Pictures, Meyohas Studio, Carte Blanche, Cofiloisirs, and Parable Media.[2] CAA Media Finance handles US sales with Protagonist Pictures handling international sales.[2] Focus Features subsequently acquired international distribution rights to the film.[20] FilmingFilming was originally set to start in 2020,[21] but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[21] It was then scheduled to start in January 2021,[14] but was postponed to August 2021,[22] only to be delayed to the second quarter of 2022.[21] Corbet said filming was postponed several times due to the pandemic as well as several pregnancies and deaths in the families of the film's cast and crew.[23] After several delays, filming finally began in Budapest,[24][2] Hungary, on March 16, 2023.[25] Production then moved to Carrara, Tuscany, on April 29, 2023,[26][27] and was completed on May 5, 2023.[28] The film was shot using the VistaVision process and cameras, which involves shooting horizontally on 35mm film stock, which was then scanned, with the intention of also making prints for a 70mm film release, which has the same height and was the most practical format to show the original size of the VistaVision frame when projecting film.[29] Corbet explained the choice of VistaVision was also aesthetic: "It just seemed like the best way to access that period (1950s) was to shoot on something that was engineered in that same decade." The film is presented in two acts with a 15-minute intermission, plus an epilogue.[30] MusicThe film's score was composed by Daniel Blumberg, who had previously worked with Corbet on the short film Gyuto (2019), with the two working together on the film over a span of seven years.[31][32] The album containing the score was released on December 13, 2024, through Milan Records.[32] Blumberg and Corbet wanted continuous music for the film's first ten minutes, resulting in the opening sequence of The Brutalist being choreographed and shot to Blumberg's demos.[31] The overture features pianists John Tilbury, Sophie Agnel, and Simon Sieger, trumpeter Axel Dörner, and saxophonist Evan Parker, all of whom appear throughout the soundtrack.[31] Synth-pop musician Vince Clarke plays the synthesizer on "Epilogue (Venice)".[32] The experimental "Construction" was the first track Blumberg wrote for the score; an early demo was composed on a prepared piano at London's Cafe Oto to create a sound similar to construction noises.[32] "Erzsébet", one of the score's themes, was played by Blumberg live on a piano since Corbet wanted the actors to hear the music while shooting; the train noises from the scene were eventually incorporated into the track's final version.[32] Post-productionEditing was completed by Dávid Jancsó.[33] In an interview with RedShark News, Jancsó revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were deployed in order to improve the authenticity of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones's Hungarian dialogue.[34] Both actors received dialect coaching, but the filmmakers wanted to perfect their pronunciation "so that not even locals will spot any difference."[34] Unsuccessful ADR work prompted them to record Brody and Jones's voices into Respeecher; Jancsó, a native Hungarian speaker, also fed in his voice to "finesse the tricky dialect."[34] Corbet issued the following statement to Deadline Hollywood after Jancsó's interview sparked backlash on social media:[35][36]
Additionally, it was claimed that generative artificial intelligence was utilized to conjure a series of architectural blueprints and finished buildings in the film's closing sequence.[34] In a 2022 Filmmaker article, Becker claimed the film's architecture consultant used Midjourney "to create three brutalist buildings quite quickly."[37] However, Corbet denied this in a subsequent interview. "Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980."[38] The Brutalist is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished here."[35] ReleaseThe Brutalist had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2024, where it competed for the Golden Lion and won the Silver Lion for Corbet.[39] It also played at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2024.[40] The film's festival run also included selections for screenings at the 2024 New York Film Festival, the 69th Valladolid International Film Festival, and the 31st Austin Film Festival.[41][42][43] A week after its premiere at Venice, A24 acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film for "just under $10 million" in what was described as a competitive situation.[44] It was released in the U.S. by A24 on December 20, 2024,[45] and was released in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures and Focus Features on January 24, 2025.[46] It was screened in IMAX theaters two days prior to its limited theatrical release for New York and Los Angeles, before being screened in IMAX nationwide throughout January. It was featured in the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam to be screened in February 2025.[47] ReceptionBox officeThe Brutalist made $266,791 from four theaters in the US in its opening weekend, and then $211,164 in its second weekend and $244,341 in its third.[48] In its fourth weekend, the film expanded to 68 theaters and made $1.38 million. Its figure was noted as outperforming Better Man, which made $1.1 million from 1,291 theaters over the same frame.[49][50] The following weekend it grossed $2 million from 338 theaters (and a total of $2.4 million over the four-day MLK holiday).[51] After earning 10 Oscar nominations, the film expanded to 1,118 theaters, and made $2.9 million over the weekend.[52] Critical responseThe performances of Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones received critical acclaim, earning them Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 263 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Structurally beautiful and suffused with Adrien Brody's soulful performance, writer-director Brady Corbet's immaculately designed The Brutalist is a towering tribute to the immigrant experience."[53] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100, based on 57 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[54] The film received a five-star review from The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who called it "an amazing and engrossing epic". He continued: "The Brutalist obviously takes something from Ayn Rand, but also from Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow in its depiction of the US immigrant adventure and the promise of success – but maybe Corbet and Fastvold go further and faster into how dizzyingly sensual and sexual it all is". Bradshaw concluded: "It is an electrifying piece of work, stunningly shot by cinematographer Lol Crawley and superbly designed by Judy Becker. I emerged from this movie light-headed and euphoric, dizzy with rubbernecking at its monumental vastness."[55] In a review for Vogue, the cinematography, score, costumes, and production design were described as "sumptuous", "impressively stylish", and possessing a "staggering ambition".[56] A few reviews criticized the film, including The Ringer's Adam Nayman[57] and The New Yorker's Richard Brody, who wrote: "Brady Corbet’s epic takes on weighty themes, but fails to infuse its characters with the stuff of life."[58] NPR included the film in their list of the best movies and TV of 2024, with critic Bob Mondello writing that The Brutalist is "Gorgeous, conceptually stunning, and dizzying in its savagery about cracks in the foundation of the American dream."[59] RogerEbert.com writers named The Brutalist in the top slot of the Roger Ebert's Ten Best Films of 2024, which is determined by Borda count of the site's writers.[60] Filmmakers Oliver Stone, Tim Fehlbaum, Drew Goddard, Reinaldo Marcus Green, Don Hertzfeldt, Matt Johnson, Karyn Kusama, David Lowery, Lance Oppenheim, Paul Schrader, Celine Song and Malcolm Washington have cited it as among their favorite films of 2024.[61][62] AccoladesUpon its premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, The Brutalist won five awards, including the Silver Lion.[63][64] It was subsequently nominated for nine awards at the 30th Critics' Choice Awards[65], ten awards at the 97th Academy Awards including Best Picture[66] and seven awards at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, winning three for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama[67][7]. In addition, the American Film Institute named The Brutalist as one of the top 10 films of 2024.[68] References
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