The Brutalist is the third collaboration of director, producer and co-writer Brady Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley in the past decade, following 2018’s Vox Lux and 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader. So the duo know how to play off of each other.
In their conversation for Deadline’s video series The Process, Corbet says: “All of the films that we’ve made together have always been referred to as very ambitious – both in negative and positive connotations, depending on whether people liked them or not. … What’s funny is that, in my mind’s eye, when I’m writing, it’s very myopic, and actually the world of the movies is very small. It’s kind of very character-based. And even though I try my very best to make the experience of reading the screenplays as graphic and cinematic as possible … the world of the movie is like this” – he makes a small circle with his hands – “and it’s in the pre-production process that it becomes like that,” he says, spreading his arms wide.
He also talks about all the contributions from everyone on the set, from heads of departments on down. “Now that I know that’s how the process really works, I have a lot more faith in it. So I no longer worry or have any anxiety about like, ‘Is the film gonna feel grand enough?’ because I know it will. There’s too many people there that are focused on just their little piece of it. And the culmination of all those contributions is what make cinema such a beautiful medium.”
Crawley replies: “Absolutely. When you’re thinking and talking about it a lot in terms of the grandeur of The Brutalist, there’s a language that you gravitate toward that is very cinematic. And I know that’s a term that’s sort of overused and nonspecific, but what I mean by that is you’ve always had this idea of … ambitious shots or very, very pivotal scenes within the movie. But the execution of that is one single shot. I think the thing that makes that cinematic is that everything we shoot, the language is about both the space and the performance.”
Talking about the vibe on a film set, Corbet says: “I mean, you don’t sleep for weeks on end — it’s so unhealthy.” To which Crawley said, “If you visiting [a set], it’s just this weird, endless, repetitive process that you’re not involved in, and I can’t see why you’d want to spend more than two minutes there.” The filmmaker added, “Beyond the mere curiosity, I suppose, of a couple of hours because otherwise it’s just 240 strangers that are really angry all the time.”
Set in the years after World War II, The Brutalist tells the story of László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-Jewish visionary architect. After surviving the Holocaust, he emigrated to the U.S. to begin a new life while awaiting the arrival of his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), who is trapped in Eastern Europe with their niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy). Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin and Emma Laird also star, along with Isaach de Bankolé and Alessandro Nivola.
The film already has a Best Motion Picture Drama win at the Golden Globes and a slew of critics awards to go with its 10 Oscar nominations and nine BAFTA nominations — vying for the top prize at both.
Check out a scene breakdown of The Brutalist here: