By – Gareth Jones

For fans of historical epic dramas like There Will Be Blood, powerhouse performances, and the return of the intermission!

The Brutalist is nominated for 10 Academy awards this year, and it is an undeniable achievement.  It is an independent film released by A24 but has the scope and breadth of a Hollywood epic.  It has the hallmarks of these epics with massive sets and scale, yet it has distinctly independent elements as well such as creative cinematography, graphic sex, and a meta conversation about the value of art and the relationship between artist and audience. At over 3 and ½ hours it is a full cinematic experience.  It is directed by actor turned director Brady Corbet.  He has now directed three films, but none as massive as The Brutalist. He has also written his three films with his Norwegian partner Mona Fastvold.  They met on her directorial debut film The Sleepwalker, which I remember seeing at the Sundance Film Festival way back in 2014.  They have an extremely productive creative relationship that has now resulted in this brilliant film.

One of the greatest examples of how it combines independent creativity with Hollywood grandeur is the use of VistaVision for the cinematography. This is also the third collaboration with British cinematographer Lol Crawley. VistaVision is a large format that was developed by Paramount Pictures in the 1950s.  It was their answer to CinemScope and put as much emphasis on the height of the film as the width..  However, as technology developed further it was abandoned in 1958, with Marlon Brando’s only directorial film One Eyed Jacks being the last film shot by Paramount. Flash forward to 2024 and The Brutalist is the perfect film for this format with the story of a Hungarian architect whose work matches this sensibility of emphasizing height. Crawley and Corbet have framed the film in a symbiotic fashion with the landscape and the architecture feeling massive and vital.  As the cliche goes, every frame is a painting, but the cliche is accurate in this case. The balance of each shot to mirror the ideas behind the architecture whilst also giving us insights into the characters is precise and could be measured with a level.

The story of architect László Tóth (played majestically by Adrian Brody) who after he is released from a Holocaust camp, immigrates to America to be with his cousin.  Upon arrival he finds out that his wife, Erzsébet (portrayed with true illumination by Felicity Jones), and orphaned niece, and niece, Zsófia, have also survived.  He starts work with his cousin with the hopes of bringing them to Pennsylvania as well.  They are hired to remodel a library for Harrison Lee Van Buren, who initially is furious at the intrusion but then after researching Tóth, decides to hire him to design a community center in honor of his mother.  Guy Pearce, who is always magnetic, pulls out all the stops here as the villainous industrialist.  The film then shows the ups and downs of the construction and the relationships between artist and benefactor, although that is too kind a word for what Harrison does to Tóth.  It is an engrossing and emotional journey asking the audience to endure along with the characters the spiritual highs and horrific lows of their lives.  A true historical epic that is so well constructed that you will find yourself trying to find out the true story of these people.  They feel that real.  Of course, Corbet and Fastvold are honoring so many of the great epics from the past whilst crafting their own challenging examination of the American immigrant experience through the lens of the artist.