A recent controversy arose around Brady Corbet’s period epic “The Brutalist”, which follows the immigration of a Hungarian-born Jewish refugee and world-renowned architect as he attempts to ply his artful trade while navigating an all too familiar and contradictory world of American virtue, wealth, and prejudice. Several graphics displayed toward the end of the film, which feature the later work of the fictional artist László Tóth (Adrien Brody), were revealed to be crafted utilizing modern generative AI programs. For those who might not understand the distinction, “generative AI” programs are ones that are built through the brute force pilfering and pillaging of images from the internet, millions of pieces of art ravaged and picked apart for scrap to be then rearranged into an approximation of a purposeful design. It is impossible to know for sure what art was stolen from, merely that the images you see were not crafted by human hand or conceived of by human imagination. Imagine a relief where there should be a sculpture, the absence of expression in the place where artisans are meant to ply their trade. As noted before, these images make up merely a fragment of screen time, unnoticed by anyone who would otherwise not clock their existence. But still, it is difficult to understand why the filmmakers decided to sully their carefully crafted ballad to the ever-persistent and messy pursuit of art wrought from personal tragedy and triumph with a collection of architectural Brundle Flys hiding in plain sight. It is even more difficult to imagine that Mr. Tóth, had he existed, would have approved.
The film follows László as he ventures through New York to flee the aftermath of Jewish extermination efforts in Nazi-occupied territories. He soon learns that his wife and niece, believed to be long dead, have survived and are themselves seeking asylum in the land of opportunity. In the meantime, László ventures into the unknowable promise of America; first working at his Catholic-converted cousin’s furniture shop, named ‘Miller & Sons’ despite the fact that László’s cousin is not named Miller and has no sons. So goes the story of forced immigrant assimilation in America. Here, László designs a fully modern library for a local wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce). László’s work is idiosyncratic and unique, a minimalist sanctuary of tall wooden shelves that extend like wings and a single reposing couch crafted from steel that would sell for thousands of dollars today. However, Van Buren is not pleased with the results, and László, falsely accused by his cousin’s American wife of sexual advances, is set adrift once again, slaving away with the other unwanted, unassimilated immigrants to build bowling alleys and shopping malls, the bustling future a generation of baby boomers will soon inherit. Here is when Van Buren returns to László’s life, proudly showcasing a magazine spread where László’s library was prominently featured. Because of this newfound attention, Van Buren offers László the opportunity to build a grand “community center” on the outskirts of his palatial estate, a monument to brutalist architecture atop a lowly green hill in rural Pennsylvania in the name of Van Buren’s late, sainted, mother.
Van Buren wants László’s own genius to reflect upon himself; a Taj Mahal to his own greatness, with HIS name stamped across the concrete facade and László’s foreign, unseemly ethnic, visage merely a necessary yet societally shameful building material. László is offered a Faustian bargain, a blank canvas to create his masterwork, sure to be sullied by Van Buren’s lack of any discernible artistic vision and boorish respect for art as something to be owned, coveted, and exploited. László’s plans for the “community center” are soon wrenched and pulled asunder to include a gymnasium, a pointedly Christian chapel, and a reading room, though not a pool because Van Buren can’t swim. The architect is forced to tapdance to the rhythms of a man for whom being told NO is merely a toll road to be bypassed. Still, László giddily leaps into the project with the promise that this is a chance to claim his place in America’s abundance, to become integrated into the great melting pot. Yet as the project advances, and his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) are finally reunited with him, László soon grows wary that these rich whites only want them around so long as they don’t sully their carefully crafted aesthetic of modernity which hides behind it the same monsters which nearly eviscerated their Jewish brethren in the war-ravaged hellscape of post-war Europe. Make no mistake; this is a movie about immigrants seeking salvation and finding a wolf in red, white, and blue clothing, how a melting pot and an oven can be used for like purposes, and a harsh reminder that the words ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ were not carved by American hands.
The film showcases an epic scale of breadth and meaning. Filmed for a mere $10 million dollars, it is a titanic achievement of the form and deserves its recognition. Brody and Jones’ performances are wrenching, their marriage dissolving and reforming before our eyes like silt through a sift. Pearce will eventually win an Academy Award for the very type of role he plays here, of a man so centered within his own experience and intoxicated by his own success that he sees anyone not of his own blood or skin tone as phantoms to be dismissed or trenches to be stomped across. There are images throughout the film that are transcendent and elegiac; the Statue of Liberty flipped upside down, a train car exploding behind a wall of soot smoke, lovers entwined Turin like beneath a frigid shroud. Brady Corbet, an actor himself and director of the little-seen but much-discussed “Von Lux (2018)” more than proves his worth, crafting a modern odyssey on an aging canvas, utilizing his budgetary constraints to find new forms to explore and new colors to accentuate deep crevices previously unseen. Shot on Vista Vision film and cameras, which involves shooting horizontally on 35mm film stock that is blown up to 70mm film, the project feels gargantuan and painfully intimate; an event, a triumph, and a fantastic reason we go to the movies. I just wonder why he had to tarnish the film’s integrity, even by an inch, by cutting corners and besmirching the good name of artists by stealing their work, even abstractly, to represent the legacy of Tóth.
At the film’s end, we learn finally the purpose of László’s dogged persistence to build with Van Buren’s money something unique, why the size of the ceilings mattered, and why he insisted on carving from the Pennsylvania countryside a concrete castle. The purpose was personal, painful, and only possible through the expression of one man, an artist of singular vision and perspective. In the end, László crafted a memorial, not for Van Buren’s mother but for all the forgotten faces wedged beneath the boot heels of fascists, whose memory will outlast the lives of their oppressors. A powerful and timely sentiment, but just like the legacy upon which America itself was built, it’s a shame that this film required that even one corner of its foundation be constructed upon the stolen property of the voiceless.
“The Brutalist” is one of the more staggering cinematic achievements of 2024, a three-hour work, of mostly human creation, within which beats the hearts of the unheralded and the trudged upon.
Come see for yourself and be sure to grab some more popcorn during the fifteen-minute intermission halfway through.
You’ll be glad you did.
“The Brutalist” is now playing at The Broad Theater, Prytania Uptown, and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
