Brady Corbet
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But much like There Will Be Blood before it, Corbet has constructed a visionary film deconstructing one of the many myths America loves to tell about itself: the story of boundless opportunity, of a country where art, talent, and hard work can thrive unfettered by class or background.
Writer/director Brady Corbet’s third film has been compared by many to The Godfather (1972) and There Will Be Blood (2007) — two films that tackle the capitalist pursuit of power in the first half of the “American Century,” but with a comparative lightness of touch, with the former leaning into its genre trappings and the latter being a dark comedy.
Pero como otros nuevos clásicos modernos que lograron emular aunque sea un ápice de la potencia y magnitud de esos hitos del pasado, como «There Will Be Blood» o «No Country for Old Men», decide personificar esa salvaje voracidad sin fin en un personaje con carisma suficiente…
Corbet’s American epic feels like a response to films such as Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood, or most recently, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
…it lands somewhere between Paul Anderson’s There Will be Blood and Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead in terms of pretention, philosophical self-importance, and a welcome sympathy for the immigrant experience of America…
It openly invites comparisons to past, iconic American epics like The Godfather, Heaven’s Gate, The Master, and There Will Be Blood, despite being made for considerably less money than all of those movies.
…than homages to the more artificial works of Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson like Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Master (2012)…
In many ways, this is a film which we would have expected from Paul Thomas Anderson, particularly after his 2012 title The Master.
There is a debt owed here to The Master and There Will Be Blood, but Corbet’s reach is no less grandiose…
A grandiose epic in the vein of The Master and The Godfather, The Brutalist asks us to follow an immigrant story over decades.
The influence of Paul Thomas Anderson’s weightiest dramas (in particular, The Master and There Will Be Blood) hover like a specter over Corbet’s storytelling craft–thematic complexity, character depth, narrative scope, adherence to music of the time, earned long takes, crucial scenes closing without closure, and dramatic dick play, for example.
Jones, who has already and regrettably been pounced upon by some critics as an inferior substitute to Corbet’s original choice of Marion Cotillard, matches her on-screen husband nearly beat for beat, especially during a pivotal bedroom scene that generously evokes memories of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. (P.T.A. fans will need to give themselves a hand when they spot it.)
The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced The Brutalist (2024)
Themes Visuals
Writer/director Brady Corbet’s third film has been compared by many to The Godfather (1972) and There Will Be Blood (2007) — two films that tackle the capitalist pursuit of power in the first half of the “American Century,” but with a comparative lightness of touch, with the former leaning into its genre trappings and the latter being a dark comedy.
…like other great films about the business of America being business (CITIZEN KANE, EXECUTIVE SUITE, THE GODFATHER) this is a harsh critique of bullying America and its unrelenting goal to lord over others.
Aping “The Godfather,” Corbet swaps catechism for Yom Kippur…
A grandiose epic in the vein of The Master and The Godfather, The Brutalist asks us to follow an immigrant story over decades.
Comparisons to The Godfather have abounded since its Venice International Film Festival premiere…
Corbet's sprawling, nearly four-hour epic is cut from the same cloth (or perhaps I should say chiseled from the same stone) as great masterpieces like "Citizen Kane," "The Godfather," and more recently, "There Will Be Blood."
Embracing a style that evokes the cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson and Orson Welles…
…bajando el factor «Scarface» para alejarlo un poco de «El Padrino» o incluso «Ciudadano Kane». Como en esta última, «El Brutalista» entiende que la tensión dramática siempre ocurre debido al nivel de capitalismo en sangre…
Corbet’s American epic feels like a response to films such as Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood, or most recently, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
…like other great films about the business of America being business (CITIZEN KANE, EXECUTIVE SUITE, THE GODFATHER) this is a harsh critique of bullying America and its unrelenting goal to lord over others.
There are alluring shades here of Citizen Kane (think of Kane’s Xanadu)…
Corbet's sprawling, nearly four-hour epic is cut from the same cloth (or perhaps I should say chiseled from the same stone) as great masterpieces like "Citizen Kane," "The Godfather," and more recently, "There Will Be Blood."
Much like last year’s eventual winner, Oppenheimer, the film feels like a throwback to the films we once had on the big screen.
Corbet’s American epic feels like a response to films such as Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood, or most recently, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Think “There Will Be Blood” and “Oppenheimer” and you’ll get the idea.
Last year’s Oscar-nominated historical dramas Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon cost about $100 million and $200 million, respectively.
Since the film is more three and half hours long, it is screened with an intermission. It becomes another award-winning long film after Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Much like last year’s eventual winner, Oppenheimer, the film feels like a throwback to the films we once had on the big screen. Where once, character-driven stories were the big cinematic events.
Hay algo en ella, estilística y temáticamente, de 'Vox Lux' (2018) y de 'Smile 2' (2024).
From Vox Lux to Trap to Smile 2, this decade has seen a mini-boom in horror (and horror-adjacent) films centered around pop stars.
Contrary to what the Internet may tell you, Mother Mary is very much not Vox Lux (2018).
…films like the Suspiria remake, Trap, Smile 2, A Star is Born and Vox Lux all seem to gain energy from our fascination with women-on-stage in the Taylor Swift/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter era…
While on the surface the film may appear to be joining the ranks of "Vox Lux," "Trap," and "Smile 2" in its askew look at pop stardom…
Like Brady Corbet did with Natalie Portman’s Celeste in Vox Lux, Lowery crafts Anne Hathaway’s Mary as a larger-than-life pop figure who could seamlessly exist alongside today’s biggest stars.
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more.
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more. Grand films that feel made for the big screen, that seem to invoke the very voice of cinema.
When watching classic films like Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, or even a modern gem like There Will Be Blood or Oppenheimer, grand epics that focus on the accomplishments of great men with gargantuan ambitions, it’s easy to think, “They rarely make movies like this nowadays.”
Longer than either Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather Part II…
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced The Brutalist (2024)
Visuals Music
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more.
…with nods to Michelangelo and an ashen grey landscape shot like something from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar…
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more. Grand films that feel made for the big screen, that seem to invoke the very voice of cinema.
It openly invites comparisons to past, iconic American epics like The Godfather, Heaven’s Gate, The Master, and There Will Be Blood, despite being made for considerably less money than all of those movies.
The Brutalist promises the kind of grand Hollywood epic, and old-school cinematic hubris, that more or less went away 40 years ago with Micheal Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate…
The Brutalist promises the kind of grand Hollywood epic, and old-school cinematic hubris, that more or less went away 40 years ago with Micheal Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America.
One Battle After Another (2025)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by The Brutalist (2024)
Visuals
PTA decided to film using the large-format VistaVision, similar to how The Brutalist was shot.
…shot in VistaVision, just like last year’s Best Picture nominee, “The Brutalist.”
…like The Brutalist, shot on the antique VistaVision format…
Laszlo crawls from the belly of a boat with the camera chaotically following, similar to the visual scheme of Son of Saul (2015).
Corbet makes this clear right from the start, opening his tale of a Jewish-Hungarian Holocaust survivor with a direct visual link to another film of that type, “Son of Saul.” The shaky camera recreates the exact aesthetic approach laid out by László Nemes as it follows a man through cramped quarters, shooting from behind with the narrowest possible depth of field as Yiddish and Hungarian murmurs overtake the soundscape. But where “Son of Saul” started in the depths of hell and only burrowed further down, Corbet’s visual lift decisively breaks when our guide emerges from the hull of a boat to the sight of Lady Liberty.
A scene of chaos may make one think of the beginning of László Nemes’s Son Of Saul, but instead of the gates of hell, it is Lady Liberty, albeit in topsy-turvy rotation, that announces the arrival of once famous Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) on Ellis Island, the entryway to the land of the free.
The film begins with an intense flurry of barely readable single-take action (one suspects a tip of the hat to the radical visual style of Son Of Saul director Laszlo Nemes)…
Reportedly the first American film fully produced in VistaVision since One-Eyed Jacks in 1961, it screens in its Venice Film Festival premiere in 70mm, a giant canvas amply justified by the narrative’s variegated textures.
Shot in VistaVision – the first US film in this format since 1961’s Marlon Brando-starrer One-Eyed Jacks – and screening in its Venice premiere in 70mm, The Brutalist is sumptuous in its stylistic execution, revealing Corbet as an actor-turned-director who can rise to the challenge of his ambitions.
…the first American film to use the wide-screen format since Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks, in 1961…
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced The Brutalist (2024)
Themes
…though as a vast immigrant saga, a more fitting analogy might be The Godfather Part II…
Longer than either Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather Part II…
This sequence, which I guess is a reference to the Ellis Island arrival scene in The Godfather Part II (1974), is shot with a crazily spinning camera, like a sped-up outtake from La Région centrale (1971).
Toth is played by Adrien Brody, with significantly more wear and character in his face than the last holocaust picture, The Pianist, the one did with Roman Polanski, winning both of them Oscars.
It recalls his work in Polanski’s The Pianist, and his engrossing performance as a man who is perverted by the company he keeps, becoming a creator who “worships only at the altar of himself”, is matched by Felicity Jones’ turn as Erzsébet in "Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty."
Brody – his gaunt perma-angst suggests a revved-up version of his character in The Pianist – never quite makes Toth either likeable or, more importantly, distinctive a character.
Brody, who won his Academy Award for portraying a Holocaust survivor in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002), is equally anguished here, impressively speaking Hungarian and accented English.
Adrien Brody delivers an all-timer of a performance that outdoes even his Oscar-winning turn in The Pianist…
In his greatest performance since The Pianist, Brody captures László as a sharp, if somewhat arrogant, visionary caught between his grand ambitions and his declining mental health.
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more.
Think of films such as Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and many more. Grand films that feel made for the big screen, that seem to invoke the very voice of cinema.
…it's hard not to think of the truly great American stories of the 20th century, like Once Upon a Time In America…
The Brutalist promises the kind of grand Hollywood epic, and old-school cinematic hubris, that more or less went away 40 years ago with Micheal Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America.
There are moments in this film (just wait for the marble quarry in Carrara) that I will carry with me in much the same way I carry the sunset dance from Lee Chang-dong's Burning or the great wave in Pacifiction: the kind of things that help you remember you why you fell in love with this thing in the first place.
The Testament of Ann Lee is "The VVitch plus The Brutalist", which was Fastvold and Corber's immediately-preceding collaboration (Corbet directed that one), and I'm kind of astonished by how much the two films feel like companion pieces.
One would be right to draw connections between The Testament of Ann Lee and The Brutalist (2024), cowritten by Fastvold. Ann’s epic voyage is rooted in the same earnest, earth-shaking desire to create a better world, a trope touted inThe Brutalist. This new film is perhaps a harsher look at what stakes are at play in this unmistakably American pursuit.
Where “The Brutalist” was an examination of the crumbling American dream through the prism of architectural self-immolation, “The Testament of Ann Lee” sees its own horrors in the westward journey to build a monument towards devotional endurance in a more chaotic physical fashion.
Recently learning that Brady Corbet, who made the wildly over rated pretentious Oscar bait film THE BRUTALIST, some how makes me understand what happened - except that when ANN LEE works it's light years ahead of THE BRUTALIST.
After the success of The Brutalist, they’ve co-written the screenplay again, but now Fastvold is in the director’s chair, and there’s a certain similarity in tone between the two films. Both challenge, surprise and confront.
He won an Academy Award for his work on Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (which was co-written by Fastvold, and Corbet returns the favour here)…
Last year’s The Brutalist explored a similar dynamic, with the key variation here being that Marty is an opportunist, not an intellectual.
The relationship between a wealthy industrialist and an exciting, younger talent, hesitant to work with them but in need of their backing, is a core tenet of stories about the American Dream (The Brutalist, just last year)…
Como la «Zona de Interés» el año pasado, usa el pasado para ver el presente y a la expresión cinematográfica como medio a través del cuál explorar aguas tan turbulentas…
While Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest stayed in next-door proximity to the death camps to let the horrors unfold in each viewer’s mind, The Brutalist transports the impact across the seas in actions, decisions, and buildings made from concrete.