Aahana Swrup
‘The Brutalist’ is an ambitiously grand and cinematically epic film about an immigrant architect who flees his European hometown with big American dreams and discovers its tragically high cost. László Toth is at the center of the plot as a Hungarian-Jewish architect and a Holocaust survivor who flees to America with his wife, Erzsébet, to start life anew. He finds patronage under Harrison Van Buren, the wealthy industrialist who commissions his first project of great design. Nonetheless, the road ahead remains a tumultuous one for László as he’s forced to reckon with the cost of art as a social minority under capitalism’s actual brute.
The Brady Corbet film, in which the story commences in the late 1940s, presents a fascinating narration that connects various themes from the more obvious architecture and capitalism to the more subliminal facets of immigration, class disparity, and more. Considering László and his storyline’s intrinsic connection to history, specifically in a postwar context, the origins of the character and his tale become an inevitable point of intrigue.
The Brutalist’s Connection to Historical Architecture
‘The Brutalist’ strives to tell an authentic account of the immigrant experience, which encompasses a multitude of other thematic touchstones relating to art and socio-politics. Nevertheless, the film does not employ a real-life basis to achieve this. It remains a complete work of fiction penned by director Brady Corbet and his screenwriting partner, Mona Fastvold. With this project, the filmmaking duo, who are also partners in real life, correlate architecture with artistry and the immigrant identity in a fascinating way.
During his research into the field, Corbet noticed prominent socially perceived similarities between immigrants and Brutalism as an architectural style. In the 1950s, when the style was making its debut in architecture, it initially garnered a negative response from the public. This social reaction possesses an “othering” full of aggression toward—but lacking in understanding of—the new. Naturally, it offers a parallel to the hostility that many immigrants have historically faced and continue to encounter. The same, paired with the frequency of brutalist architecture in the practice of immigrant architects, brought the filmmaker to the connection between the two, which became fertile ground for cinematic exploration.
For the same reason, the film finds its period setting in the late 1940s, where it follows the experiences of a Jewish immigrant who essentially trades in the fascism of Europe for duplicitous American capitalism. This allows the narrative to address the postwar influence on architecture, which in some ways parallels László Toth’s experiences as an immigrant artist. Therefore, despite the fictionality of the story, the historically resonant realism behind the protagonist’s character’s experiences necessitated extensive research into the past from the screenwriters.
Brady Corbet Wanted to Draw Inspiration for László From a Real-Life Architect
Throughout the development process of ‘The Brutalist,’ Brady Corbet was intentional about his desire to create a fictional tale rather than a biographical one. Despite having numerous historical titles in his cinematography, Corbet seems to prefer a fictitious lens when it comes to his work. As the filmmaker has previously stated, he believes the establishment of fictionality creates room for heightened attention on the analysis of events and themes rather than a fixation on accuracy. As such, when he ventured into the task of tackling a historical tale that operated upon a myriad of socio-political concepts, he knew he wanted to opt for a fictional route.
Even so, Corbet and Mona Fastvold did exhaustive research during the story’s development. As part of this research, Corbet wanted to find real-life Bauhaus architects turned American architects whose careers could present counterparts to László Toth’s tale. Nonetheless, despite consulting an architectural historian, the filmmaker wasn’t able to find an appropriate real-life precedent. He later described this instance as “haunting” since it spoke to the lost potential of many could-be brilliant minds.
Nevertheless, Corbet and Fastvold retained an inspiration of sorts in one specific real-life architect from the past. Marcel Breuer, a Hungarian-German architect known for his modernist work, was one of the earliest points of reference for the screenwriters in the early days of the project’s conception. Like László, Breuer was a Jewish architect who came to America while fleeing the Holocaust. While researching, Corbet and Fastvold found references to bigotry Breuer faced during the years that he was commissioned to work on the Saint John’s Abbey cathedral. This presented a parallel between the actual architect’s experiences and the on-screen narrative the screenwriters strive to accomplish in the film.
The Personal Connections Behind The Brutalist
‘The Brutalist’ retains an inherent personal connection to Brady Corbet that becomes evident through the story’s thematic resonance. László’s narrative tells a clear tale of artistic strife as the architect is forced to operate under the thumb of a raging industrialist in the brutal cogs of capitalism. This concept isn’t much different than the struggles Corbet and Mona Fastvold encountered during the project’s development process. In fact, it was seven years in the making before the filmmakers were able to slot the right pieces into place to bring the ambitious project to the big screen.
In this way, the nuances of capitalism, as explored by the narrative, retain crucial origin in Corbet’s experiences and conclusions. Alternatively, the parts of the film also unintentionally ended up holding a deep-help connection to lead actor Adrien Brody’s past. While a more obvious similarity remains between Brody and László in their Hungarian background, the latter actually shares a peculiar parallel to the actor’s mother, Sylvia Plachy. She is a Hungarian immigrant who came to America in the 1950s and built a successful career for herself in the arts as a photographer by the 60s.
As a result, Brody—who was interested in portraying László’s character anyway—found himself gravitating further toward it. The unexpected connection showcases the authenticity of the on-screen architect’s life and career, establishing an encompassing sense of reality around the tale. Thus, even though the film maintains its distance from biographical elements of any sort, it successfully presents a realistic narrative.
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