Venice 2024: Brady Corbett’s three-hour post-war epic ‘The Brutalist’ makes festival debut
A still from ‘The Brutalist’ by Brady Corbett. | Photo credit: IMDb
The BrutalistA post-war epic about a Holocaust survivor trying to rebuild a life in America, this is a fantasy. But filmmaker Brady Corbett wishes it wasn’t.
“The film is about the physical manifestation of trauma in the 20th century,” Corbett said at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday. “It’s dedicated to artists who haven’t realized their vision.” The film reportedly received a 13.5-minute standing ovation at the festival.
Partly inspired by the late Jean-Louis Cohen’s book Architecture in uniformThe film starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect will have its world premiere on Sunday afternoon.
spanning several decades, The Brutalist Laszlo tells the story of Toth and his efforts to pursue his art after the war in America. Brody plays Toth and Felicity Jones is his wife Elizabeth. He lives in near-poverty until a wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), offers him an important contract. Joe Alwyn and Alessandro Nivola also star.
Cast members Adrien Brody and Georgina Chapman pose on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of ‘The Brutalist’ in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival, Venice, Italy, September 1, 2024. Photo credit: Reuters
Brody said it was a character and a story that he felt had “an instant kinship and understanding.” His mother, photographer Silvia Placci, was a Hungarian immigrant who fled during the anti-Soviet revolution in 1956 to start over and try to make a life as an artist.
“Even though it’s fiction, it feels very real and very real to me,” Brody said. “It’s very important to me to embody a character and make it real.”
Running 215-minutes (with a 15-minute intermission) and presented in 70mm (it was shot in Vista Vision), The Brutalist I arrived in Venice with high expectations. There were whispers of “a masterpiece” before it appeared; However, reviews won’t pick up until the red-carpet premiere.
Even the 70mm format alone seemed like a bold statement for a film without US distribution: though beloved by cinephiles, the expense seemed to be reserved for a select few like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. In other words, there is often nothing available for an indie.
Wearing sunglasses, Corbett seemed emotional talking about the film, which he worked on for seven years. “This film does everything we’re told we’re not allowed to do,” says Corbett. He added that the conversation about runtime is “stupid”.
Also read:Venice 2024: Harmony Korine’s ‘Baby Invasion’ earns 8.5-minute standing ovation at festival premiere
“I’ve read great novels, I’ve read great multi-volume masterpieces,” Corbett said. “Maybe the next thing I’ll do is about 45 minutes, and I should be allowed to do that. … As Harmony Korine once said, cinema is stuck in the birth canal. And I agree with her.”
In 2018 Corbett brought his division Vox LuxIn which Natalie Portman plays a pop star who witnessed a school shooting in Venice in her youth. Earlier he premiered Childhood of a leader There Corbett, also an actor, wrote the screenplay with his wife Mona Fastvold, also a filmmaker (The World to Come) Corbett thanked the Venice Film Festival for supporting him.
He said, “When nobody supported these films, this was the festival. “It made my films possible.”
“The Brutalist” is playing in competition at the festival, which has already hosted a glamorous premiere with Angelina Jolie (mariaNicole Kidman (BabygirlCate Blanchett (Disclaimer), Jude Law (order) with many more to come.
