How ‘The Brutalist’ team created the unforgettable opening scene — and why the film’s epilogue is so important
The script for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist crescendos with a single line of stage direction: “The camera whip-pans over and up to the Statue of Liberty at a peculiar LOW-ANGLE.” However, the simplicity of the writing belies the creation and execution of one of the most arresting opening sequences in recent memory, the journey of a Hungarian immigrant (Adrien Brody), post-World War II, as he stumbles up from the bowels of a ship and sees the Statue of Liberty for the very first time.
“Brady had this particular twist-and-turn idea for it, and it’s obviously a very simple and straightforward metaphor,” Corbet’s cowriter Mona Fastvold tells Gold Derby of the now-famous shot from the 10-time Oscar nominee. The upside-down Statue of Liberty image has been front and center in the A24 marketing for The Brutalist, used in the film’s posters and trailers. “Sometimes it’s more exciting when something is that simple,” she adds of the shot, representing the promise and conflict of the American dream for immigrants. “You kind of can’t believe no one has done it before.”
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The Beginning
Since its premiere at last year’s Venice Film Festival, The Brutalist has earned rave reviews and acclaim, including Best Picture wins from the Golden Globe Awards and New York Film Critics Circle. As cowriter, Fastvold — who in addition to working with Corbet on several films over the years is also his off-screen partner — received one of the movie’s 10 Oscar nominations, which include Best Picture, Best Actor for Brody, Best Director for Corbet, Best Original Screenplay for Corbet and Fastvold, Best Cinematography for Lol Crawley, Best Score for Daniel Blumberg, and Best Production Design for Judy Becker.
“That whole sequence is a good example of where everyone really came together and worked so in tandem with one another,” Fastvold says. “Daniel created that piece of music sitting with Brady late into the night before we were shooting it. Then they were blasting it while shooting it, and Adrien and Lol were trying to take that rhythm and beat of the music and have that guide the whole sequence. And it’s also a hard thing to shoot because you go from really dark to super bright. So it’s technically challenging to do that. It’s just really a group effort of everybody coming together.”
“My memory is that it was already in the script. But I’m not sure how much the sense of the tumbling and the untethered quality came through,” Crawley tells Gold Derby. “It was very much an evolution.”
At one point, Crawley says he and Corbet discussed leaving the audience even more disoriented with a close-up shot of the Statue of Liberty’s robe and the folds in the metal.
“There are other points like this, but it’s maybe the best example of this idea where Brady goes from the literal and the real to an impression of something,” Crawley says. “László [Brody’s character] does not see this tumbling statue. It’s not a literal thing. It’s about what this potentially represents to the audience and László: this idea, this wonderful gift from France, standing firm and representing the very best of what America can offer those in need. It’s supposed to stand on terra firma; it’s supposed just to represent hope, solidity, and stoicism. But there it is, untethered and tumbling. It is very unsettling. The Statue of Liberty is not behaving in the way that it’s supposed to.”
Like many top auteurs, Corbet frequently collaborates with the same crew. Crawley has shot each of Corbet’s three features, starting with The Childhood of the Leader. Editor David Janscó, an Oscar nominee, has also been friends with Corbet and Fastvold for years and has worked with them on multiple projects. Blumberg’s score for The Brutalist was his first for one of Corbet’s feature films — the director previously worked with the late composer Scott Walker, to whom the film is dedicated — but he’s also known Corbet for years. Blumberg was actually staying with Corbet and Fastvold in Budapest while writing the opening overture for the film.
“It was one of the cues that was written down as something that he wanted shoot to,” Blumberg says. “We’d always talked about it being continuous music for the first 10 minutes of the film. So for the overture, he was sitting next to me, and I showed him these sounds I recorded in London.”
To create the percussive sound that powers the pace of the opening sequence and gives Brody and Crawley the rhythm with which to move through the set, Blumberg used a prepared piano (where the sound of the piano is altered by placing objects on its strings).
“The idea was to sort of reveal the film’s sonic landscape. So you’re introduced to all the instruments and sounds that will play throughout the movie,” Blumberg says of the overture. “But you also want the audience to feel this weird excitement that Lazlo must have felt. It’s trying to create a sensory experience.”
Anchoring all the technical precision and craft of Brody’s performance. The past Oscar winner and current Best Actor frontrunner was always Fastvold’s “dream choice” for the part of László Tóth, the fictional Hungarian architect who escapes the horrors of World War II and finds success and tragedy in America. “He was just absolutely perfect,” Fastvold says of the film’s lead, nothing not only did Brody look like she imagined the character would look, his family has roots in Hungary. “When he came aboard, it allowed us to lower our shoulders. I knew he would do such a beautiful job with it.”
The Ending
The Brutalist is an epic in the true sense of the word, clocking in at 216 minutes with a 15-minute intermission baked into the film. The second half includes several twists and turns — including a confrontation between László’s wife, Erzsébet (Oscar nominee Felicity Jones), and his American benefactor, Harrison Lee van Buren (Oscar nominee Guy Pearce), that Crawley and Corbet execute in one take — its epilogue lands in the most unexpected place: the 1980s. There, an elderly László is being feted for his career achievements, surrounded by pictures and models of his work. His now-grown niece is there to offer a tribute to her uncle with his own past words: “No matter what others try to sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” It’s the final line of dialogue spoken in the movie.
Fastvold says she and Corbet always knew that was the film’s landing spot — a way to tie a bow on the thesis of The Brutalist.
“Is it all worth it? What is the actual destination? Is it this grand achievement or the path he paved for his niece?” Fastvold says of the epilogue. “These are the questions that artists ask ourselves. You work so hard to achieve something you believe in, and you’ve spent so much time on it and exhausted yourself. You have very little time to have a private life or go on a holiday. Then, all of a sudden, you achieve something and say, ‘Was it worth it? What is most important?’”
In keeping with the hand-made quality of The Brutalist and its incredible attention to detail, the epilogue is shot to be period-appropriate. For Crawley, that meant shifting from the 35mm VistaVision format he used for the bulk of the film to Digi Beta for the final coda. Likewise, Blumberg leaned into the sound of the late 1970s and early 1980s to remix his majestic score and its themes for the period.
“I worked with Vince Clark from Erasure, Depeche Mode, and Yazoo, and that was a response to Brady changing technology for the ending,” Blumberg says. “With a score, you can do anything. But I think reacting to what he’s doing with the picture is something, on a technical level, that we talked about.”
The ending leaves the audience to ponder the film’s message and recontextualizes certain events in the previous 200 minutes, give or take. It includes a revelation about why László was so focused on the height in specific rooms as he built a city center for Harrison.
Fastvold says she and Corbet weren’t interested in writing an ending with twists in mind, but she enjoys when movies leave the audience with questions for discussion.
“I like it when I’m not constantly spoon-fed the information,” she says. “The goal is that when you walk out of a theater and have a conversation with your partner or friend, you have something to discuss, even if it’s just by yourself. If you’re sitting there after seeing something great, and you’re just relating to your own life, childhood, first love, or whatever place it takes you. To do that, it’s so exciting.”
The Brutalist is a 10-time Oscar nominee.
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