Brady Corbet and 'The Brutalist' go for broke
Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” emerged less like a new film worth checking out than a movie colossus to behold
NEW YORK (AP) — Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” emerged less like a new film worth checking out than a movie colossus to behold.
Corbet’s visionary three-and-a-half-hour postwar American epic, shot in VistaVision, has taken on the imposing aura of its architect protagonist’s style. Little about it is tailored to today’s more prescribed movie world. It even has an intermission. And yet “The Brutalist” isn’t just one of the most acclaimed films of the year, it’s edged perilously close to the mainstream.
For Corbet, the 36-year-old director, it’s a surprising turn of events. His 215-minute movie, he thought, was surely destined for cult-movie status.
“It’s a great reminder that anything can be mainstreamed,” Corbet says. “That gives me real hope for the future of the medium. Six months ago, the powers that be, many people were telling me that the film is un-distributable.”
