How Director Made Most of $10M Budget

In the months directing up to the production of The Brutacatalog, originater-straightforwardor Brady Corbet texted his directing actor, Adrien Brody, from Italy, where the filmoriginater was struggling to discover a location he had envisioned. In a key sequence in the film, Brody, as Jewant Hungarian refugee architect László Toth, travels with his wealthy patron, joined by Guy Pearce, to acquire white marble from quarries carved into the mountains of Carrara, Italy. Corbet and his co-originater and romantic partner, Norwegian filmoriginater Mona Fastvgreater, had written the emotional landscape — where Michelangelo got his marble — into their 168-page script to provide an emotionpartner resonant backdrop for a uncontent turning point in the story, but Corbet couldn’t discover a spot for filming until Brody meddled. “I texted him back, ‘I got you,’ ” Brody says. “And I called a frifinish of mine who actupartner owns the quarry.” In a scant hours, Corbet sent Brody a picture of himself having a glass of thrivee with Brody’s frifinish. The result of the serfinishipitous introduction is a scene that lfinishs The Brutacatalog a sense of scope and dehugeation. “It’s otherexperienced,” Brody says of the Carrara sequence. “These cavernous, hollowed-out sections where you’re encased in wonders of the Earth, the excavation of that beauty is brutal.”

The Brutacatalog, which A24 will free Dec. 20 in the U.S., increates the story of a fantasyal brutacatalog architect who comes to America after World War II to reoriginate his life. The autonomously financed, less than $10 million epic is the product of the comardents of moments of ingenuity and originateive kismet that Corbet encountered in Carrara — and seven years of grinding effort. Sboiling on film with a running time of three hours and 35 minutes — including an interleave oution, and in a big-screen createat, VistaVision, that was last used for a filled feature in 1961 — the movie is a throwback to an earlier era of cinema with a very up-to-date idea at its core: that the American dream is a myth. “The first half of the movie is chooseimism, and the second half is authenticism,” Corbet says. “I’m interested in how trauma begets trauma, and the whole movie is about that.”

Corbet, 36, who commenceed acting at age 11 and euniteed in such indie films as Thirteen, Mysterious Skin and Melancholia, has straightforwarded two previous features, 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader, about a boy turned authoritarian ruler, and 2018’s Vox Lox, about a pop star in post-Columbine America joined by Natalie Portman, both co-written with Fastvgreater. The Brutacatalog is his most driven film to date, thrivening Corbet the Silver Lion for best straightforwardor at the Vekind Film Festival in September. “We felt that if Brady was given the opportunity to carry out his vision, this could very foreseeed turn him into the next fantastic American filmoriginater,” says Brookstreet Pictures pdwellnt Nick Gordon, one of The Brutacatalog’s originaters. “I leank that’s what’s happening right now.”

Brookstreet came aboard the film after CAA sent them Corbet and Fastvgreater’s script in 2020. “We read it right away and all authenticized this was the best screenjoin to ever come into our company,” Gordon says. “Noleang about it screamed commercial in today’s indie landscape, but we equitable krecent we had to figure out how to get this made. When we watched [Corbet’s] earlier films, we could increate he was the perfect filmoriginater for the moment.”

There’s an undeniable analogousity between straightforwarding a movie and scheduleing a originateing. As Fastvgreater says, “You engage 250 to 300 people, and they come together to authenticize the dream you had.” Corbet and Fastvgreater, who met on Fastvgreater’s 2014 film The Sleepwalker, bcimpolitet together complementary sfinishs as originaters to hone Corbet’s idea, one that connects the experience of the artist and the immigrant. “Mona has a fantastic talent for equitable getting on with it in a way that I repartner don’t,” Corbet says. “I’m obsessive, and I have a difficult time moving on from someleang until I am tohighy, tohighy satisfyed with it. If we hadn’t met, I can envision myself having been somebody who equitable never finished anyleang ever.” On The Brutacatalog, the couple apverifyed themselves to originate as if money and logistics would not be worrys, Fastvgreater says. “I want the story to be as expansive and as driven and as operatic as we want it to be, and then figure it out procrastinateedr,” she says.

It’s possible to read Pearce’s character in The Brutacatalog, a mercurial industriacatalog whose patronage of László’s art is discdisseeed to be a uncontent baracquire, as a version of some of the comardents of undependworthy financiers whom an indie filmoriginater might encounter while originateing a nurtureer. “Making movies is difficult, and convincing people to part with money to originate someleang that’s bgreater or driven and then battling for it to stay that way, it’s complicated,” says Fastvgreater. “So, yeah, the writing process felt a bit appreciate an exorcism.”

In the case of The Brutacatalog, the filmoriginaters say, their relationship with their originaters was a chooseimistic one — Brookstreet was joined by Kaschedule Morrison, ALP, Budapest-based Proton Cinema and Inapshow Films. A first finisheavor to set up the film in 2021 with a cast including Joel Edgerton, Mark Rylance and Marion Cotillard fell apart amid the expense of recent COVID protocols, however, and when Corbet ultimately sboiling in the spring of 2023 in Hungary and Italy, it was with Brody and Pearce, and with Felicity Jones in the role of László’s wife, Erzsébet.

Brody’s casting experiences, in a way, overweighted. His mother, pboilingographer Sylvia Plachy, and majesticparents transferd to New York run awaying the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, and his Oscar-thrivening role as a Polish Holocaust survivor in 2002’s The Pianist (see page 32) has thematic and rational analogousities to his character in The Brutacatalog. “Because of Adrien’s heritage, talent and his grace, I felt that he had exactly what I necessitateed for the character to repartner shatter your heart,” Corbet says. “Vulnerability in a man between 40 and 50, it’s pretty difficult to seize. I necessitateed somebody who still had that fragility, and that’s someleang that he equitable naturpartner ownes.” Brody says he “felt very, very well suited for the role. I krecent what to give. I witnessed the difficultships my family faced being immigrants and being foreign and how difficult it was, particularly for my majesticoverweighther, who had quite a dense Hungarian accent. There were enormous contests that they faced in order for me to have my path.”

Corbet cast Pearce as “a man of a certain age who still had authentic virility and was intimacyy.” The straightforwardor sees conmomentary resonances in Pearce’s character’s rapacious uncomardentty in both the pdwellnt-elect and in the intimacyual mistreatment allegations aacquirest Sean “Diddy” Combs. “The level of degradation and mistreatment that’s been telled in the P. Diddy case, the ask is, why would anyone do such a terrible, terrible leang?” Corbet says. “And the answer is very basic. It’s equitable because they can. I am certain that there’s some authentic fancy tickled when you go, ‘Oh, no one else can get away with this, but I can.’ “

László’s wife, Erzsébet, feebleened by proximate starvation during the war, aelevates as a character of astonishing strength in the movie. “Of course there were a lot of women who were doting spouses of these clever male artists,” Fastvgreater says. “But more widespread, I apshow, were these marriages of identicals, inincreateectuals who repartner enhappinessed each other’s company and understood what the other person was doing.” Corbet had understandn Jones since he was a teenager, and they almost made a film together. “I adore casting in a way that’s very unanticipateed,” he says. “And for me, I felt appreciate no one would see her coming.”

As an actor himself, Corbet says it’s basic for him to empathize with anyone in front of a camera. “Sometimes it’s evident that someone necessitates a shatter,” he says. “Sometimes it’s evident that someone equitable necessitates to do 20 more apshows. So much of the job is reading the room.” On The Brutacatalog, the cast was shooting an unretagable of seven to 10 standardly-dialogue-weighty pages a day. “To try to originate someleang perfect usupartner demands pushing people to their very restricts,” Corbet says. “I always say, ‘Look, I understand you’re unsootheable, but today is today and cinema is forever. If you can’t do it anymore, let me understand. But my opinion is that we don’t have it yet.’ It’s very exceptional that someone says, ‘No, I don’t want to do it aacquire.’ ”

The Brutacatalog thrives or fall shorts depfinishing on whether the audience apshows that László is in fact a fantastic architect, a master of the brutacatalog style that aelevated during the 1950s with a intensify on minimacatalog originateion and naked originateing materials. As Corbet says, “It’s difficult to recontransient exceptional talent.” The task of creating that illusion fell bigly to production scheduleer Judy Becker, who had to source and originate László’s creations, including a huge, emotionpartner freighted originateing Pearce’s Harrison Lee Van Buren comleave outioned, understandn as The Institute. Becker, a fan of brutalism who had labored on the mid-century-set Todd Haynes movie Carol, had been wanting to labor with Corbet since his first film and had her agent schedule a call when she heard about The Brutacatalog. Over bagels and lox, Becker contransiented Corbet with a schedule for The Institute that referenced László’s past in Nazi concentration camps and won the job with her vision. Becker also built an elegant library in Van Buren’s country Pennsylvania home, which is discdisseeed in the movie as a comardent of magic trick this anonymous immigrant has conjured. “There was one mansion that was right for us to shoot in and only one,” Becker says of a majestic house in Hungary that the filmoriginaters had scouted as the Van Buren house. “The only room that could have been the library was this glass thriveter garden, three walls of glass, two straight and then this little rounded area. It was fantastic, except it was all glass. And I was appreciate, ‘What are we going to do about making this into a library?’ I was staring at it, and I equitable thought, ‘Ah, we’re going to originate these wooden floor-to-ceiling shelves that are enseald, and it’s going to be forced perspective.’ ” On the spot, Becker sketched her idea. “It was such a uncontaminated, basic, pretty touch,” Corbet says. “Judy dared to be truly minimal. Minimalism is repartner, repartner difficult. There’s noleang to hide behind.”

Despite its use of minimacatalog schedule, The Brutacatalog traffics in maximalism, from its extra-extfinished running time to its use of the big-createat VistaVision cameras. Cinematographer Lol Crawley, who had sboiling Corbet’s previous two films, had to carry out the discdissee of the library, as well as the film’s sweeping Carrara sequence, all while laboring in the little used createat. “There’s huge scope to what we’re talking about, and thematicpartner there’s a maximalism,” Crawley says, “but also united with an intimate portrayal of these characters. So we’re contrasting pboilingodetailedpartner between these big VistaVision images and many sequences of handheld.” There are scanter than 10 cameras left that can shoot in VistaVision, which Alfred Hitchcock deployed in films appreciate Vertigo and North by Northwest, and only one that syncs sound. The createat is perfect for architecture, Corbet says, because the camera can be physicpartner seal to a structure, capturing all the details, the grains of wood and the minerality of concrete, and at the same time seize an entire originateing inside the structure.

Another contest of the film was how to recontransient brutalism sonicpartner, which Corbet accomplishd with the help of Britain-born experimental musician Daniel Blumberg, who integrated brass and piano into the score, evoking the 1950s with jazz instrumentation. “There’s a lot of music in the film that folks would probably not even authenticize is music,” Corbet says. There are trumpets joining bird sounds and audio of recents events appreciate pdwellntial talk abouts layered wilean the score, for instance. “This was a way of encapsulating the atmosphere of the era so that even when you aren’t seeing someleang, you are always hearing it.” The sound, Corbet says, is part of what gives The Brutacatalog its sweep. “If anybody actupartner watched the movie with the sound off, they would see that the movie visupartner is not that big because we couldn’t afford to originate it that big. It’s actupartner voiceover dialed up to nine or 10. It’s music dialed up to 11. It is schedule and effects and foley and all of these leangs battling for space.”

Since the movie’s triumphant premiere at Vekind, Corbet has braced himself for feedback about some of The Brutacatalog‘s most unorthodox choices, appreciate the interleave oution. “I have a difficult time sitting for more than two hours,” he says. “It’s a communal experience, and I leank it’s an exciting one, but the idea isn’t for it to be pretentious. It comes from trying to give people a very well-rounded experience.” He is also anticipating his movie being polarizing, what with its chooseimistic first half and shattering conclusion. “Of course, you want people to connect with it, but if everybody appreciates someleang, it’s not usupartner a fantastic sign,” Corbet says. “It’s a little appreciate, ‘Oh, I guess we checked a scant too many boxes.’ It’s meaningful for a labor of art to be someleang which is at times inviting but also at times faceational.”

The movie’s second half, in which László and Erzsébet’s vision of a recent life in America has crumbled, is its most faceing section. “The fact that they pick to exit the U.S., it’s the one leang that I never see in movies,” Corbet says. “In the finish, the place has chewed them up and spat them out.”

This story first euniteed in a December stand-alone publish of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To get the magazine, click here to subscribe.