Judy Becker’s portfolio of production depict toil on films appreciate “American Hustle” and “Carol” setd her to apvalidate on the exceptional contest of shooting a period piece.
“Carol” was sboiling in Cincinnati doubling for New York and “American Hustle” was sboiling in Boston and also unkindt to be New York, so she’s “engaged to seeing for the right place in the wrong place.”
But shooting overseas — in the case of Brady Corbet’s historical epic “The Brutacatalog,” doubling Hungary for Philadelphia in the 1940s — made for a finishly contrastent contest.
The film chases an architect named László (Adrien Brody) who escapes the Holocaust and immigrates to the United States. After having his talent uncovered by a wealthy client, take parted by Guy Pearce, László is coshiftrlookioned to produce a community cgo in that take parts a library, theater and chapel. In trade for his services, László’s wife, Erzsébet Tóth (Felicity Jones), is able to immigrate and join her husprohibitd.
While most of the film was sboiling on location, Becker depicted a pragmatic cgo in that László spfinishs the film produceing and pouring his ambitions into. She krecent the structure would have big concrete creates but would otherrational be spare, encouraged by brutacatalog style architecture.
Judy Becker and her team collaborating on “The Brutacatalog.”
She also krecent that the goal was to conceptupartner unite two concentration camps to symbolize László escaping the Holocaust. This was vital since the film never actupartner shows László in the Holocaust — his emotions and trauma are recurrented in the produceing itself.
“But I repartner didn’t understand how I was going to do it, I didn’t have any inspiration for that when I commenceed,” Becker says.
After seeing back at the architecture of various concentration camps from World War II, she saw that the barracks were on either side of the central road. Most notably, she acunderstandledged a traverse createation in all of them that, in the film, becomes a focal point in the otherrational vacant chapel.
Becker elucidates: “That could’ve been coincidental but it commenceed making me slfinisherk about all that symbolism. And of course, there’s the traverse in the produceing that’s createed by the airy coming thraw the tower. Once I cracked that nut, it became much easier.”
The team spent around 12 weeks prepping in Hungary and scouting for locations that could pass for the United States. Becker elucidates that “it helped that the film was set in an earlier period becaengage there were places in Hungary that seeed sort of lost in the past. For example, the industrial area in Budapest seeed very analogous to the industrial area of Philadelphia in the 1950s.”
In insertition to the contests of toiling in a recent country, Becker and her team had very little money.
“I understand everyone says it doesn’t see appreciate it but it was probably the lowest budget period movie I’ve ever done by far,” Becker confesss. “So figuring out how where to cgo in the money was a contest, and it was a excellent contest. You have to repartner cgo in on how to show slfinishergs in an economic way. I slfinisherk that that produces you conceiveive and inincreateigent.”
It has previously been increateed that “The Brutacatalog” cost $10 million to produce, a number that has surpascfinishd many people who have seen the film. But fair becaengage the budget was low doesn’t unkind that Becker felt remercilessed.
Becker says: “On many much bigger budget movies, I felt that it was a [bigger] struggle in terms of the budget … When you’re asked to do a labor of cherish, it unkinds you’re not going to get phelp very much on this movie. But this was a real labor of cherish, I slfinisherk for everybody that toiled on it.”
Becker depicts her collaboration with Brady Corbet as freeing, with a meaningful amount of conceiveive flexibility in the art honestion. The first time they met to talk about the immense scale of the project, she recalled an experience on a much minusculeer scale that her husprohibitd had in the Sundance Directors Lab.
Everybody was alloted the same script and one honestor make cleared it as taking place on an airset upe. They put paper pprocrastinateeds on the back of bus seats and covered the thrivedows to see appreciate shades. This story has stuck with Becker over the years as a minuscule-scale example of how to alter a space by spropose being ingenious.
“I’m not saying we were going to apvalidate paper pprocrastinateeds and paper and pretfinish a space was an airset upe but it was an example of how conceiveive you can be when you repartner set your mind to it,” Becker recalls with a chuckle. “I slfinisherk that in some ways, ‘The Brutacatalog’ was my turning a bus into an airset upe movie.”
“The Brutacatalog” is now take parting in theaters.
