Best Picture Nominees Ranked: № 1: “The Brutalist” (2024):
“Welcome to America.” / “This is the gateway to God.”
The history of cinema can be divided into many different genres of film, but few have been as influential and acclaimed as the “epic.” Often lavishly made and covering an expansive period, these movies can often stand the test of time among classics such as 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and 1939’s “Gone with the Wind”. But since the commercial failure of Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate” in 1980 led to the end of the New Hollywood era and bankrupted United Artists, few studios have been willing to risk greenlighting these films that unfortunately saw lower box office returns with each passing year.
So when the biggest surprise of the prestigious Venice Film Festival Biennale was a three-and-a-half-hour epic about architecture that later won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama, I was quite intrigued. And once I sat down and saw that shot of the Statue of Liberty flipped on its head, I knew that I was in for something else.
The film opens in 1947 with a letter to the Hungarian architect László Tóth (played by Adrian Brody, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Władysław Szpipman in 2002’s “The Pianist”) from his wife Erzsébet (played by Felicity Jones, star of 2014’s “The Theory of Everything”) who was separated from him during the Holocaust. He immigrated to America and moved in with his cousin Attila (played by Allesandro Nivola), who runs a furniture store in Philadelphia with his catholic wife Audrey (played by Emma Laird).
László senses that he is unwelcome in their house, and accepts a job renovating the library of a wealthy shipping magnate named Harrison Lee Van Buren (played by Guy Pearce, who starred in the 2000 film ‘Memento” and 1997’s “L.A. Confidential”). Harrison is displeased with the modernist aesthetic and presence of a person of color on his property and refuses to pay, which leads László to become a heroin addict and start shoveling coal with his friend Gordon (played by Isaach de Bankolé) to make ends meet.
Three years later, Harrison reaches out to László after his redesigned library has earned the praise of his rich friends, offering him the chance to design a community center in Doylestown, PA with total creative control. László accepts and moves onto the Van Buren estate. László manages to help Erzsébet and their niece Zsófia (played by Raffey Cassidy) immigrate to America, but it soon becomes apparent that antisemitism has followed them across the pond, leading to a tense existence.
The epilogue skips forward to the year 1980 and ends the film with a retrospective on László’s long career, with commentary that recontextualizes the entirety of the picture. Quite fittingly, this event also takes place where the film premiered: The Venice Biennale.
This film also brought back a hallmark of classic films that has sadly become less common: the intermission. When I watched 2023’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” in theatres, the three-and-a-half-hour runtime was challenging to make it through without going to the bathroom. The simple ability to stand up and take a break without missing the film is so convenient, and more films over three hours should consider incorporating one into their runtimes.
Much of the marketing was centered around how the film was shot using the VistaVision process, the first American movie to do so since Marlon Brando’s 1961 directorial feature “One-Eyed Jacks.” Most films today are either shot on vertical 35mm film stock or on digital cameras, and both can have an image quality of around 4K.
VistaVision instead shoots using sideways 35mm film stock, which is able to create an image of up to 6K. This causes the film grain and artifacts to be much more noticeable to the average moviegoer, especially when blown up on a theater screen on a 70mm print. This movie is the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography and would be a great winner.
The original score composed by Daniel Blumberg is simply electrifying to behold. Every time the grandiose horns and triumphant crescendos played I could feel my theater reverberating from the sheer volume. This is nothing short of the best score of the year and it absolutely deserves to win the Oscar.
Adrian Brody has been sweeping the entire awards season, as his commanding performance ranks among his career-best works. While Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones seem unlikely to win in the Supporting categories, Brody will earn his second Oscar for Best Actor.
The work that director Brady Corbet has done on just his third feature film ever, and only a budget of ten million dollars, is simply astounding. To go from 2018’s “Vox Lux” to this gargantuan achievement in filmmaking is simply astonishing. For creating this modern masterpiece of cinema, he deserves to win the Oscar for Best Director and have a great career ahead of him.
Mark my words, when people look back on the films of 2024, they will be thinking of “The Brutalist.” This is the great American epic for our times, and I implore you to see it projected on the biggest screen you possibly can. My final rating for “The Brutalist” is a monumental 10/10.
P.S. You can read the rest of my reviews of the Best Picture Nominees for the 97th Academy Awards at hamlineoracle.com.