The Brutalist, a film by Brady Corbet

Bauhaus meets Bathos. 

I enjoy long movies, if the length is justified. In the case of Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, justification falls in the category of “I just wanted to,” not “The story needs this.” Laszlo Toth, the Brutalist architect subject of this pic, is portrayed as a junkie, homosexual, a Hungarian Jewish refugee whose best friend is a Black man, in America starting in 1947. Are these Corbet’s conceits, inserted to make Toth more relevant to our time, or more appealing, or sympathetic, or whatever? And, more to the point, what do any of those character traits have to do with Toth’s vision as a designer? 

This busy movie has 2 fully-realized characters: Adrien Brody’s Toth and Guy Pearce’s Harrison Van Buren. The rest are vehicles, sidekicks, and amplifiers of their passions. Brody plays a tormented outsider with creative vision, as he has before (think The Pianist). Guy Pearce gets to chew the scenery as a volatile man rich enough to force people to his will. He becomes Toth’s patron after a surprise by his children (transformation of his fusty library/ reading room into a modern space), which first enrages, then fascinates him. 

What the two men find in each other is a good listener. Van Buren waxes long-winded about his relationship with his mother, and with her parents who shunned her as an out-of-wedlock mother until in their old age they sought support. Then he pulled a cruel trick. He tells this story with the pride of a man who has bested a demon. Toth’s more circumspect, but he does talk about his artistry – the only part of this rambling film that interested me. 

Temper flare-ups from the clash between purity of vision and the realities of construction are performative. And why is Toth’s Black friend Gordon (Isaach de Bankole), who follows him from Philadelphia to sharing his bedroom at the Van Buren estate, accepted as his friend and equal? This relationship is not supported by the reality of 1950s America. Gordon, like other plot vehicles, serves a purpose: he introduces Toth to heroin. 

Even Toth’s Judaism feels like Corbet checking a box – Toth doesn’t mind designing Christian churches, nor does he seek friendship or comfort in the synagogue where he attends services. As an Orthodox Jew I didn’t see him refusing trayf foods – either his Jewish heritage matters to him or it doesn’t. 

The film is indulgent – I could take an hour out of its running time and you’d never miss it. My advice to Mr. Corbet is to go see Universal Language, a brilliantly subversive film by Matthew Rankin, in which you never know what’s going to happen next, but it makes its own sense when it does. In The Brutalist, I could see every plot twist coming a mile off. 

Adrien Brody, on the other hand, should play Samuel Beckett – if Tom Stoppard wrote the script, and Matthew Rankin directed, I’d go see that, whatever its run-time.

Writing: Good Endings

Coming up with a good ending for a short story or novel is either a fluid mindless process, when the subconscious provides one, or just about impossible, if the writer has to think it through then frame it in words that don't seem labored.

A great ending elevates the story - it's worth the effort to get it right. My current favorite is Samuel Beckett's "Dante and the Lobster" (in the collections "More Pricks than Kicks" and "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On") - read it! The story provides hilarious and vivid imagery as the reader makes the rounds of his day with the protagonist. All seems in keeping with the grim view he takes of life and his techniques for prolonging it with agonized ritual, including the funniest bit about toast I've ever read.
Then, the final sentence: "It is not."
In three words Beckett demolishes the reader's comfort and amusement.
It's shocking, it's profound. It makes you wonder "How did he do that?" and "Can I ever possibly do that?"

The best endings I've written have showed up in the wee hours, when part of my brain is conscious but the rest zoned out, and my subconscious has free rein to neatly wrap things up. But if I have to do more than tweak that final image, I'm doomed. It won't cooperate. Writing ten or twenty alternate endings doesn't seem to get me any closer.

Some people write from an outline, so they know going in, more-or-less how a story will end. Do they feel an inspirational thrill when they get there? Does the ending write itself, or was it already there, and the function of the story is to reach the point where it comes next?

I enjoy being amazed by my characters - their resilience, their senses of humor, their understanding in the face of disaster that there is a Next. And when we get to the end of a story, they help me bring all the loose ends together - there's something magical about it. I type but they dictate.

Part of an effective ending is keeping the reader on the hook. In "Ladder of Years", Anne Tyler doesn't resolve her protagonist's dilemma until the final page - you can't put down the novel if you care about her at all. But when a book fizzles and you don't get there, it's frustrating. Brian Hall's "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company" about Lewis and Clark's expedition, goes on and on after the leaders return from westward exploration. I stopped reading with about fifty pages left - whether they lived happy or miserable lives afterwards didn't matter to me.

A good ending is the height of aesthetics, providing a summation of the story's conflicts and a direction the protagonist will go. When well done, this shifts the reader from the circumstances at hand to the universals beneath. When we're given a good ending we feel we've gained by reading the story - and when it's unsatisfying, we have that urge to hurl the book across the room - "I read all those pages for THAT!?"