Any independent filmmaker will tell you that getting a movie financed, produced and released is akin to summiting a mountain. Rockslides, however, are less common.
Brady Corbet had to brace for one nonetheless, to complete his ambitious and impressively inexpensive “The Brutalist” — a three-hour-and-change epic made for a measly $10 million. The expansive story of a Hungarian architect and his haughty patron required Corbet and team to shoot in the marble quarries of northern Tuscany — where rockslides constantly shift the landscape.
“Mother Nature is pissed,” Corbet exclaims to his friend Sean Baker, the writer-director of this year’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora.” Baker is used to outsmarting forces of nature to deliver his microbudget indies (like “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket”) to the world. For “Anora,” the tale of a hopeful sex worker’s unhinged affair with the son of a Russian oligarch, he found himself “making, borrowing and stealing” whatever he could to get the project across the finish line. This included casting civilians with no prior acting credits in key roles, raiding the diners of Coney Island and shooting guerrilla footage of New Yorkers in their element.
The two indie veterans compare battle scars from the years spent getting passion projects onto the screen during a recent sit-down in Los Angeles.
Sean Baker: Brady, you said “The Brutalist” was harder for you than your previous feature film, “Vox Lux,” but you had a bigger budget.
Brady Corbet: “Vox” was made in a very American, standard way. What’s funny is that even though those two films had roughly the same gross budget, we had a lot more money to spend on “The Brutalist” because it was a much healthier financial structure.
Baker: I eventually have to get out of this country. It’s very expensive to shoot here. It’s really, really difficult.
Corbet: I know.
Baker: The way I was able to shoot in New York this time around was to do it tiny and under the radar. Use all the guerrilla indie techniques. To put all the money on the screen by making, borrowing and stealing. But I don’t know how much longer I can do that. It’s taxing on everybody.
Corbet: We already had a draft of “The Brutalist” by the time I finished “Vox.” I said to my wife, “There’s no way in hell we’re going to shoot this in the U.S.” I saw so much money being spent on the wrong things [on “Vox”]. “Brutalist” is set in Philadelphia in the late 1940s. … I needed a place that could pass for [the neighborhood] Kensington, which has a lot of smokestacks and warehouses. There’s something about Hungary — great texture everywhere. There’s cobblestone, and the paint is peeling off.
Baker: It feels stuck in time.
Corbet: And the crews are fantastic. There are also two film labs, and the appeal of shooting in Budapest for us is that you have two to choose from and it makes it feasible to shoot on celluloid — you’re not shipping your negative across the border.
Baker: Where did you shoot the marble sequence?
Corbet: That was Carrara, where all the white marble comes from. We shot in the quarry where Michelangelo carved the Pietà. It’s an insane place. Mother Nature is, of course, pretty pissed off, so it’s very dangerous. There are constant rockslides. So much of “The Brutalist” is about possessing that which cannot be possessed. A patron [Guy Pearce] is trying to possess an artist [Adrien Brody] by collecting not just his work, but also collecting him. Something about Carrara and its materials should not be possessed, yet we’re using it to line our bathrooms and kitchens. We shot there for two or three days.
Baker: I knew going into “Anora” that it was going to be [a run time of] 2:20. Two weeks out from production, we had to make a presale for everything to work and for us to move forward.
Corbet: An international presale?
Baker: Yes. I had to sign a contract saying I would deliver the film at 2:10. That killed me, because I knew I was lying when I signed the contract. It’s not cool, because I lived with that stress for over a year. I got to the point where it was two hours long, and I knew there’s no way I’m wrapping this film up in 10 minutes. They said, “Oh, just make a good movie, and if it’s good enough, no problem.”
Corbet: By what metric?
Baker: Never, ever again. I would rather not make that film than deal with the stress.
Corbet: I find sometimes, the reactions from a general audience [feel] very corporate. People are talking about a film’s box office receipts versus whether it was a great movie. I find that really strange. When I was growing up, I didn’t know how much something was making at the box office. It was irrelevant. There are many films I’ve loved over the course of my life that were not big hits. They were culturally impactful movies that have stood the test of time.
Baker: It’s quite capitalist. “Hooray! Let’s cheer for the big box office win and shame the bomb.”
Corbet: It’s just like the president-elect talking about how many butts he’s put in seats at the stadium or whatever.
Baker: Exactly. I feel for younger filmmakers coming up. They have a harder battle. I got my foot in the door as it was slamming shut. If I had to navigate the current climate trying to get my film seen? It seems really tough because there’s so much more competition. When filmmakers ask me for advice — I hate giving it; I haven’t really figured out my life — but I say if you’re making good stuff you will eventually get recognized. It may take 20 years, but keep that persistence and faith that you’re making something good enough to be recognized. I was introduced to you as an actor. You were going from being an incredible actor to an incredible director. You’ve worked with Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke and Gregg Araki. Did you know you were going to become a filmmaker when you were on those sets?
Corbet: It’s a long story about how I fell into this. I had a single mother, and I was an only child living in a small town — which happened to be one of those hubs for national casting calls. Prior to Windows 95 and the dawn of the internet, there were 12 to 13 hubs where they would look for someone to play young Ethan Hawke or something. Places like Tallahassee or Dallas or, in my case, a town called Glenwood Springs, Colo. I grew up with all these child actors, like a young woman named Hanna Hall who was the little girl that screams, “Run, Forrest, run!” in “Forrest Gump.” I was happy to come in and say, “Would you like fries with that?” if it was on a project that I really cared about. I didn’t make my first film, “Childhood of a Leader,” until I was 24, and I realized when I was setting it up that the only way to get that movie done was to focus on that one thing. I now know well this is not a job that you can do part time.
Baker: 100%. I can’t creatively juggle.
Corbet: I want to know about the way you cast movies.
Baker: I cast with my wife, Samantha Quan. It’s not just casting on the street anymore. I have access to agents that I can call directly. I’m always keeping that cap on. Suzanna Son [“Red Rocket”] was found because we were at the ArcLight. We were leaving a movie, and she was across the lobby. There were 50 people there, but she was a bright light. We said, “We have to go and talk to her right now.” And it’s gotten easier with my films because now I can say I’ve made “The Florida Project.”
Corbet: Totally. You’re not like a creeper anymore.
Baker: Yeah.
Corbet: I remember when I was casting “Childhood of a Leader,” I kept walking up to parents saying, “You have a beautiful little boy. He’d be perfect for my movie.” Not the best opener.
Baker: Exactly. I’ve [also] been in situations with supporting cast where they just walked away. We have somebody in “Florida Project” that we shot with for a day, and then she disappeared. She had more scenes. I had to make her character smaller, but she made the trailer of the movie.
Corbet: We could do this forever.
Baker: I love “The Brutalist” so much, and I can’t wait to see it again.
Corbet: Congratulations to you and the entire cast. “Anora” is really something to be proud of and I mean it.