After sitting with László Tóth (Adrien Brody)’s epic journey for 215 minutes in Brady Corbet’s film, it certainly seems like The Brutalist is based on true events—it’s utterly convincing enough. One may have convinced themselves during The Brutalist’s intermission that they once read about the community center in Pennsylvania whose construction takes up the bulk of the plot. But The Brutalist is simply not a true story, and László Tóth was not a real Hungarian architect. Brutalism is indeed a real mid-century architectural movement, but the film just dances around this history, and none of the specific happenings in the film actually occurred.
‘The Brutalist’ Uses Narrative Structure to Its Advantage

One of the reasons The Brutalist feels so real is that it’s structured like a biopic, as all the typical tropes and conventions associated with the genre of film are there. It’s an epic revolving around a single person, which is basically what biopics serve as for their subjects. The Brutalist has as much in common with The Aviator as The Godfather due to the fact that the story is grand in scope, yet focused on what is arguably is the most important part of the subject’s life. This is what screenwriter Scott Myers would call a “snapshot biopic” as opposed to a “cradle to grave” biopic, as he explains in a 2019 blog post. He also cites The Imitation Game and Jackie as key examples.
The Brutalist introduces László at a low status and humble time in his adult life. Audiences are to witness how he is discovered in America and how his eventual success changes him over time—it is about the creation of what would be the character’s greatest work. How László reconciles art with commerce and work with his personal life drives the drama, like recent biopics Maestro and A Complete Unknown. The employers who refuse to compensate him are not unlike the greasy studio executives often found in classic music biopics, and László even has a drug addiction that threatens to topple his career. The film ultimately plays out quite similarly to Walk Hard, a biopic parody that identified many key conventions in this genre, that it would be laughable if The Brutalist wasn’t so good. The retrospective of László’s work in that epilogue makes the audience feel as if we’ve seen a man’s full life. And yet, László Tóth and his epic story are both as fictional as Lydia Tár.
This Real Person Named László Tóth Is Not ‘The Brutalist’

There are, however, some fascinating true stories around the edges of The Brutalist. If one were to look up the name of Brody’s character, an infamous Hungarian named Laszlo Toth should appear in the search results. Let it be clear, they are not the same person—the real Laszlo was a geologist, not an architect, best known for vandalizing Michelangelo’s Pietà in Rome in 1972. Wearing a tuxedo and claiming to be Christ reborn, he attacked the statue with a hammer. Toth was committed instead of jailed and ultimately deported back to his home in Australia. After the incident, he was a subject of public interest for a brief period.
Corbet’s name choice for his protagonist is perhaps intentional and/or ironic. The Brutalist is shot in the real marble quarry in Italy (Carrara) where Michelangelo sourced materials for his statues, including the Pietà. The fictional László takes his client Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) there to source marble for the community center they’re building. As Los Angeles Times critic Amy Nicholson points out in her review of the film, Michelangelo worked for contentious employers who refused to compensate him, just like László in the film.

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Subtle and clever details like this serve to ground the story in reality and give us even more to chew on after watching The Brutalist. Can building a community center ever be art? Is using marble from such a famous quarry to appease a rich man’s whims any more insulting than vandalizing a statue? Was Michelangelo just as much of a sellout? How do we differentiate between mental instability and genius? It’s fascinating how much one name, shared by a real person and a fictional individual, ties these themes and ideas together.
The Brutalist has been released in limited theaters across the U.S.

The Brutalist follows visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet as they flee Europe, aiming to rebuild their legacy in modern America. Their journey takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious and wealthy client alters the course of their lives, intertwining ambition with the challenges of a new world.

Release Date

December 20, 2024

Director

Brady Corbet

Cast

Adrien Brody
, Guy Pearce
, Felicity Jones
, Joe Alwyn
, Raffey Cassidy
, Stacy Martin
, Emma Laird
, Isaach De Bankole
, Alessandro Nivola
, Michael Epp
, Jonathan Hyde
, Peter Polycarpou
, Salvatore Sansone
, Ariane Labed
, Jeremy Wheeler
, Jaymes Butler
, Matt Devere
, Natalie Shinnick
, Stephen Saracco
, Peter Linka
, Robert Jackson

Runtime

215 Minutes

Main Genre

Drama

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