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One night last month, near the end of the Chicago International Film Festival, a particularly long line of moviegoers snaked down Southport Avenue by the Music Box Theatre. The hot ticket? This fall’s hottest ticket, in fact, all over the international festival circuit? Well, it’s a 215-minute drama about a fictional Hungarian Jewish architect who emigrates to America in 1947 after surviving the Holocaust. The film’s title, “The Brutalist,” references several things, firstly a post-World War II design imperative made of stern concrete, steel, and a collision of poetry and functionality. Director and co-writer Brady Corbet, who wrote “The Brutalist” with his filmmaker wife, Mona Fastvold, explores brutalism in other forms as well, including love, envy, capitalist economics and how the promise of America eludes someone like the visionary architect László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody. Corbet, now 36 and a good bet for Oscar nominations this coming January, says his unfashionable sprawl of a picture, being distributed by A24, is also about the “strange relationship between artist and patron, and art and commerce.” It co-stars Felicity Jones as the visionary architect’s wife, Erzsébet, trapped in Eastern Europe after the war with their niece for an agonizingly long time. Guy Pearce portrays the imperious Philadelphia blueblood who hires Tóth, a near-invisible figure in his adopted country, to design a monumental public building known as the Institute in rural Pennsylvania. The project becomes an obsession, then a breaking point and then something else. Corbet’s project, which took the better part of a decade to come together after falling apart more than once, felt like that, too. Spanning five decades and filmed in Hungary and Italy, “The Brutalist” looks like a well-spent $50 million project. In actuality, it was made for a mere $10 million, with Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley shooting on film, largely in the VistaVision process. The filmmaker said at the Chicago festival screening: “Who woulda thunk that for screening after screening over the last couple of months, people stood in line around the block to get into a three-and-a-half-hour movie about a mid-century designer?” He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with Fastvold and their daughter. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Q: Putting together an independent movie, keeping it on track, getting it made: not easy, as you told the Music Box audience last night. Money is inevitably going to be part of the story of “The Brutalist,” since you had only so much to make a far-flung historical epic. A: Yeah, that’s right. In relation to my earlier features, “The Childhood of a Leader” had a $3 million budget. The budget for “Vox Lux” was right around $10 million, same as “The Brutalist,” although the actual production budget for “Vox Lux” was about $4.5 million. Which is to say: All the money on top of that was going to all the wrong places. For a lot of reasons, when my wife and I finished the screenplay for “The Brutalist,” we ruled out scouting locations in Philadelphia or anywhere in the northeastern United States. We needed to (film) somewhere with a lot less red tape. My wife’s previous film, “The World to Come,” she made in Romania; we shot “Childhood of a Leader” in Hungary. For “The Brutalist” we initially landed on Poland, but this was early on in COVID and Poland shut its borders the week our crew was arriving for pre-production. When we finally got things up and running again with a different iteration of the cast (the original ensemble was to star Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard and Mark Rylance), after nine months, the movie fell apart again because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We couldn’t get any of the banks to cash-flow the tax credit (for location shooting in Poland). It’s completely stable now, but at that time the banks were nervous about whether the war would be contained to Ukraine or not. And then we finally got it up and running in Budapest, Hungary. Q: That’s a long time. A: Every filmmaker I know suffers from some form of post-traumatic stress (laughs). It sounds funny but it’s true. At every level. On the level of independent cinema, you’re just so damn poor. You’re not making any money, and yet from nose to tail, at minimum, a movie always takes a couple of years. With bigger projects, you might have a little more personal security but a lot less creative security with so many more cooks in the kitchen. Either route you choose, it can be an arduous and painful one. Whether you’re making a movie for a million dollars, or $10 million, or $100 million, it’s still “millions of dollars.” And if you’re concerned about the lives and livelihoods of the people working with you, it’s especially stressful. People are constantly calling you: “Is it happening? Are we starting? Should I take this other job or not?” And you have 250 people who need that answer from you. Every iteration of the project, I always thought we were really about to start in a week, two weeks. It’s just very challenging interpersonally. It’s an imposition for everyone in your life. And then there’s the imposition of screening a movie that’s three-and-a-half-hours long for film festivals, where it’s difficult to find that kind of real estate on the schedule. So essentially, making a movie means constantly apologizing. Q: At what point in your acting career did you take a strong interest in what was going on behind the camera? A: I was making short films when I was 11, 12 years old. The first thing I ever made more properly, I guess, was a short film I made when I was 18, “Protect You + Me,” shot by (cinematographer) Darius Khondji. It was supposed to be part of a triptych of films, and I went to Paris for the two films that followed it. And then all the financing fell through. But that first one screened at the London film festival, and won a prize at Sundance, and I was making music videos and other stuff by then. Q: You’ve written a lot of screenplays with your wife. How many? A: Probably 25. We work a lot for other people, too. I think we’ve done six together for our own projects. Sometimes I’ll start something at night and my wife will finish in the morning. Sometimes we work very closely together, talking and typing together. It’s always different. Right now I’m writing a lot on the road, and my wife is editing her film, which is a musical we wrote, “Ann Lee,” about the founder of the Shakers. I’m working on my next movie now, which spans a lot of time, like “The Brutalist,” with a lot of locations. And I need to make sure we can do it for not a lot of money, because it’s just not possible to have a lot of money and total autonomy. For me making a movie is like cooking. If everyone starts coming in and throwing a dash of this or that in the pot, it won’t work out. A continuity of vision is what I look for when I read a novel. Same with watching a film. A lot of stuff out there today, appropriately referred to as “content,” has more in common with a pair of Nikes than it does with narrative cinema. Q: Yeah, I can’t imagine a lot of Hollywood executives who’d sign off on “The Brutalist.” A: Well, even with our terrific producing team, I mean, everyone was up for a three-hour movie but we were sort of pushing it with three-and-a-half (laughs). I figured, worst-case scenario, it opens on a streamer. Not what I had in mind, but people watch stuff that’s eight, 12 hours long all the time. They get a cold, they watch four seasons of “Succession.” (A24 is releasing the film in theaters, gradually.) It was important for all of us to try to capture an entire century’s worth of thinking about design with “The Brutalist.” For me, making something means expressing a feeling I have about our history. I’ve described my films as poetic films about politics, that go to places politics alone cannot reach. It’s one thing to say something like “history repeats itself.” It’s another thing to make people see that, and feel it. I really want viewers to engage with the past, and the trauma of that history can be uncomfortable, or dusty, or dry. But if you can make it something vital, and tangible, the way great professors can do for their students, that’s my definition of success. “The Brutalist” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 20. The Chicago release is Jan. 10, 2025. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

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THE Government’s target to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years risks leaving the UK hooked on high migration, experts have warned. Sir Keir Starmer last week vowed to go on an ambitious housebuilding frenzy — meaning the construction of around 900 a day for half a decade — to give families the “security” of their own home. But politicians and construction bosses warned the worthy aim risks turning into a humiliating flop because the UK has failed to train enough homegrown builders. The building industry says it is in “freefall” and needs another 300,000 workers over the next five years just to keep up with demand. And a woeful failure to train enough brickies, electricians and carpenters has left the UK reliant on foreign migrants at our building sites. Celebrity builder Ian Hodgkinson — who appears on hit TV show DIY SOS — said the target cannot be hit without bringing in more foreign workers. READ MORE ON HOME BUILDING He said the pledge is “teetering on the edge of disaster” and immediate action is needed to stop the housing crisis spiralling further out of control. Chris Philp , the shadow home secretary, warned that No 10 must “avoid reaching for high immigration to hit these construction targets”. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage said the housing crisis is caused by sky-high migration and demanded the “madness” of hiring brickies abroad to end. Currently, the UK is only on track to build around one million new homes over five years. Most read in The Sun Earlier this year, the Construction and Industry Training Board estimated that another 250,000 builders were needed in the next four years just to keep up with demand. The Home Builders Federation estimates that an extra 300,000 will be needed to hit the Government’s target. This would include 95,000 bricklayers, 37,000 carpenters and 15,000 plasterers. Yet they also warned Brits on vocational construction courses are not getting the skills they need and often not going into the building trade at all. Building firms are hiring foreign workers instead. This is fuelling sky-high net migration — which stood at 728,000 in the year ending in June. A long list of construction jobs are on the shortage occupation list, meaning bosses can hire from abroad. This includes bricklayers, welders, stonemasons, roofers, carpenters, joiners and other construction workers. Some 12,700 construction workers applied for visas to the UK between January 2021 and September 2024, according to the Home Office . There is no limit to how many “dependent” family members they can bring with them. But an estimated 120,000 foreign builders went home during the pandemic , leaving construction firms desperately short-staffed. The big building companies are only too happy to pay for foreign labour from abroad Mr Hodgkinson said there is no way the 1.5 million target would be hit without more foreign workers. He said: “Training new workers takes time — years, not months. “Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on housing targets, and construction companies are struggling to keep up with demand. The maths simply doesn’t add up: fewer workers, more houses, and no realistic solution to bridge the gap.” Britain is also facing a shortage of building supplies, he warned. Building 1.5 million homes will mean getting around six billion bricks, 20 million tons of concrete and five million tons of timber. Writing in The Sun on Sunday, Mr Farage says hiring foreign workers will backfire because it fuels migration and makes it harder for Brits to find a home. He says: “The big building companies are only too happy to pay for foreign labour from abroad. Not the answer “The reason is very simple indeed. They are just cheaper. But that means the immigration numbers go up, which means an even higher demand for housing. This takes us straight back to square one. This madness has got to end.” Tory frontbencher Mr Philp also warned immigration is not the answer. He said: “The British people overwhelmingly believe — and I agree — that immigration is far, far too high. “Importing workers to build new homes will actually make the housing crisis worse as they have to live somewhere themselves.” READ MORE SUN STORIES Housing minister Matthew Pennycook yesterday vowed that Britain would not rely on foreign workers to hit the building target. He said Britain must “do more to upskill our own workforce” and promised to ramp up apprenticeships. The Government has announced another 5,000 construction apprenticeships a year. By Nigel Farage , Leader of Reform THE Prime Minister has reiterated his determination to build 1,500,000 homes over the next five years — and to do so by whatever means necessary. If he has to rip up the planning rules he says that he will. The country desperately needs more houses as there is not only a shortage but the problem of affordability. More houses in theory should mean cheaper houses. But how on earth do you get to build them all? What he did not say — and what so few in our public life dare to mention — is the real reason behind this crisis. It is of course mass immigration — on a scale we have never seen before in this country. We are living through a population explosion which means we have to build one new home every two minutes just to keep up. It is a truly frightening statistic. To achieve these targets we are going to need tens of thousands more construction workers on site up and down the country. And this is where another problem begins. The big building companies are only too happy to pay for labour from abroad. The reason is very simple indeed. They are just cheaper. But that means immigration numbers go up. And that means an even higher demand for housing. This takes us straight back to square one. This madness has got to end. It is time our education system stopped pushing so many teenagers on to university to study social sciences. In most cases these students leave with large debts around their neck and with no advancement in the work marketplace. So I want to encourage our young people to become plumbers, carpenters and bricklayers. They will earn a far better living with a trade and a skill set for their future. There are also vast numbers of young people on disability benefits — in many cases, through conditions such as depression. To begin, we ought to try to inspire these young people so that they can do so much better for themselves and in their lives. Therefore they would be much happier and fulfilled. British workers need to fill this new huge demand placed on our construction industry. And if that means that the big building companies have to pay higher salaries and therefore make smaller profits then overall this has to be a good thing — not a bad thing. Equally there are those living on disability benefits that are using this support as a lifestyle choice. If necessary we will have to force these people back to work. And where better could they be used than on construction sites earning decent money? The population explosion can and must be stopped. We have to start saying British jobs for British workers — and actually mean it.

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