Brutalist cinematographer on a fast shooting schedule

The running time of three and a half hours did not change the route Brutalist cameraman Lol Crawley worked. The low budget (under $10 million), the fact that he had previously worked with director Brady Corbet (2015 The childhood of a leader and in 2018 Vox Lux) and Corbet’s directorial approach contributed to the concise way the film was shot.

“I think the filmmakers said, ‘I didn’t know you could do this anymore: shoot on 35mm, have this thematic epic — but also the scope and length of the intermission — for less than $10 million,'” Crawley says. The Hollywood Reporter edition A24. “It felt no different than how I’ve worked with Brady in the past and there was never any discussion about duration.”

Brutalist — about the Hungarian Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who flees the Holocaust and moves to the USA, where he meets a rich industrialist who changes his life — was shot in the VistaVision format, which is rarely used today. The higher resolution, due to the rotated image, allowed 70mm prints to be made for film festivals and screenings although Crawley never shot on a larger format than 35mm.

The film was shot in 34 days. “I’m very time-conscious, and Brady is a very pragmatic director. He doesn’t do a lot of coverage and he doesn’t give himself a lot of options,” Crawley explains. “Basically, what you see in the film is what we shot. He really knows what he wants, and some of the most important scenes in the film were shot in one take.”

One of those scenes – spoilers ahead – involves Felicity Jones’ character Erzsébet accusing Guy Pearce’s Harrison Lee Van Buren of being a rapist during dinner at the Van Buren house. The sequence begins peacefully but ends in chaos as she is violently attacked by Van Buren’s son (played by Joe Alwyn) and kicked out of the house. Hungarian Steadicam operator Attila Pfeffer shot the sequence, which Corbet wanted to look like Steadicam-on-handheld-on-Steadicam footage. That scene was also a 360-degree shot, often shot in single frames.

“Attila was holding the Steadicam and operating it like it was a hand-held camera, and the Steadicam was hanging off him,” explains Crawley, adding that in terms of blocking that scene, “it was very challenging, but we were able to hide things where we could,” using lighting as a resource.

To help Crawley prepare to shoot some of the Brutalist buildings in the film, Corbet gave him a book on the style of a particular building and Crawley studied the images before going on location. He also sought inspiration from the works of modernist painters such as Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper.

The most challenging scene for Crawley was one he didn’t light at all and relied on nature to do the work for him. In the scene, Van Buren leads his guests to the hillside, where he plans to build what is known as the Institute.

“It was like a six-page scene, but it was all shot in about 40 minutes because of the available light,” says Crawley. “It should feel like twilight is turning into night, so we wouldn’t be able to have bright sun. When the sun went down, we had to achieve everything in this time period, and it’s an absolute testament to the cast and Brady that we were able to pull it off. If they didn’t make it, we’d have to go back and there would be a break in lighting or weather.”

The weather caused a problem in the second scene as well. During their location scouting in the Carrara marble quarries in Tuscany, there was no fog, but on the day they returned to film László and Van Buren searching for a piece of marble to complete the Institute, the entire quarry was shrouded in thick fog.

“There was a lot of available light and we really embraced what it was,” he says, “but we had a different idea of ​​what the place would look like. When we showed up, we couldn’t see anything. But now that’s the beauty of the movie. That whole sequence takes on a really weird dreamlike quality.”

He adds: “This is probably my favorite sequence in the film, and it starts with these VistaVision images, almost like Sebastião Salgado’s photographs, where you see these South American mines where hundreds of people are working. It’s interesting because it’s the setting in which the most brutal act of the film takes place — where László is attacked by Van Buren — but the landscape itself is also brutally attacked by humanity.”

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