The truth behind ‘The Brutalist’: who was really Laszló Tóth and what’s true in the movie that stars Adrien Brody

‘The brutalist’ It has been one of the great winners of the awards season, waiting to see what happens on Oscar night, which goes with 10 nominations. He has done it without making a lot of noise and as one of the tapes with less budget that this Sunday, March 2, the award for best film is chosen. Despite its mastodontic dimensions on the big screen, the tape of Brady Corbet He barely needed $ 9 million to film and has raised around 37.3 million dollars In movie theaters around the world.

The argument that the American filmmaker, who opts for the award of best director, raises and unravels in the 215 minutes of footage of the tape (plus 15 minutes of intermediate) is well known: a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust He arrives in the United States in 1947 in search of a new life. The protagonist, this time, is László Toth (Adrien Brody)a successful architect who has had to flee from his native Hungary and who is separated by the force of his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones). On his arrival in Pennsylvania, he knows Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce)a well -known businessman who is responsible for the construction of a great monument.

However, Toth’s is not, from afar, a story about “the American dream” of which Hollywood cinema has presumed for generations, but quite the opposite: it is a film that deals with Define this myth From the eyes of a foreigner. Despite his talent, the arrival of this Hungarian Jew lights the alarms in this Protestant and anti -Semitic environmentwhere he and his family are seen and treated as strangers. In the background, the brutalist architecture of the 50s that characterize Brody’s character, used as a metaphor on «how Immigrant experience can be parallel to artistic struggle», Explains Corbet himself to the BBC.

This period drama has managed to conquer a good part of the spectators for the reality that counts in front of the cameras about one of the key moments of the twentieth century. The experiences of its protagonists, László and Erzsébet, are absolutely truthful, although, contrary to what many believe, behind it A real story is not hidden from any.

Who really was László Tóth in real life?

Did there really László Tóth? That is one of the multiple questions that some of the spectators who have approached to enjoy ‘The Brutalist’ have been asked to cinemas. Far from reality, the truth is that the Jewish architect who gives life Adrien Brody It is not a real personbeyond the coincidence of names with some renowned Hungarian characters.

The name of Lászlo Tóth is relatively common in Hungarywhich is why his screenwriters, Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, opted for him: it was what Antonio García to Spain or John Smith to the United States. In fact, there are several celebrities who have the name of the film’s protagonist: the Australian geologist who disfigured the piety of Miguel Ángel, a footballer, a water polo player, a Formula 3 pilot or an actor, among others.

Although this holocaust survivor was never real and there are no examples that no Hungarian from the Bauhaus school survived the holocaust, Toth was based on some is based on some Jewish artists of the brutalist era that would have been his contemporaries. Specifically, we talk about Estonian Louis Kahnthe German Mies van der Rohe And, above all, the Hungarian Marcel Breueralthough they all emigrated to the United States years before World War II exploded in Europe.

Like the protagonist of ‘The Brutalist’, Breuer, known for having designed the Met Breuer Museum in New York and the Wassily chair, also started the Brutalist Church project. This is the San Juan Abbey in Minnesotaproject that ended in 1967, which could have served as inspiration for the community center that Buren commissioned Toth on the film’s argument. According to Brady Corbet, this architect, who died in 1981, was “One of the greatest sources of inspiration for ‘The Brutalist’.”

Is ‘The Brutalist’ based on real events? The real story of the Oscar nominated film

‘The brutalist’ It is not based on a real storyas it happens with other films nominated for the Oscar awards, nor follow the guidelines of any published biography. However, the story that this film tells, beyond the construction of the building in charge of Van Buren (Guy Pearce), sounds familiar to all those who have been introduced on occasion in the World War II ins and outs.

Although the truth is that there was never any Jewish architect of Hungarian origin named Lásló Tóth and ‘The Brutalist’ does not tell the life of any real character, the argument does collect a historical event that splashed many European citizens: the postwar period and its consequences. As can be seen on the tape, Adrien Brody’s character embodies the Thousands of Hungarian Jews who were persecuted In the Holocaust and that emigrated to the United States in search of a new life.

It is estimated that, of the 400,000 people that the United States hosted between 1945 and 1952 after the Law of Displaced Persons of 1948, 80,000 were beans. Once there, as is the protagonist, many found Bruces with the stereotypes that at that time were over the Jews. However, unlike Toth, many of these newcomer immigrants could not rebuild their lives or their races after the escape.

The same goes for his love story of the protagonist with his wife, Erzsébet, trapped in Hungary with her niece waiting to meet her husband. And, although the Marriage separated by war That Brady Corbet shows on the big screen was not real, many families did live this same situation. «The film is about generational traumathe experience of immigrants is mostly universal. I do not know anyone who has not been affected by her, or whose family has not been affected by her, in one way or another, ”said the director in an interview for The Jewish Chronicle.