In Brady Corbet’s film of the year, The Brutalist, the architect protagonist, despite being devoted to raw concrete, leads the reluctant client to choose the block of stone that will become the altar at the center of his great project. The film moves away from the United States for a dreamlike and breathtaking interlude shot in a very white marble quarry in Carrara.
What does Carrara marble have to do with a film about a brutalist — who by definition works with béton brut, exposed concrete — from Budapest who immigrated to the United States? Evidently the aura of natural stone knows no bounds: it certainly reached director Brady Corbet, a thirty-six-year-old from Arizona, who had been trying for years to obtain permission to film inside the Carrara quarries. Until he happened to talk about it with the actor starring in his latest film, Adrien Brody, who revealed that he was a close friend of the owner of one of the quarries. And this explains the sudden transition halfway through The Brutalist from the rural landscapes of Pennsylvania to the iconic Apuan Alps, in particular to Mount Bettogli, where the Statuario and Calacatta marbles are extracted.
From: naturalstoneisbetter.com
Credits: Universal Pictures
