Arts & Culture
2025 Oscars: Picks and Predictions
|
On Thursday, Jan. 23, the nominations for the 97th Oscars were announced, and we have opinions. Here are picks and predictions from some of our Arts and Culture editors and staff.
Arts & Culture
‘The Brutalist’ on Art, Capitalism and the Immigrant Experience
|
Perhaps the most famous Brutalist building in the United States is the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Brutalist architecture is characterized by raw concrete walls, imposing geometrism and repetition, reshaping space for the human collective and providing a site of modern living and life for the people.
The J. Edgar Hoover Building was voted the ugliest building in the U.S. in 2023. Perhaps it’s no surprise that director Brady Corbet uses the tensions between Brutalist and American visuals and ideals to unearth the tensions between the Jewish immigrant and artistic experience in the U.S.
In the film, The Brutalist, László Tóth is a Jewish immigrant, Holocaust survivor and architect. In the first act, “The Enigma of Arrival,” László arrives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Maybe this is the American Dream he should strive for: A shot of the Statue of Liberty upside down wavering in the sky and his friend Attila (Alessandro Nivola) who has changed his last name to assimilate.