Guy Pearce received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. in The Brutalist.
Guy Pearce has finally got his Oscar nomination, which is one of those things that is merely a ridiculous notion given his great work in films like L.A. Confidential and Memento where he should’ve easily made a given five. Regardless, we can all take a moment and appreciate that his overdo recognition has finally come due. I have to admit though as much as Pearce was receiving the “buzz” for this performance in this film, I did have certain concerns going into this film, because as much as Pearce is a great actor who has excelled in many complex roles of various personalities, I always found he struggled a bit with straight villains, so coming into this film where he was said to play the villain, I had my concerns. And I will admit my concerns were not alleviated when he entered into the first scene where László Tóth (Adrien Brody) was finishing work with his cousin in refurbishing Pearce’s rich Harrison Lee Van Buren’s office in his mansion into a reading room at the behest of Harrison’s son. Something that falls onto deaf ears as Harrison, and Pearce storm into the room/film. And Pearce is all into this scene, screaming near the top of his lungs, his face red and just pure rage in the scene as he unleashes a tirade about the men ruining everything, despite their protests and explanations, still yelling as they leave his presence. A scene that is a whole lot, and Pearce is at such an intense level at the moment I was honestly very concerned that this would be Pearce’s setting for much of the film and we would get the singular arch portrayal of a villain we’ve sometimes seen him fall into.
Thankfully that is not the case and instead that actually feeds into the overall portrait of Pearce, which is a purposeful and brilliant creation of the old school industrialist from the top down. Everything that Pearce does on the cursory is crafting this very specific breeding to be the very best as the American expectation and very specifically of embodying the wasp culture, almost to be the ultimate wasp himself. And Pearce does pull this off, though in large part because after that first scene, and in most scenes much of what Pearce is doing is internalized and quieter, even if the overall creation is fairly broad. It’s a broadness that works in crafting very purposefully this exact type, not unlike, if he had any, the eventual offspring of Daniel Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood, but where we saw the old west still part of that man, this is a man of a similar mentality though designed by a fully “civilized” America. Pearce brings the upright posture, that isn’t just up straight it is dominating his scenes by just how controlled and commanding it all is. His voice of excessive schooling and breeding a way where his accent is a man who has worked long on the accent, not Pearce however, but rather Harrison which Pearce embodies as the man who wishes to present himself as a greater breed than everyone and everything. Something that is even evident in his second scene where he seeks out Tóth, now working on basic construction, in a much calmer fashion than we had seen in his introduction.
Pearce is able to be charming here though the presentation of even that charm is one of immense privilege, where as much as Harrison does apologize for his behavior, there’s a very curious way that Pearce delivers it that is an essential truth to the character. Pearce does apologize while it isn’t false, there’s a specific way that Pearce has this urging tone behind it as though one should recognize and accept it. Pearce is believable enough yet there’s kind of a salesman quality, befitting a successful businessman, where Pearce’s performance does make the “sale” yet it doesn’t feel entirely honest either. In the apology, where Harrison notes his dying mother as reason for his emotion, along with much praise for the atypical designs of Tóth. Pearce’s performance as much as the admiration is real he makes something not quite right in a way, as much as he’s encouraging Tóth, wanting to make sure he will see him later, and making sure that Tóth was able to take a break from this work. Pearce’s eyes as he looks at him are bright, they are filled with a glowing optimism, but it isn’t with a traditional type of warmth. It is rather the sense of opportunity, there’s an underlying quality of greed even with the smile. As much as Harrison is presenting himself as just a “big fan” of what Tóth did, and an admirer, there is nothing so simple about it within Pearce’s work. There is more of a seed there of what will be truly Harrison’s nature as we progress in the film, even though he is more than a little disarming in this scene, Pearce still brings the sense of the man who is doing it all with a less ideal purpose even if he is presenting himself as this ideal.
Harrison ends up inviting Tóth back to his estate as an honored guest where Pearce is truly amazing throughout this sequence. Perhaps the most pivotal of all his scenes is where he recants Tóth with his own story of success, and a bit of his family history. Every line here Pearce brings so much history and insight into, although as was the case with many of the performances of this lineup, several of these elements were not fully illuminated to me until the rewatch. Pearce’s whole way of delivering the lines about Harrison’s children's mother are a distance of meaninglessness, as though the relationship had no connection with him whatsoever. Pearce puts no emphasis on those lines and clearly was a person he held no affection for though it seems to suggest more than that. That is in stark contrast to his speaking about his mother, often referring to her by her first name. Pearce brings a familiarity with her name that has an ease about it and in a way referring to is not as just a loving son, although more on that for a moment. As we get the standout moment where Harrison relates the story of how his grandparents sought money from him after seeking his success, there’s such callous disdain that Pearce brings to every word but also combined with this prideful disregard. As he continues the story which includes mocking his money wanting grandparents by giving them an unsigned check, Pearce brings such a decided sense of self-satisfaction in describing what he did as more than just revenge but as though he’s teaching them. The most disgust in his voice came when they still begged and accepted a much smaller check, and Pearce’s portrayal has such a fascinating juxtaposition between obvious cruelty though presented as though he’s making a righteous overture. Something that follows that perhaps is one of the most precise insights into the character though is just as mentions his mother one more time and that they “did things for each other”. Pearce’s familiarity in that line is not of the loving son, same with the way he speaks her first name, Pearce in just his delivery suggests perhaps the relationship with his mother alludes to Harrison’s sexual nature, which I don’t think is simple as homosexuality, rather something fundamentally twisted starting with perhaps his mother’s relations with him. A moment that became more noticeable as an essential seed to what comes later, but there’s an even clearer moment that I was surprised I didn’t notice the first time around. Which is when he asks Tóth to describe his approach to architecture, Harrison’s reply that he finds their intellectual conversations stimulating, Pearce’s delivery is genius because he tips it just enough not to fascination but to arousal.
What Pearce’s performance ends up being is the idea of don’t be confused between having use for someone and kindness for someone, as much as Harrison seems to be being friendly to Tóth in these scenes, the truth is as even at his apparent nicest moment Harrison still an exploiter at his very core. Take even the dinner scene, where Pearce’s approach again alludes to more than what is spoken, as he speaks again with pride about Tóth but the pride is weird despite being genuine. Genuine in the pride Pearce is beaming with is for Harrison's own sake in his glint in his eyes isn’t of true care or concern, but rather of a man saying “This is mine” though the thing he owns in his mind is Tóth. I love how Pearce undercuts the actual appreciation with how he says that Tóth is well known in architectural journals, something that feels like almost a stumble in his delivery, a force of not really what Harrison cares about other than that it makes it so Tóth is something he can show off. Even when Harrison shows Tóth his Jewish lawyer friend who promises to try to help Tóth bring his wife to America, when Tóth thanks Harrison with a pat, Pearce’s expression is so smug, so filled with satisfaction that isn’t warmth, but love of his own grand deed to consider another reason he is great. It is that ownership we see even when he calls upon Tóth to build a community building as a grand memorial for his mother, where Pearce’s excitement is real, his grand delivery is that of a man who loves it all, but never does it feel selfless. The nature of the man is hidden in plain sight in Pearce’s performance but he makes a good show of making you forget it.
But as we see past the intermission point, as the men are well into prepping the construction, Harrison becomes that much more insidious. A few years later when they bring Tóth's wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), there is the key moment where Harrison mocks Tóth's still thick accent as that of a shoeshine man before throwing a coin at him. Pearce’s mocking tone isn’t of some complete switch but rather just of a man who is still playing with his property, he’s just a kid who is a little tired with his toy and wants to start messing with it more than appreciating it. The moment that is more important is the non-apology when he asks for the coin back, he says the joke went too far, but Pearce’s playful fixation on the coin is that even the handing of the coin is just another way to have fun with his toy. Something that continues from Tóth to Erzsébet though less overtly. There’s still a game he’s playing as playing the “great man”. A pivotal moment is Pearce’s conversation with Erzsébet as they ride in a car where they are speaking of a potential job in the city, and he again appears to be kind by offering her a potential job while also even suggesting he’d give her a ride to commute to the city with. All seemingly great things although he also shrugs off vagrants in Grand Central Station, something we’ll hear a few times in racist or prejudiced statements, where there’s no hesitation or even acknowledgement of it in Pearce’s performance. Rather he presents a man where such beliefs are innate and he doesn’t have to try to be racist or prejudiced, he simply is. But there’s even more where when Erzsébet remarks on a reference he makes, where Pearce’s reaction again is great where there’s an overcompensation to noting that he intended for her to get the reference, with again this needless put on confidence of man wishing to be so much more and designating his “good deeds” and "high class" to others. An element realized by the moment any real challenge comes. When Harrison supports cost cutting measures, there’s no empathy in Pearce’s delivery to Brody, it is blithe and blunt as someone who truly doesn’t care. When the whole project must be put on hold due to a railroad disaster, we get one of the realities of Harrison as Pearce brings back that rage from his first scene, as he becomes nothing more than a petulance brat with his delivery of “YES I CAN” as he becomes a boy whose model set fell apart as that is all it is to him on a fundamental level.
Leaving us not to return to Harrison for some time as he eventually decides to finish the project, where he and Tóth go to Italy to get one more piece. Throughout the sequence there is a discomfort in Pearce’s performance for much of it, showing the man out of his domain out of his command and almost a more severe suspicion to everyone and everything around him. There’s a detached distance between him and everything else as you see the man finally out of control, until he finds Tóth in a heroin induced state. A scene that I think likely will be a point of contention for many who watch the film, though for me it works, and Pearce is essential in making work. One is in that earliest conversation setting up the strange allusions to his mother, his specific fascination with Tóth but also just his whole demeanor as someone who plays with everything he has power over. The Italy scene allowing Harrison to give into his vices openly, but also with Pearce setting up that detachment switching in the moment to now the man seemingly wanting to reassert his control as rapes Tóth. Where Pearce is disturbing through the natural ease of the act he brings in Harrison and that arousal he previously contained, now reveals itself as he rapes with fascination and disgust not for him but for Tóth as an idea of the "lowly" as he finds one more way to “play” with his toy. Giving Pearce only one final scene where Erzsébet confronts Harrison for his actions against her husband, however the focus on the scene is mostly away from Pearce. Pearce’s brief reaction still is pointed in giving just the quick moment of final realization for a second before barking to set things right again though his tantrum does not result in silence this time. Pearce finally delivers his great villainous turn here, through the creation of a man who is of a specific period, but is more than that. Pearce creates a damning portrait of a man defined by his privilege to be hollow and his ability to exploit not just for wealth, but for a stolen sense of purpose in one’s life.
