Have you experienced the sprawling majesty of The Brutalist? Brady Corbet's acclaimed drama is now playing at Cineworld, including IMAX, and has been nominated for 10 Oscars where it's widely expected to clean up on March 2nd, many tipping it for the top prize of Best Picture.
The movie resurrects the notion of the intellectually-driven, character-centric drama, focusing on Adrien Brody's destabilised Hungarian architect Lászlo Tóth and his quest to make a cultural imprint on 20th-century America. To this end, he takes on a commission from the powerful magnate Harrison van Buren (Guy Pearce) to develop a structure in honour of the latter's late mother, but Lászlo's demons relating to his experiences in the recent Holocaust are never too far from his mind.
From Brody's soulful performance to Lol Crawley's suitably expansive cinematography, the movie is big in every way. The film also dusts off the somewhat outmoded concept of the intermission, breaking up its 200-odd minute run time with a 10-minute break set to Daniel Blumberg's sparing yet atmospheric score. This is not only the ideal time to pop out and top up your favourite cinema snacks, but it also allows the viewer to reconcile with what they've just seen while anticipating what's to come in the form of Laszlo's relationship with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones).
This got us thinking: what are the best movie intermissions? We've rounded up several of our favourites. Scroll down to discover them and book your tickets for The Brutalist at the end of this post.
1. How the West was Won (1962)
Intermissions are more often than not an aesthetic choice, allowing movies to attain the grandeur of opera and theatre. Sometimes, though, they arrive out of necessity. Such was the cast with this enormous Western epic, which required three directors (one of whom was Western genre legend John Ford) to realise. The massive cast includes the likes of Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck and James Stewart, all genre regulars in their own right, as it recounts the settling of the American frontier as seen through the eyes of one family.
How the West Was Won was originally filmed in Cinerama, an ultra-widescreen format. Cinerama used three cameras simultaneously, which meant three separate film reels needed to be switched out during the intermission. To make it even more complicated, Cinerama films were projected onto a specially designed curved screen. Hence the presence of a brief yet much-needed intermission – by the end of this movie, the projectionists must have felt they'd journeyed across the frontier itself.
2. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Brutalist is a salute to the heyday of epic, widescreen cinema, and David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia remains the exemplar. Enveloping and immersive in every way, the movie is a (somewhat fictionalised) account of T.E. Lawrence's integration with the Arabian tribespeople in the build-up to World War I, elevated by its staggering cinematography of the desert vistas and Peter O'Toole's unforgettably complex performance in the title role.
The first half of the movie gives one so much to chew over that an intermission comes as a welcome reprieve, allowing us to savour the contradictions in O'Toole's portrayal and the literary scope of the drama. One can also appreciate the thunderous strains of Maurice Jarre's score (composed in a mere four weeks), which evokes the mystery of the shifting desert sands and the colonial pomp of the British forces.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick's pioneering 2001: A Space Odyssey takes an uncompromising and elliptical approach to Arthur C. Clarke's source novel. The groundbreaking film compels the viewer to actively locate the meaning in its oblique and arresting images as it spirals through several thousand years of human existence, from early hominids to the birth of the Star Child.
Douglas Trumbull's remarkable practical effects stand up thanks to their intricate design and Kubrick's careful use of forced perspective. Somewhat unusually, the intermission occurs two-thirds of the way through the film, allowing the viewer to bask in what they've seen. The intermission consists of a three-minute overture and a two-minute entr'acte (interval) that reinforces Kubrick's impeccable music choices, although the scoring process on the film was messy. Originally, Kubrick hired his Spartacus composer Alex North to compose an original score, but later junked it during post-production, allowing North to find out for the first time at the premiere.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
You can rely on the Monty Python team to invert the concept of the intermission in wickedly hilarious fashion. Toward the end of the team's second feature film, The Holy Grail, Graham Chapman's King Arthur and Terry Jones's Sir Bedevere, have bested the challenge at the Bridge of Death, playing the bridge keeper (Terry Gilliam) at his own game with a reply about swallows and causing him to be cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
They proceed forward in portentous, foggy conditions, only for a green screen and a lively segment of organ music to announce an intermission. Barely has the viewer got out of their seat before the interlude cuts out five seconds later and returns us to the action, prompting roars of laughter and cementing the Pythons as the demi-gods of the surreal.
5. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2004)
Neglected on its initial release, this off-the-wall spoof of kung fu movie cliches has now found a devoted audience. The film's success resides in one's knowledge of the genre: the gags are both broad strokes and subtle, from the exaggerated physicality of the fight scenes to hilarious moments taking potshots at bad dubbing. It's never mean-spirited, only affectionate, reminding us that the wonkier edges of these much-loved martial arts epics are scorched into our collective brains.
Brilliantly, Kung Pow also features an intermission. Words cannot describe it – simply check it out below.
Experience The Brutalist, intermission and all, at Cineworld ahead of the forthcoming Academy Awards. Book your tickets via the following link.
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