Ideals and Ironies: Art in Oligarchy

Merry Christmas, everyone! This year, the Santifada is bringing you the same present as always: an episode about the themes of Jewish identity and antisemitism! We discuss Brady Corbet's new epic film, The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody as a Bauhaus architect and Holocaust survivor trying to rebuild his life in the absurd New World of America.

In the first half of the episode, our brutalism scholar guests, Ross and Susannah, explain what brutalism is and how it relates—or doesn’t relate—to Brody's character, Laszlo Toth, and the themes of the movie in general.

In the second half, available for subscribers at patreon.com/theantifada, we discuss the film's final chapter and epilogue, which features an infuriating, although perhaps excusable, political twist ending.

• Music for the episode is mostly from the brutalist soundtrack by Daniel Blumberg. Closing song is La Bionda - One For You, One For Me