VistaVision returneth

While Hitchcock abandoned Vista as too expensive and onerous after NbNW (with Psycho and AHPresents his gateway drug to the joys of smaller cameras and more run-and-gun film-making generally) and better anamorphic 35mm processes like Cinemascope became available, no expense and inconvenience is apparently too great for maverick (independently wealthy?) director Brady Corbet:
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/brady-corbet-director-the-brutalist-1236083525/

I've really not known what to make of this guy. He's an American but had small parts in a number of important Euro-arthouse films with star directors (Haneke, Von Trier, Ostlund, etc.) then instantly blasted off into seemingly big-budget, shot on film, art-directed to death, auteurism himself as a director. His first film, Childhood of a Leader looked and sounded incredible (half in French with an astonishing soundtrack from cult '60s pop star, Scott Walker!) but storywise was a kind of absurd, super-pretentious blend of Barry Lyndon and The Omen! His second film, Vox Lux w. Natalie Portman read even more strongly as a sort of imitation Euro-arthouse film, lots of style and inscrutability but to what end? Anyhow, VL disappeared without a trace, and apparently lost a ton of money, raising the question of how this guy keeps working. To be fair, I need to see both films again - they were clearly trying very hard but on first viewings they were unsatisfying and just 'too much', highly pretentious and mockable. (I know that it's not fair but somehow it's just harder to take this sort of stuff straight coming from an American than it is from a European.)

Now Corbet's back with The Brutalist, a truly monumental, tipped-for-Oscar film shot with Vista cameras and currently being screened at festivals in 70mm. How is this even possible? It feels like there must be some independent wealth involved, that Corbet must be an American Visconti to have this kind of career.