Max Korman’s first film, Joy Will Prevail, couldn’t be much more personal: It’s the story of how famed architect Louis Kahn designed the house Korman grew up in.
In the 1970s, as career and personal challenges closed in on Kahn, Korman’s grandparents, Steve and Toby Korman, convinced him to build a home for their young family. Max Korman cast Ben Rosenfield and Molly Ephraim as his grandparents, and Griffin Dunne as Kahn. The impressive cast also includes Jennifer Beals, Alexis Bledel, and more.
He also shot in his childhood home, an elegantly orderly landmark country house in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, about half an hour by car from Philadelphia. The film premieres Wednesday at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
The film draws its title from one of Kahn’s core principles. The quotable architect was known not only for his stunning designs, but also the philosophies behind them, which emphasized space and light. His work is so well known that it even made its way into the ’90s erotic thriller Indecent Proposal, in which Woody Harrelson’s architect character credits him with the observation, “Even a brick wants to be something.”
Ahead of the premiere of Joy Will Prevail, we asked Korman about his surprising route to filmmaking, using a philosophy of architecture to determine camera placement, and that other recent architecture movie.
Max Korman on Making Joy Will Prevail
MovieMaker: Congratulations on the film! How did you become a filmmaker, and why did you want this to be your debut?
Max Korman: In the winter of 2023, I was finishing my final semester of college. I went home one weekend to my parents’ house — the house featured in the film — and found myself thinking about it in a new way. I felt like I was looking at the space I was born and raised in for the first time, and started digging deeper into the story of its origins.
It hit me pretty quickly, and intensely, that there was a movie here. I’ve written a few scripts since, but I’ve never had an experience quite like this one, where I could see it all in front of me — the structure, the cast, the music. It was a pretty convenient time in my life to take a shot at a risky project like this, so I jumped on it and let the ball roll from there.
If the idea had been sci-fi, or something more distant from my personal life, I’m not sure I would’ve had the confidence to pursue it. But because the story was so personal and close to home — literally — I felt like I could give it a shot.
MovieMaker: Your grandparents are among the characters in this film, and the piano you learned to play on makes a significant appearance. That’s an incredible “in,” but were there any drawbacks to being so familiar with the material?
Max Korman: It depends on one’s expectations for the film. I think my connection to the story and its characters gives the film an emotional weight, which I would argue is rarer and more interesting than a more detached, strictly biographical approach.
MovieMaker: You studied math and physics at Penn. Did they help you as a filmmaker?
Max Korman: I suppose the discipline required for those subjects is useful for anything that demands it — screenwriting and directing being two such pursuits. To look at something large and break it down into its constituent parts is as useful in filmmaking as it is in math and physics.
However, I certainly tried to shift my brain toward a more “artistic” mindset when it came time to create something emotional — whether in the script, on set, or in the editing room. Math and physics require profound creativity, but of a different variety than that required by the arts.
MovieMaker: Early in the film, Louis Kahn makes an observation about arches that you later applied to your method of shooting the film. Can you explain how you arrived at this idea and executed it?
Max Korman: In the film, Lou tells one of his employees that “an arch, among other arches, is no longer just an arch; but a statement of the individual and his relation to the collective.”
In other words, when designing for, say, an educational institution, the architect must keep in mind ideas of hierarchy — which are foundational to any institution — and how design elements can create an ethos that promotes the functions of that hierarchy.
In the same way that Kahn used arches toward those ends, I thought it would be “Kahnian” to use shot sizes and camera angles. Whereas scenes in most films tend to begin with a master shot, then move closer toward the characters as the scene progresses, I often did the reverse — starting closer and ending wider, so as to express the idea of characters existing within a space. I wanted the impression of a space to be what lingered with the audience.
Similarly, with camera angles, I would aim the camera higher at times to evoke a sense of childlike wonder, and lower at others to suggest a kind of God-like judgment.
I imagine most filmmakers think this way, but there was a particularly intentional use of it here to emphasize Kahn’s ideas of design.
MovieMaker: One of the most fascinating things about Kahn is that he had overlapping relationships with three women who were aware of one another. Can you talk about how you chose to present those relationships in such a non-judgmental way?
Max Korman: It was important to me from the very beginning of the project not to impose judgment — especially by contemporary moral standards — on the characters.
That doesn’t mean shying away from his personal life. In fact, those facets are critical to the heart of the story, which is about Steve and Lou, and Lou’s decision to design a house for Steve’s family. And in my research, people who knew Louis Kahn personally shared with me ways in which his relationships shaped his life and work.
But the goal of the film was never to retrospectively claim the moral high ground over an important historical figure. Rather, I wanted to unabashedly celebrate an architect who was so important to my grandfather, and who was responsible for creating the home I grew up in, while also paying homage to the people around him who interfaced with his unique way of life.
MovieMaker: How did you assemble this incredible cast, especially as a first-time director?
Max Korman: It’s amazing how many people love not only architecture, but Louis Kahn in particular! A number of our cast members had personal interests in architecture, so a biopic about one of the greatest architects was not a hard sell!
Moreover, I think our cast could recognize my passion for the material — that it mattered to me in a very personal way — which may have helped overcome the obstacle of being a first-time director. Were this any other film, it might not have been doable.
MovieMaker: You were well underway with this story when The Brutalist came out — they’re very different films, but both are about influential Pennsylvania-based, immigrant architects in similar time periods. Did that affect your plans in any way?
Max Korman: I started working on the script a little over a year before The Brutalist was announced at Venice. I remember reading the title and thinking, “Interesting.” Then I read the synopsis and thought, “…Oh s—!”
Fortunately, as you mention, the movies are very, very different, so I breathed a sigh of relief. First and foremost, our architect, Louis Kahn, was very much a real person!
In fact, I felt more emboldened by the idea of this film precisely because of how different the two movies are, and because of how interested people were in seeing The Brutalist. I think the same audience will find much to love in this film.
MovieMaker: For background, where did you grow up and where are you based now? Any thoughts on the Philadelphia film scene and Philadelphia Film Festival? I understand the festival executive director, J. Andrew Greenblatt, is your producer.
Max Korman: I grew up in the house featured in the film! I then went to college in Philadelphia, and spent much of last year in New York for the film’s post-production.
Our cast and crew included many talented and hardworking Philadelphians. It was wonderful to see them come together on this project — and even connect on other projects that came along afterward. It was interesting to see how a film can energize a local film industry and create more opportunities for everyone involved.
I’ve been going to the Philadelphia Film Festival for a number of years now, and I’ve always been impressed by the thoughtfulness of its programming and the caliber of films it selects each year. They’ve also just installed a 70mm projector, which should be great fun!
Joy Will Prevail premieres at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Philadelphia Film Festival. You can read more of our film festival coverage here.
Main image: Joy Will PrevailLLC
