โThe Brutalistโ has become an awards season frontrunner, praised for its portrayal of a brilliant architect and Holocaust survivor who seeks a new life in the United States.
The period epic is largely set in the 1950s and in many ways, its production revels in the the aesthetics of a bygone era: it was filmed using vintage VistaVision cameras and it includes a built-in intermission, a feature more associated with old classics like โGone with the Windโ and โBen- Hur.โ
At the same time, โThe Brutalistโ has sparked controversy for something decidedly modern: its use of artificial intelligence.ย
Some viewers have criticized the drama, which recently scored 10 Oscar nominations, for its use of AI to alter the Hungarian accents of stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.
The filmโs director and editor have defended their use of AI, arguing that the technology was not exploitative, but was merely employed to enhance their sound-editing abilities in post-production.ย
Keep reading to learn more about the AI controversy surrounding โThe Brutalist.โ
How exactly was AI used in โThe Brutalistโ?
Artificial intelligence was used in โThe Brutalistโ to enhance the Hungarian accents of stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.
The movieโs editor, Dรกvid Jancsรณ, said that while Brody and Jones spoke Hungarian in the movie, AI was used at times to tweak their pronunciation of certain difficult vowels.
โI am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce. โฆ Itโs an extremely unique language,โย Jancsรณ said in a recent interview with film technology website RedShark. โWe coached (Brody and Jones) and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference.โ
Jancsรณ added that he and his team first tried using ADR, or automated dialogue replacement, to fix certain Hungarian sounds. ADR is commonly used in filmmaking, and it involves re-recording pieces of dialogue and syncing them with actorsโ visual performances to improve sound quality.
The use of ADR wasnโt successful in โThe Brutalist,โ Jancsรณ said, and he added that attempts to completely dub Brody and Jonesโ dialogue using the voices of other actors โjust didnโt work.โ
Ultimately, filmmakers worked with a Ukrainian software company, Respeecher, to generate certain pieces of the starsโ Hungarian dialogue using AI.ย
Jancsรณ says he even contributed his own voice for some of the pronunciations.
โMost of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances,โ he said. โItโs mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise weโd still be in post.โ
RedShark also reported that Generative AI, or GenAI, was used to create architectural drawings and buildings near the end of the film. However, the filmโs director, Brady Corbet, later told Deadline that AI was not used in this way in the movie, and that all images โwere hand-drawn by artists.โ
Why was there controversy about the use of AI in ‘The Brutalist’?Some viewers have criticized the use of AI in โThe Brutalist,โ arguing that it undercuts the filmโs authenticity.
โGenuinely crushed by the AI scandal surrounding the brutalist,โ one person wrote on X. โI get wanting the hungarian dialect portrayed in the movie to be perfect and authentic, but doesnโt using AI completely undo any โauthenticityโ that you set out to accomplish right away?โ
Another X user argued that Brody โ who won a Golden Globe and has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Lรกszlรณ Tรณth โ should not be eligible for these accolades because his Hungarian accent was digitally altered.
โMy take on The Brutalist AI thing is itโs a slippery slope to award Adrian Brody knowing his accent was edited with AI,โ the user wrote. โIMO altering a performance with AI like that should automatically disqualify someone from these awards shows.โ
Others questioned why native Hungarian speakers werenโt cast in the main roles.
โThe brutalist and its actors shouldโve become ineligible the minute it came out that AI was used on their voices to help them produce a more authenticโ hungarian accent when there are hungarian actors and speakers in the industry they couldโve used instead,โ an X user wrote.
Others on social media defending the filmโs use of AI, arguing that enhancing actorsโ Hungarian pronunciation did not detract from their performances.
โMy take on Adrien Brodyโs AI-helped accent in The Brutalist: itโs complicated. On one hand, it slightly diminishes the detailing, but I canโt say the accent was a deciding factor in his performanceโs resonance,โ one X user said. โI wasnโt moved by the accent; I was moved by how he conveyed emotion.โ
Others argued that using AI to tweak the dialogue in post-production was just a form of clever sound editing.
โI love how the filmmakers went to extra lengths to coach, explore variants of ADR, and then discovered this as the best, subtle and sensitive solution. Brody and Jones donโt seem to have any concerns either โ itโs just good old sound editing, accelerated,โ one X user said.
Another X user argued that the filmโs use of artificial intelligence was a โgreat example of using AI tools to enhance well-known art creation process, not replace it!โ
Ethical questions around the use of AI in the entertainment industry have come to the forefront in recent years.
When writers and actors went on strike in 2023, they demanded stricter regulations around the use of AI, seeking protection for artists whose work or likenesses are used as source material for AI, such as to create AI โdeepfakes.โ
Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, a labor union that represents about 160,000 people in the entertainment industry, called AI an โexistential threatโ to the creative professions.
โAll actors and performers deserve contract language that protects them from having their identity and talent exploited without consent and pay,โ she said in a July 2023 open letter.
“The Brutalist” isn’t the only Oscar contender this year to draw attention for its use of AI.
AI was used to enhance the singing of the โEmilia Perezโsโ star, Karla Sofรญa Gascรณn, blending her voice with the vocals of French singer Camille, sound supervisor Cyril Holtz said in interview at the Cannes Film Festival.
What have the filmmakers said?
After controversy erupted online about the use of AI in โThe Brutalist,โ director Brady Corbet defended his use of AI, and the film’s stars, in a statement to Deadline. TODAY.com has reached out to Corbet for comment.
โAdrien and Felicityโs performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents,โ he said.ย
He added that AI technology was only used โspecifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy.โ
โNo English language was changed,โ he said. โThis was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicityโs performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.โ
He also said that while RedShark originally reported that generative AI had been used to create certain architectural drawings and buildings seen in the movie, this was not the case.
โJudy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists,โ he told Deadline. โTo clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980.โ
Jancsรณ also reflected on the filmโs use of AI in his interview with RedShark, arguing that he and his team used AI simply to enhance traditional filmmaking techniques.ย
โThereโs nothing in the film using AI that hasnโt been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster,โ he said. โWe use AI to create these tiny little details that we didnโt have the money or the time to shoot.โ
