Days before the Oscar race officially kicks off, one of the expected front-runners sparked controversy when the film’s editor admitted using artificial intelligence to enhance Hungarian accents in “The Brutalist.”
Director Brady Corbet’s post-World War II epic, which stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, follows an architect who survives the war and escapes Europe to America to rebuild his life.
Controversy began stirring over the weekend after editor Dávid Jancsó said in an interview with tech magazine Red Shark News that AI was used to enhance the lead actors’ Hungarian accents.
The debate over the use of the technology is heating up just ahead of Thursday’s announcements of the Academy Award nominations, leading some to question whether “The Brutalist” should be considered for some of the biggest awards. The film is fresh off a host of big wins at the Golden Globes, including best picture, drama.
How was AI used?
Jancsó said the film’s production used the Ukrainian software company Respeecher to enhance Brody’s and Jones’ Hungarian accents when they are speaking Hungarian.
The AI technology was not used to enhance the English-language dialogue, which is used in most of the film, the filmmakers said.
“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” Jancsó told Red Shark News. “It’s an extremely unique language. We 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.”
Certain sounds and letters in Hungarian are hard to speak, Jancsó said. He said the filmmakers first tried to “ADR these harder elements with the actors.”
(ADR, or automated dialogue replacement, is a post-production process used to re-record dialogue.)
When that didn’t work, Jancsó said, the team “tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn’t work.”
“So we looked for other options of how to enhance it,” Jancsó told Red Shark News.
Brody and Jones recorded their voices with the AI software, as did Jancsó, who said, “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there.”
“We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there,” he said.
He said AI was also used at the end of the film to create “a series of architectural drawings and finished buildings in the style of” Brody’s character.
“It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn’t be,” Jancsó said. “There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster.”
What has the film’s director said?
In response to the online discussion over the AI use in the film, Corbet, who nabbed a Golden Globe for best director, said that his lead actors’ performances are “completely their own” and that they worked “for months” with a dialect coach to perfect their Hungarian accents.
“Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production,” Corbet said in a statement. “The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
Corbet said that AI was not used to create or render any of the buildings seen in the film and that all images are hand-drawn.
“To 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,” Corbet said.
“‘The Brutalist’ is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished here,” he said.
Brody and Jones did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Asked whether Jancsó had further comment, representatives for the movie pointed to Corbet’s statement.
AI in Hollywood
“The Brutalist” isn’t the only Oscar front-runner to employ AI.
“Emilia Pérez,” a musical about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman, which also won big at the Golden Globes, also used Respeecher, the software company said on Facebook.
It wasn’t clear from the Facebook post exactly how.
Using AI in Hollywood films isn’t completely new, but the technology has caused a sense of whiplash in the wake of the dual 2023 writers and actors strikes. AI was a sticking point during negotiations between the respective unions and studios, with creatives seeking assurances that their work would not be replaced by the technology. As Hollywood continues to try to return to normal after the strikes, which went on for months, many remain concerned that the industry has not and may not fully rebound.
Last year, two AI-related deals made by two Hollywood companies also drew scrutiny from people online who expressed concern about the repercussions.
In September, Lionsgate, the studio behind franchises such as “The Hunger Games,” said it would allow filmmakers to “augment” their work with AI to save money, Variety reported at the time, prompting online disappointment from people who questioned what it would mean for filmmakers.
In October, Blumhouse Productions drew backlash online after it announced it had partnered with Meta to make short films using the company’s AI tools.
Blumhouse founder and CEO Jason Blum defended the move, saying that his company “enables artists” and that “artists always come first.”
“Artists want tools. And to me, it would be irresponsible if we didn’t at least know about the tools, and I think, also for me, it would be irresponsible to not learn about the tools,” he said in a statement.
Blum added: “I know nothing about AI, but I wanted to do this to learn about it.” He said he wanted to enlist the partnership so that when filmmakers come to him in the future to ask about using AI, he can at least have a “reasonable answer.”
“It’s here to stay. So I want to understand it and I don’t understand it yet,” Blum said.
