“Brutalist” Director Responds To AI Talk

Filmmaker Brady Corbet has responded to the controversy that has emerged following comments about the use of AI in his major awards contender, “The Brutalist”.

The film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed in an interview that AI-enhanced the performance of the leads, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. Specifically, the Hungarian dialogue in the film was tweaked to sound more authentic by enhancing certain vocal sounds.

Generative AI was also used at the end of the film as part of the inspiration for architectural drawings and finished buildings designed by Brody’s fictional architect character, László Tóth. The designs were then hand-drawn.

The use of AI in any form in the film has sparked online outrage, leading to calls that it should be disqualified from awards consideration. Corbet, speaking with THR, says:

“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their 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. 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.”

The film’s 3.5-hour runtime, serious subject matter, and very late-in-the-year limited release were already seen as challenges to getting voters to see it, no matter how good the craft on display.

It also emerged that AI was used to enhance the singing voice of Karla Sofía Gascón in Jacques Audiard’s gangster musical “Emilia Pérez,” which is also a major awards contender this year.

In an interview with CST (via The Guardian) in May, the film’s re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz revealed Respeecher was used to increase the range of Gascón’s vocal register by blending her with French pop star Camille who co-wrote the film’s score.

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