The Brutalist: Oscar favorite modifies scenes with AI and creates controversy
Adrian Brody in The Brutalist, coming to theaters on February 12. © Universal Pictures
While the use of artificial intelligence in films and series is regularly criticized, it was revealed that the film The Brutalistbig favorite for the next Oscars, used AI to modify certain dialogues.
“AI is controversial, but it shouldn’t be”
The film directed by Brady Corbet tells the story over nearly thirty years of László Toth, a Jewish architect born in Hungary who emigrates after the end of the Second World War to the United States to learn what he thinks is the ” American dream.
Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist. © Universal Pictures
Dávid Jancsó, the film's editor, told our colleagues on the site Red Shark News that he used artificial intelligence tools to improve the Hungarian-language dialogues of Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones. “They did a fabulous job, but we also wanted to perfect it so that even the locals wouldn’t see any difference”he declared.
Jancsó continues: “If you come from the English-speaking world, some sounds can be particularly difficult to grasp. We first tried to reproduce these more difficult elements with the actors. Then we tried to reproduce them completely with other actors, but it didn't work so we looked for other options to improve them.”
The Brutalist is well on its way to winning the next Oscar for Best Picture. © Universal Pictures
In detail, the technician explains that it was mainly a question of replacing a letter here, or an intonation there, but that the performances of the actors were preserved as much as possible. To do this, he went through the Ukrainian company Respeecher, specializing in artificial intelligence.
Dávid Jancsó also took the opportunity to demonize the use of AI, which according to him is a tool like any other, very useful for saving precious time: “You can do it yourself in ProTools, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really had to speed up the process, otherwise we would still be in post-production.”
“In the industry, talking about AI is controversial, but it shouldn’t be”he declared. “We should have a very open discussion about the tools that AI can give us. (…) It just makes the process much faster. We're using AI to create these little details that we didn't have before. “money or time to film.”
The director Brady Corbet responded to the controversy that the words of its editor may have raised, and confirmed that “Adrien and Felicity's performances are entirely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used solely in editing the Hungarian dialogue.”
The Brutalist releases in French theaters on February 12, 2025.
- Watch the trailer for The Brutalist :
