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The frontrunner for The Oscars 2025 best picture award, The Brutalist, has faced a major setback after one of the film editors revealed the use of artificial intelligence.
The Adrien Brody-helmed movie has been the centre of critical praise since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2024 and is expected to collect plenty of accolades throughout awards season.
Spanning nearly four hours long, the movie – also starring Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn – follows Hungarian-Jewish immigrant, László Tóth, who leaves behind the horrors of his past in post-World War Two Europe to live out the American dream.
The poignant plot and astonishing acting has already secured the Brady Corbet-directed feature a Golden Globe for best picture, actor and movie, several Bafta nominations and an anticipated sweep at the Oscars.
But the movie’s Oscar hopes could have been hit with a brutal blow after editor Dávid Jancsó revealed AI software Respeecher was used during a Hungarian voiceover monologue.
‘I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce. Even with Adrien’s Hungarian background, it’s not that simple. It’s an extremely unique language.
One of the film’s editors explained that speech Ai and generative AI was used on the final product (Picture: Universal Pictures)
‘We coached [Brody and co-star Felicity Jones] and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference,’ David told Red Shark News.
David explained that they tried to use ADR (automated dialogue replacement) on the actors and alternates but it ‘just didn’t work’ to iron out certain Anglo-Saxon sounds.
He added that they were ‘very careful to keep their performances’ and it was ‘mainly just replacing letters here and there’.
‘We had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we’d still be in post [production],’ he added.
AI is a controversial topic within Hollywood, and was a key issue that led to the industry-wide strikes in 2023.
David acknowledged: ‘It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn’t be. We should be having a very open discussion about what tools AI can provide us with.
‘There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster. We use AI to create these tiny little details that we didn’t have the money or the time to shoot.’
The Ukrainian company Respeecher claims on its website that it is a ‘reliable AI voice partner that delivers amazing authentic voices across industries.’
Both Felicity and Adrien agreed to the tweaks (Picture: Universal Pictures UK)
GenerativeAI is also used at the end of the movie in a sequence at Venice Biennale to conjure a series of buildings in the fictional architect’s style.
The news has dismayed fans who have slammed the use of AI.
‘This is a disgrace,’ @onlyafortnight wrote on X.
‘it’s a slippery slope to award Adrian Brody knowing his accent was edited with AI. IMO altering a performance with AI like that should automatically disqualify someone from these awards shows,’ @midsommarz reflected.
‘Learning The Brutalist has GenAI ruins it for me. It was genuinely one of my favourite films from last year because it’s/(was?) a brilliant critique of man’s exploitation of the environment to build monuments to themselves, and using AI renders that critique completely hollow,’ @carriecnh12 shared.
‘The Brutalist AI shit makes me so sad because how many times will this happen in the future where I see some beautifully crafted movie and find out it hid AI in parts just to cheap out without soul. It’s going to keep being more subtle each time and I f**king hate that,’ @24framesofnick said.
‘I think everyone is being wilfully obtuse about the Brutalist. Yes of course technology is used to enhance aspects of a film. But A.I is different and dangerous. Immediately, we saw that it is being utilised to push humans out of art, the excuse being it cuts costs,’ @themusingnotes warned.
Although some have come to the film’s defence.
The already acclaimed movie has faced backlash (Picture: Burt Harris/PI via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)
‘I guess this needs to be said: Yes, the use of AI in film is bad. No, Adrien Brody wasn’t essentially dubbed in The Brutalist lol,’ @Adricaporusso said.
‘My take on Adrien Brody’s AI-helped accent in The Brutalist: it’s complicated.
‘On one hand, it slightly diminishes the detailing, but I can’t say the accent was a deciding factor in his performance’s resonance. I wasn’t moved by the accent; I was moved by how he conveyed emotion,’ @blew1103 added.
The Brutalist is not the only movie to face controversy this awards season.
Other award contenders like Anora have also faced criticism (Picture: AP)
In fact, it’s biggest contender Emilia Perez, has also seemingly used Respeecher in certain elements of the movie.
And Sean Baker’s Anora, starring Mikey Madison, sparked fierce discourse after the cast and crew revealed they opted to not use an intimacy coordinator on set.
In a four-and-a-half star review for The Brutalist, Metro’s film critic Tori Brazier wrote: ‘Over three and a half hours of sweeping history, struggle and heartbreak, the urgency of its story never once lets up.
‘Combined with several powerhouse performances, not least of all from an electric Adrien Brody, The Brutalist is sure to be 2024’s film to beat at the Oscars.’
The announcement of the Oscar nominations were delayed after the devastating LA fires. They will now come out on January 23.
Metro has reached out to Universal Pictures for comment.
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