What’s going on with ‘The Brutalist’? The controversy explained
“The Brutalist” 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 “Gone with the Wind” and “Ben- Hur.”
At the same time, “The Brutalist” has sparked controversy for something decidedly modern: its use of artificial intelligence.
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 film’s 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.
Keep reading to learn more about the AI controversy surrounding “The Brutalist.”
How exactly was AI used in ‘The Brutalist’?
Artificial intelligence was used in “The Brutalist” to enhance the Hungarian accents of stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.
The movie’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, said that while Brody and Jones spoke Hungarian in the movie, AI was used at times to tweak their pronunciation of certain difficult vowels.
“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce. … It’s an extremely unique language,” Jancsó said in a recent interview with film technology website RedShark. “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.”
Jancsó 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 actors’ visual performances to improve sound quality.
The use of ADR wasn’t successful in “The Brutalist,” Jancsó said, and he added that attempts to completely dub Brody and Jones’ dialogue using the voices of other actors “just didn’t work.”
Ultimately, filmmakers worked with a Ukrainian software company, Respeecher, to generate certain pieces of the stars’ Hungarian dialogue using AI.
Jancsó says he even contributed his own voice for some of the pronunciations.
“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances,” he said. “It’s 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 we’d still be in post.”
RedShark also reported that Generative AI, or GenAI, was used to create architectural drawings and buildings near the end of the film. However, the film’s director, Brady Corbet, later told Deadline that AI was not used in this way in the movie, and that all images “were hand-drawn by artists.”
Why was there controversy about the use of AI in ‘The Brutalist’?Some viewers have criticized the use of AI in “The Brutalist,” arguing that it undercuts the film’s authenticity.
“Genuinely crushed by the AI scandal surrounding the brutalist,” one person wrote on X. “I get wanting the hungarian dialect portrayed in the movie to be perfect and authentic, but doesn’t using AI completely undo any ‘authenticity’ that you set out to accomplish right away?”
Another X user argued that Brody — who won a Golden Globe and has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of László Tóth — should not be eligible for these accolades because his Hungarian accent was digitally altered.
“My take on The Brutalist AI thing is it’s a slippery slope to award Adrian Brody knowing his accent was edited with AI,” the user wrote. “IMO altering a performance with AI like that should automatically disqualify someone from these awards shows.”
Others questioned why native Hungarian speakers weren’t cast in the main roles.
“The brutalist and its actors should’ve become ineligible the minute it came out that AI was used on their voices to help them produce a more authentic’ hungarian accent when there are hungarian actors and speakers in the industry they could’ve used instead,” an X user wrote.
Others on social media defending the film’s use of AI, arguing that enhancing actors’ Hungarian pronunciation did not detract from their performances.
“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,” one X user said. “I wasn’t moved by the accent; I was moved by how he conveyed emotion.”
Others argued that using AI to tweak the dialogue in post-production was just a form of clever sound editing.
“I 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 don’t seem to have any concerns either — it’s just good old sound editing, accelerated,” one X user said.
Another X user argued that the film’s use of artificial intelligence was a “great example of using AI tools to enhance well-known art creation process, not replace it!”
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 “deepfakes.”
Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, a labor union that represents about 160,000 people in the entertainment industry, called AI an “existential threat” to the creative professions.
“All actors and performers deserve contract language that protects them from having their identity and talent exploited without consent and pay,” 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 “Emilia Perez’s” star, Karla Sofía Gascón, 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 “The Brutalist,” 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.
“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents,” he said.
He added that AI technology was only used “specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy.”
“No English language was changed,” he said. “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.”
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.
“Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists,” he told Deadline. “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.”
Jancsó also reflected on the film’s use of AI in his interview with RedShark, arguing that he and his team used AI simply to enhance traditional filmmaking techniques.
“There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster,” he said. “We use AI to create these tiny little details that we didn’t have the money or the time to shoot.”
