We’re back talking about ‘The Brutalist’ and A.I.
Adrien Brody took home the Academy Award for his work as László Tóth in the film The Brutalist. His win has reignited the conversation about the use of A.I. in the film.
The film’s Oscar-nominated editor, Dávid Jancsó, did an interview prior to the Oscars talking about his work on The Brutalist. In the interview, he said that the film used the company Respeecher to help fix the dialogue. Jancsó explained that he would speak Hungarian himself, as he is Hungarian, and would use his own accent to help alter that of Brody and co-star Felicity Jones’ accents when speaking the language.
Jancsó explained why they thought it was necessary to alter their accents for accuracy. “It’s an extremely unique language,” he told the outlet. “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.”
Director Brady Corbet responded to Jancsó’s claims and clarified that Brody and Jones’ performances were “completely their own,” and went on to talk about the work they did with dialect coach, Tanera Marshall, to make their accents as accurate as possible.
“Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy,” Corbet said. “No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in postproduction. 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.”
Accusations of A.I. that reportedly didn’t happen
It was also reported that the images that Tóth made at the end of the film were created by A.I. and not a real artist. Corbet responded by defending his production designer, Judy Becker, and her team for their work and made it clear that the team created images for the celebration of Tóth’s work. The scene happens at the end of the film when Tóth is older and is being celebrated for his work.
“[The Brutalist production designer] 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 said. “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.”
I hate A.I. but it is not that serious in this case
It is understandable that the idea of A.I. being a part of any movie can spark anger in an audience. In this instance, I would rather they did not use it at all but I understand using a company to help perfect something. Brody is the son of Hungarian immigrants and many have spoken about how hard the Hungarian accent is if it is not natural to you.
According to Corbet, the A.I. used was just to perfect the spoken dialect. Given how their accents worked without the use of A.I. throughout the rest of the film, I do not think he necessarily needed to do that work on it. But I do understand trying to honor the Hungarian dialect as accurately as possible. The back and forth between Corbet and Jancsó show how complicated the conversation about A.I. in film is.
Which is why we just should not use it. But the issue here was many thinking Brody should have been disqualified for his work because of Corbet and the production’s choice. Which is where I disagree. Brody’s performance was his own and he worked incredible hard bringing Tóth to life. Taking that away and crediting A.I. for a performance that was his own is a disservice to Brody.
But the conversation continues with many weighing in on what they think is the right thing to do in this situation. The reality is that the technology was used to manually fix the Hungarian dialect and that is it, according to Corbet. It was also not the only nominated film to use the technology.
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