Fans Called Out ‘The Brutalist’ For Using AI to Enhance Adrien Brody’s Hungarian Accent
After winning the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for Adrien Brody, fans were disappointed to find out that Dávid Jancso, The Brutalist’s editor used AI to enhance Brody’s Hungarian accent as reported by Deadline.
And now it seems the debate on how AI could be ethically and creatively used in the entertainment industry is raging again.
What Happened?
The Brutalist is a historical drama about László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust and migrated to the United States with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones). Guy Pearce plays a wealthy client who helped rebuild their lives.
The scene in question is when Erzsébet reads a letter from László in Hungarian. Jancso revealed he used AI tools from a Ukrainian software company, Respeecher, to enhance the dialogue.
The Backlash
Director Brady Corbet responded to the backlash and explained the rationale for using AI. According to a statement sent to The Hollywood Reporter, “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.”
The statement continues, “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.”
Jancso said AI was also used to “create these tiny little details that we didn’t have the money or the time to shoot.”
One X user retweeted the post with the caption, “Don’t think its too reactionary to say this movie should lose the academy buzz it was getting.”
Is AI Changing the Entertainment Industry?
Apparently, it’s not just The Brutalist who used AI to enhance the actors’ voices. Golden Globes Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy winner, Emilia Pérez also used AI to “increase the range of [co-star Karla Sofía] Gascón’s vocal register.” The film also used Respeecher to blend Gascón’s singing with the French pop star Camille who also co-wrote the film’s score, according to The Guardian.
The Angelina Jolie-starring movie Maria, USA Today reported that Jolie’s “opera vocals are blended with real recordings of [legendary singer Maria] Callas.”
In line with this issue, writer and director Paul Schraeder has also recently gone viral with a controversial take on AI. Schraeder posted on his Facebook page about how ChatGPT provided him with “original” and “fleshed out” ideas for a movie in a few seconds as opposed to writers who “sit around for months searching for a good idea.”
