Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist has sparked a backlash on social media after editor Dávid Jancsó revealed AI tools were used in the film’s production.
In an interview with tech publication Red Shark News, Jancsó said that Respeecher voice cloning software had been used to make Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones sound more authentic.
“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” said Jancsó. “It’s an extremely unique language. 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.”
He said Respeecher was used as a last resort after several other methods of polishing the dialogue had been attempted.
“If you’re coming from the Anglo-Saxon world certain sounds can be particularly hard to grasp,” continued Jancsó. “We first tried to ADR these harder elements with the actors. Then we tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn’t work. So we looked for other options of how to enhance it.”
Jancsó said they used the AI software to help blend his own speech with the actor’s performances. “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” he added. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. 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.”
The Brutalist was one of the big winners at this year’s Golden Globes, winning Best Director, Best Male Actor (Drama) and Best Picture (Drama).
After speculation mounted that the revelation could hurt the film’s chances at further awards ceremonies, including the Oscars this March, director Brady Corbet spoke out to defend the film.
In a statement to Deadline, Corbet said: “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. No English language was changed.
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“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.”
Additional generative AI usage was also used in the film to create a series of architectural blueprints and other images that appear in the film’s closing sequence. Corbet went on to state: “[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. 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.”
Corbet concluded his statement: “The Brutalist is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished here.”
