AI Enhanced Performances in The Brutalist: A Technological Bridge Too Far?

Should Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones have potential Oscar nominations revoked?

The Brutalist. Credit: A24

News that Oscar favourite The Brutalist features AI-enhanced audio performances will doubtless add fuel to the controversial fire regarding artificial intelligence in filmmaking. Upon hearing Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones had their Hungarian accents tweaked by AI tools, some people on social media insist they should be disqualified from award nominations.

In an interview with Red Shark News, The Brutalist’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, claims the Hungarian dialects are too difficult for non-Hungarians performers to nail. At first, he and director Brady Corbet considered ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) from the actors. Then, they considered dubbing the tricky lines with another performer before deciding to add tweaks using AI, as this would be more efficient.

Jancsó claims: “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. 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.”

In addition to AI enhancements in performances, certain architectural drawings were created with AI, recalling a controversy last year over Late Night with the Devil, which featured a couple of AI-generated graphics. It caused no small stir. However, the controversy over The Brutalist will likely prove far more significant.