Yahoo Lifestyle 'The Brutalist' used AI for Adrien Brody – what does that mean for film?
Awards season is in full swing and the race to the Academy Awards looks set to be one of the tightest yet, with an impressive array of contenders all worthy of the top trophies. Papal drama Conclave leads the way with the BAFTA nominations, having achieved 12 nods, while Spanish-language film Emilia Perez won big at the Golden Globes. Surprise horror hit The Substance is having a good run, with Variety now touting Demi Moore as the frontrunner to win the Best Actress Oscar for her heartfelt take on youth-chasing Elisabeth Sparkle. Meanwhile, The Brutalist is typical awards-season fare and a likely Best Picture winner; Brady Corbet’s exploration of the life of László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust, has been widely applauded for its direction and for Adrien Brody’s nuanced performance.
However, some have been surprised to discover that The Brutalist creators used artificial intelligence to enhance the final cut. Dávid Jancsó, who worked as an editor on the film, said he used the AI software tool Respeecher to augment the dialogue in one scene that features Brody speaking Hungarian. “I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” he said in an interview. “We coached (Adrien Brody and co-star Felicity Jones) and they did a fabulous job, but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference.”
For many in creative industries, even just the mention of AI is enough to send shudders down spines. It’s something that has been particularly divisive in Hollywood, with the use of AI a bone of contention in both the writers’ and the actors’ strikes of 2023. Even A-List stars are becoming increasingly protective of their image being manipulated or re-used, with Robert Downey Junior saying on a podcast last year that he would “sue all future executives” who make AI replicas of him.
It certainly seems troubling that AI is developing at such a speed that in just a few years, it is now of a high enough standard that it can be deployed in feature films and audiences are left none the wiser. But it does beg the question of what this means for acting and the industry at large.
In some ways, it is arguably insulting and degrading to the artform of performance to have elements of a role enhanced by a computer. The whole point of acting is seeing actors morph into different people in order to tell convincing and compelling stories; significant research, work and love of the craft is vital in order to do this effectively. Take Timothée Chalamet and his five-year stint preparing to play Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. He spent much of that time honing his singing voice, learning to play the guitar and even mastering the harmonica in order to be pitch perfect for the biopic. Chalamet’s performance would have been cheapened if he, instead, did little to prepare for the role and instead used AI to varnish over any cracks in his performance. While Brody does have Hungarian heritage, and had a coach – and clearly, it must be said, spent much time preparing for the part – if verisimilitude is something that was so vital to The Brutalist, why was Brody cast over other Hungarian performers?
That’s not to say Brody doesn’t give an incredible performance throughout The Brutalist, with the AI-doctored scene in question just two minutes out of the film’s three hour and 35 minute runtime. Perhaps, instead of seeing slight AI adjustments on a performer’s work as heresy, we should see it as akin to a singer using autotune on an album track; providing a veneer of polish on a great talent, rather than faking it entirely.
Regardless of whether you think AI is a useful tool for creatives, or the death knell for an industry already in peril, one thing that is clear is that it is likely here to stay. What is important is that in a world where trust in media is at an all-time low, creators that do use AI, even just to add a gloss to performances, need to be transparent about it from the outset – otherwise, its continued use will only result in more harm than good for the already-struggling silver screen.
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