After successfully winning three major awards at the recent Golden Globe Awards, A24‘s period drama The Brutalist is currently facing some backlash due to its AI usage. It has been revealed that the creative team used AI tools from Ukrainian specialist Respeecher to enhance lead stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian dialogue in the film.
The Brutalist was directed by Brady Corbet, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mona Fastvoid. The cast also includes Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach De Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola. It was produced by Andrew Lauren, D.J. Gugenheim, Brian Young, Andrew Morrison, Trevor Matthews, and Nick Gordon.
The Brutalist director Brady Corbet clarifies AI usage
Following the backlash, Corbet has officially issued a statement to address the movie’s AI usage, revealing that the technology was only utilized during the editing of the Hungarian language dialogue. Since making its theatrical debut, the film has received a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents,” Corbet explained (via Deadline). “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. 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.”
On the topic of using Generative AI for the film’s closing sequence, he clarified that all of the building images shown were hand-drawn by artists. “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 added. “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.”
He continued, “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.”
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