‘The Brutalist’ producer defends Oscar-winning movie’s use of AI

A producer for the Oscar-winning film, “The Brutalist,” is defending the production’s use of artificial intelligence.

D.J. Gugenheim, one of several producers involved in the film, spoke with Deadline at the Oscars on Sunday night, saying the technology is simply a tool.

“If you’re in post [-production] on a film, there’s so many tools that you use, whether it’s lighting, sound, and these are all versions of functions of numbers,” he told the outlet. 

“What’s important about how we’re making a film is that we’re trusting the actors and the creatives and the talent to make a film. So, if no one is losing a job, and you’re making the best version of the product, that’s when you’re using a tool.”

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“The problem, I think, with AI is when we take away a job,” he added.

Gugenheim said he felt the team didn’t hide the fact they used AI, noting the editor shared the information himself.

Dávid Jancsó told tech magazine Red Shark News in January that AI tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were used to improve the Hungarian dialogue spoken by stars Adrien Brody, who won for best actor at this year’s Oscars, and Felicity Jones.

“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” Jancsó told Red Shark. “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.”

According to Jancsó, Brody and Jones recorded their voices into the AI software, and he used his own voice for some of the dialect.

He also shared that generative AI was used in the film’s final sequence to create a “series of architectural drawings and finished buildings” in the style of Brody’s character, an architect. 

The revelation stirred controversy about the use of AI in film, and some demanded that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences institute disclosure rules for next year.

“People are asking questions, like, The Academy is now asking if AI is being used. I say that’s great. There’s no problem with that, and you shouldn’t use AI to take away from a job, for sure,” Guggenheim told Deadline.

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Director Brady Corbet also addressed the controversy in a statement to Variety shortly after Jancsó’s interview, writing, “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. 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.”

Corbet also stated that 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.”

“The Brutalist” wasn’t the only nominated film this year to use AI.

“Emilia Perez” used AI to increase the vocal range of the film’s star, Karla Sofia Gascon, according to the re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz in an interview at Cannes last May, per The Guardian.

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“Dune: Part Two” used AI for the Fremen characters, who have distinct glowing blue eyes.

In the official production notes for the film, Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Lambert explained they created “a machine-learning model, an algorithm trained from those ‘Dune’ shots to find human eyes in an image, which would then give us a matte for the different parts of the eye.” 

The Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” also used AI, but only for “3 brief wide shots on a motorcycle, not involving performance or creative enhancements,” per a statement to Variety.