Brady Corbet, director of the 3x Golden Globe-winning movie The Brutalist, has confirmed that artificial intelligence played a role in post-production, specifically in refining actors' Hungarian accents and generating architectural mockups. Despite the use of AI tools, Corbet maintains that the integrity of the performances and artistic vision remain intact.
In a statement to Deadline, Corbet assured that actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones put in significant effort to master their Hungarian accents with the help of dialect coach Tanera Marshall. "Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents," Corbet said, stating that no changes were made to the English-language lines. "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 says to Deadline.
The software in question, Respeecher, was brought in during post-production to adjust pronunciation after the traditional ADR process fell short. Editor Dávid Jancsó, who first disclosed the AI involvement in an interview with Red Shark News, explained that the technology helped speed up what could have been a painstaking manual process.
"It's mainly just replacing letters here and there," Jancsó said. "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."
Beyond dialogue adjustments, AI was also used in the film's visual elements. According to Corbet, generative AI assisted in "conjuring" architectural drawings for the film's closing sequences. However, he clarified that the final artwork seen on screen was hand-drawn by human artists. The intention was to create images that appeared as rough digital renderings typical of the era. "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 said.
The revelation of AI involvement has sparked discussion, particularly given the film's reputation as a model for cost-effective filmmaking. Produced on a modest $10 million budget, The Brutalist has been praised for achieving a grand scale without the financial excess typical of larger productions. However, the use of AI prompted a bit of skepticism among industry professionals and audiences alike.
But The Brutalist surely isn't the first nor the last movie that leveraged the new AI tech that promises to enhance the job and save a few hours during the post-production. Deadline reports that, according to sources, "the practice of cleaning up audio in post is a common practice for all movies."
Take Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, for instance, which involved extensive post-production adjustments. According to Rolling Stone, much of the singing in the 2018 film relied on a blend of Queen’s master tape vocal stems and new recordings by Canadian Christian rock singer Marc Martel, whose voice closely resembles Mercury's. Malek’s performance was ultimately an amalgamation of several voices.
Similarly, Angelina Jolie's singing portrayal in Netflix’s Maria blended her voice with that of opera legend Maria Callas. More recently, reports suggest that Netflix’s awards contender Emilia Perez also used Respeecher technology to enhance Karla Sofía Gascón's singing range by blending her voice with that of composer Camille, who scored the film.
Despite the mixed reactions, The Brutalist remains a strong contender for major awards this season. The film, an ambitious 215-minute epic, tells the story of László Tóth, a Jewish Hungarian architect who emigrates to the US after surviving the Holocaust. Despite his talents, he lives in obscurity until an American businessman, played by Guy Pearce, offers him a second chance at success.
And while AI's role in filmmaking continues to be a hot topic, it seems the technology is becoming an increasingly common tool in both independent and big-budget productions. For now, it appears that AI's place in filmmaking is less a question of "if" and more a question of "how much."
