AI was used to improve the Hungarian accent of the main actors, one of whom is American and the other British, reports the editor of Brady Corbet’s feature film, in theaters on February 12.
It’s a film that has been getting a lot of attention lately, notably for winning three awards at the 2025 Golden Globes, but not only that. Brady Corbet’s feature film, The Brutalist, which retraces for 3h30 the life of a Jewish architect who survived the Shoah and who emigrates to the United States to find out about his « American dream », is at the heart of a controversy. The film team is criticized by moviegoers and Internet users for using artificial intelligence in the feature film available on February 12 in France.
It all started when the film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed in an interview with RedShark on January 11, having used artificial intelligence to improve the Hungarian accent of the two main actors, Adrien Brody, who is American and Felicity Jones, who is British. “It’s a very unique language. We coached them and they did a fabulous job, but we also wanted to perfect it so that even locals wouldn’t notice any difference. » However, he specifies that the use of artificial intelligence was very light and only made it possible to modify a few letters which were not pronounced correctly.
But this tool would also have been used to create a “ series of architectural drawings and finished buildings » in the final scene of the film, reports the editor. “ We should have a very open discussion about the tools that AI can provide us. We used it to create these little details that we didn’t have the money or time to film “, he justified. Comments which did not go unnoticed on the Internet and which forced Brady Corbet, the director, to defend the authenticity of his film.
-« Real performance »
« These are real performances. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Artificial intelligence was used only for editing dialogues in Hungarian, in order to refine certain vowels and letters for more precision. The English dialogues have not been changed. This was a manual process done by our sound team and Respeecher (AI company) in post-production. The objective was to preserve the authenticity of the performances of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in another language and not to replace or modify them, and this with the greatest respect for the profession. he says.
Brady Corbet also clarified the situation on the use of AI in the final scene. « Judy Becker (the production designer) and her team did not use AI to create the buildings. All images were hand drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video in the background, our editorial team created images intentionally designed to look like bad digital renderings from the 1980s ». Presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2024, The Brutalist helped Brady Corbet win the Silver Lion for Best Director and looks set to land Oscar nominations on Thursday.
