Brutalist AI Controversy Explained

Like Rome, no architectural wonder was ever built in a day… but the AI ​​controversy currently taking over social media took just hours to threaten one of the year's biggest Oscar winners. The Brutalist is one of the best movies of 2024 brought to us by Chris Evangelista.. Directed by Brady Corbett from a screenplay by himself and Mona Fastvold, the 215-minute epic (don't worry, there's a short intermission built into the film) follows fictional Jewish architect László Toth as he subsequently emigrates from Hungary. from the Holocaust to the United States. Hopelessly separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and almost completely alone in a strange and hostile country, he embarks on a grueling odyssey to make a living as one of the most brilliant architects of his time…if he can. only to find someone (Guy Pearce's opportunistic patron Harrison Lee Van Buren, Sr.) who recognizes his talents and pulls him out of obscurity.

The Brutalist is nothing short of a powerful, essential work that speaks directly to current events, but all that makes this AI-related development all the more disappointing.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years, the artificial intelligence arms race in Hollywood has surprised no one, and The Brutalist has become the latest title to fall under its sights. Those of us who are adamantly opposed to fancy technology still are, because of the use of artists and creatives, concerns about plagiarism, environmental impact, and more. In this case various users on social media pointed to the studio's official press notes and interview, which revealed that the 2024 film used generative AI for a few specific purposes: to represent architectural blueprints and drawings in a pivotal moment in the final act, and more broadly to enhance Brody's Hungarian accent. . Here's why this revelation has many movie fans worried.

Who doesn't love some good old fashioned Oscar drama? Speaking for themselves, fans of “The Brutalist” could probably have done without this recent outburst — especially since the entire film is about the painstaking, overwhelming, and all-consuming effort it takes artists to create their legacies. own. The idea that they behind this one the story in particular took such blatant creative shortcuts it's almost too ironic for words.

However, there are some question marks over these reports that are worth digging into. First and foremost, there is the question of where exactly this information came from in the first place. The original posts on X (formerly and, let's be real, still widely known as Twitter) pointed to indie studio A24's press notes, which were paraphrased and reposted RedShark news. Given that the actual copy of this article contains several robotic-sounding and nonsensical phrases (such as the sentence referring to “The Brutalist” as, and I quote, “one of the films of the year”), it didn't take long. many users suspected that the article itself was “written” by AI. However, the site goes on to claim that they interviewed “The Brutalist” editor David Janczo about the decision to use AI in the production as a whole, which included a program known as Respeecher to “improve” Brody's notoriously difficult pronunciation of Hungarian. and accent.

It is also worth pointing out that As film writer and The Ringer podcaster Joanne Robinson notedthe timing of this information certainly seems curious. Awards campaigns often have more to do with financial resources and politics than the actual quality of any given film. As mentioned in Robinson's post, disgraced industry mogul Harvey Weinstein was notorious for changing Oscar season in favor of his Miramax films (via the BBC). With the Academy Awards set to take place in March 2025, and The Brutalist seen as one of the frontrunners in several important categories (namely Best Picture and Best Actor), it's worth asking which studios would benefit most from the latter of the moment. controversies that will likely undermine the chances of the top spot.

If there is a major “villain” in The Brutalist, it comes in the form of Guy Pearce's immensely wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren, Sr., a man who claims to be a patron of the arts despite having very little creative instinct. When he hires László Toth to design and build a magnificent community center as a monument to his legacy, his promises of financial support soon turn to outright manipulation and abuse. Again, if the metaphor behind this AI controversy wasn't already obvious enough, the movie gods must have found the dumbest way possible to settle this point.

The biggest concern with The Brutalist and its use of AI is how it affects and directly alters Adrien Brody's performance. The source article claims that both Brody and director Brady Corbett were “fully involved” in using Respeecher to adapt their voice work, meaning the creative team fully addressed the all important issue of artist consent (as set forth in regulations resulting from the SAG-AFTRA strike) from a legal point of view. However, this does not in any way affect the ethics of using machine learning algorithms to change something as fundamental to a film as dialogue and speech. If Brody were to win Best Actor (an honor he's already won at various critics' groups, mind you), then we'd have to grapple with how much of his performance was artificially inflated… not unlike athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs to. enters the record books. Or the use of AI is something more familiar, such as prosthetics and makeup used to enhance Sebastian Stan's work in “Another Man” as a recent example?

While this particular case of artificial intelligence didn't replace any actual artist work, one wonders if the accent coaching profession and similar jobs could be sidelined in favor of a cheap and quick fix. Corbett, for his part, sought to dispel such concerns in his statement of the situation (via Deadline):

“Adrienne and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked with dialect coach Tanner Marshall for months to perfect their accents. The innovative Respeecher technology was used exclusively to edit the Hungarian dialogue, specifically to improve certain vowels and letters for accuracy. English no language was changed This was a manual process by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production, the aim was to keep Adrien and Felicity's performances in another language, not to replace or change them, and this is done with the utmost respect for the office.”

As for other uses of generative AI in film, Corbett stated:

“Judy Becker and her team did not use artificial intelligence to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, the commemorative video that was seen in the background of the shot was deliberately engineered by our editors to look like poor digital renderings of approx. in 1980.

Adding further chaos to the mix is ​​the fact that, incredibly, The Brutalist is hardly the only film in the Oscar race to use AI. Users on social media (such as the critic Isaac Feldberg). If someone is going to point the finger at one big movie for its controversial reliance on artificial intelligence, then it's only fair to apply the same standards across the board. (For what it's worth, and in the interest of full disclosure, I have a rather negative evaluation of “Emilija Perez” / the film here.)

Of course, in recent years we've seen more and more movies that incorporate AI into production. Similar controversies led to different names, e.g. HBO series “True Detective: Night State” and especially the horror film “Late Night with the Devil”. But more and more acclaimed directors, from David Fincher to James Cameron, have admitted to using the technology to some extent in their films. For better or worse, AI has already spread throughout the industry and all signs point to this genie staying out of the bottle.

Does this suggest that we should sweep this discourse of “The Brutalist” under the rug? It is, as always, in the eye of the beholder. Defenders defend it as hardly a big enough deal, or a big enough violation of artists' rights, to merit as much controversy as it already has. Meanwhile, dissenters seem to have enough evidence to point out that this is another step on a slippery slope that could have even greater consequences. Whatever the case, the noise surrounding artificial intelligence isn't going away anytime soon.

“The Brutalist” is currently playing in theaters.