“The Brutalist,” a brand-new movie that was released in late December, will be showcased at the Oscars this year. However, this movie has sparked much controversy, as the film’s editor recently announced that he used AI to enhance the actors’ accents.
The movie, set in Hungary, naturally calls for Hungarian accents. The main actors who were cast, however, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, are not Hungarian. One is American, the other English. While they followed standard practice and were coached on the unfamiliar accent, David Jancso, the film’s editor, claims that it is a difficult accent to authentically replicate. So to save time and money in the editing process, AI was used to alter some of their speech to make it sound more authentic. Nothing major, just changing a letter here and a letter there. But this has sparked a widespread debate on the celebration of this film.
The film has been shortlisted for the 2025 Oscars, with 10 different nominations. Interestingly enough, one of these is for achievement in film editing. This is where the problem comes in. Should we be awarding a work that was done using AI? AI is a useful tool, and it is used more and more in the film industry, often without us even realizing it. But in this particular instance, it intersects with the performance of the main actors, both of whom have also been shortlisted for their acting performances in “The Brutalist.” However, the film’s director, Brady Corbet, insists that “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”
All this makes you wonder, at what point does art stop being art? At what point is it considered artificial?
This is not the first time that artificial intelligence has been used in the film industry. It has become fairly common practice to use it to enhance background details. The problem is, this is not some minor background detail. This is the speech of the main actors of the movie, a prominent part of the work.
If accuracy is so important, why not cast Hungarian actors, or even Hungarian-American actors? If authenticity is key, find people who are from the same place of origin as the characters they are attempting to portray.
But I would argue that authenticity is not key. It is important, yes; glaringly obvious mistakes will turn off the viewer. But this is just a flaw that comes from people expressing themselves. Humanity is imperfect, and as an extension of ourselves, our art is imperfect as well. Those imperfections are what make our art human. What do we lose when AI begins to mingle with the expression of our very humanity? How could something artificial ever truly express something so fundamentally human? That is the authenticity we should be focused on – the authenticity of raw human experience.
Technology can be a useful tool. But we must be aware of how much we are allowing it to alter and how much we are willing to let it control. As the BBC Science Focus Magazine puts it, “creatively speaking, the nature of its training means AI can’t come up with much that’s original or novel.”
While AI may continue to develop as an important filmmaking tool that can save both time and money, it is important to keep creativity and expression at the heart of what we create. Because if it becomes just artificial entertainment, what’s the point?
Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
