Buzz
Online communities are criticizing The Brutalist's production team for incorporating AI technology in the filmmaking process.
With an impressive 9 nominations at the 2025 BAFTA Awards, The Brutalist is a strong contender for the Oscars' Best Picture category. However, the film faces potential disqualification due to its use of AI. A visual effects editor involved in the project admitted to using generative AI to enhance the film's color grading for greater realism.
A brief overview of The Brutalist: the film tells the story of László Tóth (played by Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to America to pursue the American Dream. Brody, whose mother is Hungarian and father is of Polish-Jewish descent, has shared that he sees parallels between his family's struggles and the character he portrays.
Adrien Brody as László Tóth - Photo: A24.
Despite Brody's outstanding performance, which earned him the Best Actor in a Drama award at the Golden Globes earlier this month and is expected to secure him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, every aspect of The Brutalist is now under intense scrutiny.
In an interview with RedShark News, editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that the team used generative AI to refine scenes featuring Hungarian dialogue, ensuring more authentic pronunciation of the language.
Jancsó shared: "As a native Hungarian speaker, I know this is one of the most challenging languages to pronounce. Even with Adrien's Hungarian heritage, it wasn't easy. It's an incredibly unique language. We coached [Brody and Felicity Jones], and they did an excellent job, but we also wanted to perfect it to the point where even native speakers couldn't detect any differences."
The editing team reportedly used an AI tool called Respeecher to enhance the actors' pronunciation and "refine specific words in the characters' dialogue." Jancsó even used his own Hungarian voice to train the AI software for accuracy.
Many dialogues in the film are in Hungarian - Photo: A24.
He explained: "Most of their Hungarian dialogues contain a part of my voice. We were very careful to preserve their performances. It was mainly about replacing a few letters here and there. You could do this manually with ProTools, but since we had so much Hungarian dialogue, we needed to speed up the process; otherwise, we'd still be in post-production."
Jancsó's revelations immediately sparked backlash. Film enthusiasts and internet users alike criticized the production team of The Brutalist for using AI in the filmmaking process. They argued that works generated by algorithms cannot be considered true art.
On the other hand, some supported the use of AI in The Brutalist. Since the actors couldn't convincingly deliver Hungarian lines, and AI was only applied to a small part of the production, many agreed with this modern approach to filmmaking.
However, the controversy surrounding The Brutalist might reduce its chances of winning votes at the Oscars.
The story doesn't end here: generative AI wasn't just used for dialogue adjustments but also to create a lengthy sequence at the film's conclusion. Here, the filmmakers employed artificial intelligence to generate a series of architectural designs and the houses featured in the movie.
According to Dávid Jancsó, industry professionals shouldn't shy away from discussing the topic of AI. He stated: "We should have an open discussion about what AI tools can do for us. There's no element in the film enhanced by AI that hasn't been done before. It simply speeds up the process. We used AI to create small details we didn't have the budget or time to film."
Whether or not The Brutalist wins an Oscar could significantly influence how AI is perceived, especially in the film industry.
