AI tool controversy in Hollywood around The Brutalist: How much AI is too much?
[13:31 Sat,1.March 2025 by Thomas Richter]
It&s not yet the point where entire Hollywood films are generated solely by AI, but as filmmakers know, there&s a growing number of AI tools that can be helpful in various aspects of film production – from pre-production and shooting to post-production. Shortly before this year&s Oscars, a major controversy erupted over the legitimacy of using such AI tools. The two Oscar contenders "The Brutalist" and "Emilia Perez" provided the occasion – in both, the actors& performances were somewhat "enhanced" by AI. In both cases, the speech and singing recordings were slightly edited using voice cloning.
In the film drama "The Brutalist," which is nominated for 10 Oscars and interestingly filmed on VistaVision, the two Hungarian main characters were supposed to speak the language perfectly, which, given the legendary difficulty of the Hungarian language, which is more closely related to Finnish than other European languages, apparently could not be achieved despite intensive coaching and language training. Therefore, in post-production, the possibility of using voice cloning in the form of the tool via Respeecher to specifically correct some sounds and letters afterwards was used. And despite this very limited use of AI (or in this case, a deep learning tool), there was such strong criticism that the producer felt compelled to respond:
Adrien and Felicity&s performances are entirely their own,” Corbet said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, contradicting the assertion that technology was used to enhance or alter the actors’ performances. “They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. The innovative Respeecher technology was used exclusively in the editing of Hungarian-language dialogue, specifically to refine certain vowels and consonants for greater accuracy. No English text was altered. This was a manual process undertaken by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The goal was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien’s and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them – and that with the utmost respect for the art.
In "Emilia Perez," AI was used to improve a singing performance afterwards by increasing the emotional range and – also via Respeecher – merging it with the voice of a professional singer. Here, too, there was a barrage of criticism.
The topic of AI in Hollywood has been a major issue not only since the 2023 actors& strike, because there are fears that film productions would only too gladly use AI to produce films more cheaply – at the expense of the artists. Because it is becoming increasingly easy to replicate voices, as well as the appearance and entire performance of actors. As a result of the strike, actors have been able to enforce fundamental restrictions on the use of AI – their consent is required for the creation of digital replicas, and they are compensated for their use – but they fear that precedents such as the two above could continue to expand – what if the director subsequently alters the faces or facial expressions of the actors in certain scenes at his discretion using AI? – and the use of AI to improve voices is only the gateway to a gradual takeover of the entire performance by AI, which would then make actors completely unnecessary.
The Brutalist
Therefore, they are taking a purist stance, which is entirely based on a human performance that is not changed or "improved" in any way – particularly exemplified by these two films, in which AI-supported actors are competing for the acting Oscars. A win for them could be interpreted as a win and normalization of AI use in Hollywood.
However, "AI" in the form of deep learning-based tools has already been used more often in the past, e.g., in artificial rejuvenation or aging of faces as a replacement for elaborate make-up. And given the usefulness of new AI tools, their use in all corners of post-production will be difficult to stop.
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