The Oscar might not be given? AI was used in the movie "Brutalist"

The Brutalist, a large-scale film directed by Brady Corbet, is currently among the favorites of the season's major film awards and has already won three Golden Globes. But its Oscar nomination is in question.

According to ITC, the reason may be the use of artificial intelligence in the creation of the film. In 2023, Hollywood screenwriters and actors held a large-scale strike against the use of AI technologies in movies, which resulted in their restriction in film production. Nevertheless, the authors of The Brutalist still used neural networks.

The film tells the story of architect Laszlo Tóth, a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and moved to the United States. For many years, he has been implementing an ambitious project that leads to irreparable consequences. The main character is played by Adrien Brody. The actor also has Hungarian roots, but he doesn't speak his native language. To correct his accent in some scenes, the filmmakers used a tool developed by Ukrainian AI startup Respeecher.

The film's editor David Yancho told us about it. "I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that this is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce. Even with Adrien's Hungarian background (Brody's mother is a Hungarian refugee who emigrated to the United States in 1956), it's not that easy. It's an extremely unique language," Janczó explained.

He also added that Brody and his co-star Felicity Jones were specially trained to pronounce Hungarian words. However, the goal of the authors of The Brutalist was to make sure that even the people of Hungary would not hear the accent. To achieve this, they needed the help of artificial intelligence in post-production.

In addition, AI helped create images for the movie's finale. Drawings of buildings were developed with the help of the Midjourney neural network. However, an artist then worked on them to stylize them in a high-quality manner.

The Oscar nominations are currently being delayed, and the debate over whether it would be appropriate to include The Brutalist in the list continues. Some observers believe that the use of AI may reduce its chances of winning the award.

"There's a debate in the industry about AI, but it shouldn't be," says Yancho. "We should have an open discussion about what tools we can use. There's nothing in the movie that hasn't been done before with artificial intelligence. It just speeds up the process. We use this technology to recreate small details that we didn't have enough money or time for," the editor explained.

It should be noted that the work on The Brutalist lasted for seven years. It premiered at last year's Venice Film Festival, and at the end of the film, the audience applauded for 13 minutes, such was the impression the film made on them.

The Brutalist will be released in Ukraine on February 20.

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