• The Brutalist film uses AI technology, specifically Respeecher.
• AI tool maintains authenticity by tweaking actors’ pronunciation.

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist is no ordinary film. With its marathon runtime, unique storytelling, and heavy Oscar buzz, it’s poised to leave a mark on this awards season.

The drama is in the aftermath of World War II and centres on László Tóth (played by Adrien Brody), a fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect forced to leave his homeland and rebuild his life in America while separated from his family. Despite its retro feel, The Brutalist makes surprising use of modern technology.

AI was employed to refine Brody and co-star Felicity Jones’ Hungarian pronunciation, adding to the debate about artificial intelligence’s role in film-making. Some regard the innovation as a betrayal of traditional craftsmanship. For others, it’s simply another tool to elevate storytelling.

AI steps into the spotlight

According to Dávid Jancsó, the film’s editor, Hungarian isn’t an easy language for non-native speakers to master. A member of the Uralic language family, it shares roots in Finnish and Estonian, but it differs from the languages most Anglo-Saxon speakers are familiar with. Even talented actors like Brody and Jones had difficulty with the language’s unique sounds and pronunciation. To address this, the production crew utilised Respeecher, an AI-powered voice transcoding tool created by a Ukrainian company.

Respeecher is well-known for its ability to alter a voice’s characteristics, including its accent, pronunciation, and specific features such as a lisp. In the The Brutalist, AI was employed to refine only the most difficult aspects of Hungarian speech, like the pronunciation of specific vowels and letters. Jancsó himself, a Hungarian speaker, played a direct role in the process. He re-recorded parts of the corrected dialogue to ensure that the changes were natural and seamless.

“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” he claimed in an interview with RedShark News. The idea was to maintain the integrity of Brody and Jones’ performances while making minimal adjustments to enhance authenticity.

Respeecher’s proven track record

For Respeecher, stepping into The Brutalist wasn’t a first. The company has built a reputation as a behind-the-scenes post-production tool in Hollywood. One of its most notable contributions was restoring the voice of Darth Vader for Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series after James Earl Jones retired. Respeecher has re-created the voice of French singer Édith Piaf for an upcoming biopic, allowing her to “narrate” her own biography.

Respeecher’s applications go beyond entertainment. The company has also utilised its technology to preserve endangered languages, like Crimean Tatar, which has experienced challenges as a result of Russia’s occupation of the region. For The Brutalist, Respeecher was more than a convenience – it was a necessity. With so much Hungarian dialogue to process, manually correcting every line would have been time-consuming and costly. Using AI significantly sped up post-production, an advantage for a film with only a $10 million budget.

AI beyond speech

AI’s role in The Brutalist wasn’t limited to speech correction. It was also used to create some of Tóth’s architectural drawings and completed buildings, particularly those featured in the Venice Biennale sequence. While Jancsó did not specify the exact tools used, he mentioned that AI helped fill in details the production team lacked the time or resources to create manually. However, director Brady Corbet later stated that AI was not used for all the film’s visual elements as production designer Judy Becker and her team hand-drew many of the buildings. The AI-generated components were intentionally designed to mimic the style of poor digital renderings from the 1980s. Corbet emphasised that AI was used sparingly and thoughtfully, always with the intent of preserving the film’s artistic integrity.

A broader debate on AI in film

The use of AI in The Brutalist has reignited conversations about its role in the film industry. In recent years, generative AI has been a hot topic, with applications ranging from scriptwriting to music production. While these advancements offer exciting possibilities, they’ve also raised concerns about the potential erosion of traditional craftsmanship. The concerns were central to the 2023 strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The strikes resulted in months of negotiations and accords to regulate AI’s use.

For Jancsó, the criticism of AI in film making is unwarranted. “It is controversial in the industry to talk about AI, but it shouldn’t be,” he said. “We should be having a very open discussion about what tools AI can provide us with. There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster.”

What’s next for The Brutalist?

As The Brutalist awaits its Oscar nominations, it’s unclear how the revelations about AI will affect its standing in the industry. The film’s creative team has been transparent about its use of technology, emphasising that it was employed to enhance – not replace – the hard work of the cast and crew. Whether you see AI as a threat to artistry or an innovative tool, its importance in film making is only going to rise. For The Brutalist, AI played a minor but significant role in bringing an ambitious vision to life.

The film is a cinematic love letter to the postwar Brutalist architectural movement and the golden age of American cinema. Shot in the rarely used VistaVision format, The Brutalist captures the grandeur of mid-20th-century film making. Adding to its throwback charm, the movie features a 15-minute intermission during its three-hour-and-34-minute runtime, making every screening an event.

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