‘The Brutalist’ Director Brady Corbet Issues Statement on AI Controversy

The Brutalist director Brady Corbet has responded to his editor’s recent revelation that they used AI, one that could hurt the movie’s potential awards chances. Running at three hours and 35 minutes, The Brutalist is a sweeping epic that stars Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States. Ever since the film debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2024, The Brutalist has been an awards favorite, and following its win for Best Motion Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes, it seemed like a Best Picture front-runner at the Oscars. However, a recent claim about the film’s use of AI has cast doubt on those chances.

Following the controversy, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet addressed the concerns about the film using AI in a statement to Deadline. Regarding the claim that the movie used generative AI for an ending scene that shows architectural blueprints and finished buildings, Corbet said, “Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980. The Brutalist is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished here.” Corbet then addressed the suggestion that AI was used to enhance stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’s performances:

“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”

The revelation that The Brutalist used AI emerged following an interview with the film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, with RedShark News. Jancsó said that AI was used to improve Brody and Jones’ Hungarian accents to make them sound more authentic using AI tools from Respeecher, the same technology used to de-age Mark Hamill’s voice for Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. That same interview also led to the claim that the film used generative AI for the final scene, which has been very controversial among filmmakers and movie fans.

The Growing Concerns Around AI in Hollywood

The Brutalist is just one of many films from 2024 caught up in criticism regarding the use of AI in its production. Late Night With the Devil came under heavy fire for the prominent use of AI artwork for interstitial graphics for the film’s fictional TV broadcast. A24’s Civil War didn’t use AI in the film itself, but the technology was used in the promotional campaign to make a series of widely mocked posters that didn’t match the actual context of the film. The Brutalist award competitor Emilia Pérez also used AI to enhance the singing voice of star Karla Sofía Gascón. The beloved fan-favorite Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga used AI in its post-production process, a surprising aspect considering the extent of practical filmmaking in the franchise. AI has sadly become common, and is likely being used far more than is known.

While Corbet’s claims might dispel the notion that the movie used generative AI artwork, and some could wave off using it for vocal enhancement in a process likened to sound editing (which is up for debate), the headlines are likely going to do some real harm to The Brutalist‘s Oscar chances. While voting for nominations closed on January 17, 2025, one day before The Brutalist made headlines for using AI, the news will likely follow Corbet’s film into the awards race. It certainly will have to do a lot more to clear up the headlines if it wants to win back some of the more passionate Academy voters who might not feel comfortable awarding a Best Picture win to a movie that used controversial technology.

Cast

Adrien Brody
, Guy Pearce
, Felicity Jones
, Joe Alwyn
, Raffey Cassidy
, Stacy Martin
, Emma Laird
, Isaach De Bankole
, Alessandro Nivola
, Michael Epp
, Jonathan Hyde
, Peter Polycarpou
, Salvatore Sansone
, Ariane Labed
, Jeremy Wheeler
, Jaymes Butler
, Matt Devere
, Natalie Shinnick
, Stephen Saracco
, Peter Linka
, Robert Jackson

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