It’s that time of year again that every movie-lover looks forward to: Oscar nominations release. As the holidays pass, we move onto what is arguably Hollywood’s biggest night of the year where artists from all over the world are celebrated for their cinematic masterpieces that have been years in the making.
There is always buzz around the nominations, whether it be the exciting surprises or disappointing snubs, but this year a specific issue has come to the forefront: artificial intelligence. The Brutalist, a film written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, has been the center of conversation due to its use of new AI technology.
The film tracks a Jewish-Hungarian architect, played by Adrien Brody, who immigrated to the United States shortly after World War II and is soon followed by his wife, played by Felicity Jones. Many have viewed the film as an artistic triumph due to its length of three and a half hours, including an intermission and use of Vista Vision to film. Not to mention, it’s a front-runner for pivotal awards such as Best Major Motion Picture.
However, in a recent interview with one of the film’s editors, it was revealed that AI was used in select portions of the film. Its first use was to enhance the Hungarian dialogue of the two lead characters. The creators of the film claim that it was simply used to adjust some vowels to make the Hungarian dialogue as seamless as possible, even to native Hungarian speakers. They added that the team was careful about preserving their performances and insisted this process was necessary with the relatively low budget they were given for a film of this nature.
Despite the insistence from the creative team, this scandal has received severe backlash from the public, and some movie critics have hypothesized that it may put Timothee Chalamet over the edge in the Best Actor category for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.
However, the AI usage went further than just the accents. It was additionally used at the end of the film to create a series of blue prints and finished buildings. Many critics have said that this specific choice took work away from visual artists and calls into question the film’s validity in being nominated for Production Design.
The presence of AI in the film industry is far from black and white and will continue to be a hot-topic for years to come. It has recently been on the minds of many with the two SAG-AFTRA strikes in the last few years regarding low writer wages and concerns over the use of AI to create scripts. This specific scandal regarding The Bruatlist has brought about an imperative conversation regarding the extent to which AI is problematic, yet, at the same time, possibly an inevitable development in the filmmaking world.
It poses questions regarding whether or not AI as an enhancement tool rather than a replacement tool can be ethical, and to what extent will the jobs of artists be jeopardized to make room for this faster and cheaper technology.
While many are starkly against the use of AI in film, others believe that this new advancement may just be something we have to embrace. In his recent podcast episode called The Big Picture, Sean Fennessy, a film enthusiast, said that if people refuse to watch movies like The Brutalist because of its minimal AI usage, they won’t be able to watch movies in 10 years.
Whether you agree or disagree with the ethics behind the making of this film, I don’t think this topic of debate is leaving any time soon, and it’s time to reflect upon how ready we are for an AI-filled world.