David Cronenberg is not one to suffer fools and he definitely knows a scam when he sees one. Amongst this year’s many Oscar-related scandals, perhaps one of the more futile narratives was around the use of AI in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” Considering the project prided itself on being a throwback to classic movie-making, even shooting on film and utilizing the old format of VistaVision for certain scenes, many fans were disappointed Corbet would use such a divisive technology in his work. Speaking at London’s Royal Festival Hall during an appearance with composer Howard Shore at Soundtrack Festival, Cronenberg shared how he believed the uproar to be unnecessary and perhaps even orchestrated.
“I must confess, there was a scandal [with] ‘The Brutalist,’” he said (as per The Hollywood Reporter). “There was a discussion about Adrien Brody… but apparently they used artificial intelligence to improve his accent. I think it was a campaign against ‘The Brutalist’ by some other Oscar nominees. It’s very much a Harvey Weinstein kind of thing, though he wasn’t around.”
The Canadian filmmaker pointed out to the audience that craftspeople have been manipulating elements in post for ages and that even he has been know to adjust audio from time to time in his films. While presenting one of his collaborations with Shore — an adaptation of the play “M. Butterfly” — Cronenberg even acknowledged the changes he made in post.
“We mess with actors’ voices all the time,” Cronenberg said. “In the case of John [Lone], when he was being this character, this singer, I raised the pitch of his voice [to sound more feminine] and when he’s revealed as a man, I lowered to his natural voice. This is just a part of moviemaking.”
“The Brutalist” scandal erupted when the film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, told video tech site RedShark News about how he blended his own Hungarian accent with that of the characters played by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.
“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” Jancsó said. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we’d still be in post.”
When social media heard this news, many were apoplectic over one of this year’s strongest Oscar contenders utilizing a technology many still believe has no place within a creative industry. Trying to cool heads, Corbet released a statement further explaining how the AI tool was used and its minimal effect on the overall film.
“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,” said Corbet. “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.”
Despite this conflict, Brody still managed to win Best Actor at the 97th Academy Awards, with composer Daniel Blumberg also receiving Best Original Score for the film as well. Cronenberg himself is not unfamiliar with scandal either. Chatting further during the London Soundtrack Festival, he brought up the reception he received following the premiere of his erotic thriller “Crash,” which many called to be banned.
“The film caused a huge sensation [at the] Cannes Film Festival in 1996,” Cronenberg said. “Alexander Walker was a very famous film critic here, said this was a film ‘beyond the bounds of depravity’, which of course I loved. We actually used in some our ads.”
The filmmaker received a less-excitable reception last year at Cannes where he unveiled his latest feature, “The Shrouds,” starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce.
“The Shrouds” releases in NY/LA theaters on April 18 followed by a nationwide release on April 25 from Sideshow/Janus Films.
