Should an AI-Enhanced Performance Win an Oscar?

"The Brutalist" and "Emilia Pérez" have sparked controversy

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in "The Brutalist"
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in "The Brutalist"
A24

This year’s Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, and the conversation dominating Park City this year has been the debate over the use of AI in movies — specifically in Oscar contenders like The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez.

It all started with an interview that The Brutalist‘s editor Dávid Jancsó did with RedShark News where he admitted to using Respeecher, an AI voice-cloning tool, to fix the Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in the film by correcting mispronunciations. “If you’re coming from the Anglo-Saxon world certain sounds can be particularly hard to grasp,” Jancsó said. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there.” 

Brody was nominated for an Oscar for his work in The Brutalist, and after winning the Golden Globe for Outstanding Lead Actor earlier this month, he’s heavily favored to win cinema’s biggest acting honor in a stacked Best Actor category that includes Timothée Chalamet’s critically beloved turn as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. But should a performance that was enhanced by AI — however slightly — really be awarded an Oscar, or is relying on AI to nail the foreign language your character is supposed to speak akin to an athlete taking steroids?

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These actors are, in theory at least, being honored for the quality of their performances. But AI was used to clean up key portions of their performances. (Beyond The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez used AI to alter its lead actress’s singing voice.) Isn’t an actor who can learn how to correctly pronounce all of his Hungarian lines more impressive than one who can’t? Isn’t someone who excels at both singing and acting more impressive than someone who’s only capable of one or the other?

To be fair, the AI Hungarian used in The Brutalist is minimal, and it doesn’t seem to cross any major ethical boundaries. Brody and Jones both consented to their performances being tweaked, and Jancsó synthesized his own Hungarian accent with their voices. But can an industry that fought tooth and nail against studios embracing AI — and went on a lengthy strike to protest how AI threatens human creativity — really afford to celebrate a movie that was given a little artificial boost? We’ll find out when the Oscars hand out their trophies on March 2.

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