Oscar-Winning Movie Criticized for Using AI To Correct Dialects (thebaffler.com) 37
Nominated for 10 Oscars, The Brutalist (directed and produced by Brady Corbet) has an "intriguing and controversial technical feature," according to the Baffler, that threatens to turn movie-viewing into "a drab appreciation of machine-managed flawlessness, and acting less interesting..."
In January, the film's editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that he and Corbet used tools from AI speech software company Respeecher to make the Hungarian-language dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody (who plays the protagonist, Hungarian émigré architect László Tóth) and Felicity Jones (who plays Tóth's wife Erzsébet) sound more Hungarian. In response to the ensuing backlash, Corbet clarified that the actors worked "for months" with a dialect coach to perfect their accents; AI was used "in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy...." Defenders of this slimy deception claim the use of AI in film is no different than CGI or automated dialogue replacement, tools commonly deployed in the editing suite for picture and audio enhancement. But CGI and ADR don't tamper with the substance of a performance, which is what's at issue here....
AI seems poised to decimate the voice acting industry; how long will it be before filmmakers give up on the whole time-wasting business of dialect coaching and language research and toss their performers' untrained vocalizations directly into the linguistic Instant Pot...? "Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own," Corbet has argued. Only, they're not. Brody and Jones's performances may now be authentic to spoken Hungarian, but they're no longer authentic to themselves: at least in the parts of the film with Hungarian dialogue, the acting stands more as a monument to the prowess of the voice-matching software than that of the actors...
AI is a different beast from color film, or the Louma crane, or the hand-held camera: it's steroidal, aesthetically corrupting, and unlike these earlier advances it confronts the filmmaker with real ethical questions... Use implies complicity. To incorporate AI into the production of art today, no matter how sparingly or subtly, is to endorse Silicon Valley's politics and worldview: its exploitation of both producers and "users," its blithe indifference to the social impact of post-automation layoffs and the environmental assault of industrial data processing, its cramped and uninteresting idea of imagination, its petrification of creation. It's a vote for the assholes...
In short, the essays calls this "recourse to corrective AI" a "filmmaking prosthesis that cheats the viewer and cheapens the performances." And ironically this clashes with the film's depiction of a "principled artist," according to the article. ("Some of the 'retro' digital renderings in the memorial video included in this scene were also, Corbet has admitted, produced with the help of AI.")
The essay notes that several of 2024's other Oscar-nominated films also employed Respeecher, including Dune: Part Two and Emilia Pérez. "What matters here is not this particular infraction but the precedent it sets, the course it establishes for culture."
AI seems poised to decimate the voice acting industry; how long will it be before filmmakers give up on the whole time-wasting business of dialect coaching and language research and toss their performers' untrained vocalizations directly into the linguistic Instant Pot...? "Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own," Corbet has argued. Only, they're not. Brody and Jones's performances may now be authentic to spoken Hungarian, but they're no longer authentic to themselves: at least in the parts of the film with Hungarian dialogue, the acting stands more as a monument to the prowess of the voice-matching software than that of the actors...
AI is a different beast from color film, or the Louma crane, or the hand-held camera: it's steroidal, aesthetically corrupting, and unlike these earlier advances it confronts the filmmaker with real ethical questions... Use implies complicity. To incorporate AI into the production of art today, no matter how sparingly or subtly, is to endorse Silicon Valley's politics and worldview: its exploitation of both producers and "users," its blithe indifference to the social impact of post-automation layoffs and the environmental assault of industrial data processing, its cramped and uninteresting idea of imagination, its petrification of creation. It's a vote for the assholes...
In short, the essays calls this "recourse to corrective AI" a "filmmaking prosthesis that cheats the viewer and cheapens the performances." And ironically this clashes with the film's depiction of a "principled artist," according to the article. ("Some of the 'retro' digital renderings in the memorial video included in this scene were also, Corbet has admitted, produced with the help of AI.")
The essay notes that several of 2024's other Oscar-nominated films also employed Respeecher, including Dune: Part Two and Emilia Pérez. "What matters here is not this particular infraction but the precedent it sets, the course it establishes for culture."
The substance of the performance was the problem.. (Score:2)
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I replaced your comment with an AI-generated one, and you're right, it did make it better.
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That was low-hanging fruit though.
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Film is already not what it was (Score:3)
"slimy deception" (Score:4, Interesting)
whoever said that can go to hell. i think it's cool that they were so dedicated to the authenticity of this movie that they brought in dialog coaches, then polished off the recorded dialog using computers. that's literally no different than tastefully using autotune to correct bad pitch or Izotope RX to reduce the noise from wind picked up on the microphones.
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I disagree. Think about George Lucas' treatment of Star Wars; then think about how this sort of tech is basically gonna empower little tin-pot dictator-directors everywhere to do the same sort of thing, incessantly.
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What analogy do you see with Star Wars? George Lucas might use AI to change the accent of the cantina singer's performance to be more faithful to Pa'lowick speech?
Directors have a lot bigger influences and more impactful tools already than this tool.
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The content in your post sounds quite OK. But then the question arises: who defines the "tastefully"-part mentioned in your comment?
Because I can already tell you that your definition of "tasteful" won't be the same as my definition. Or anyone else's for that matter.
Now just must know that I refuse to see a movie that has been dubbed. Original spoken and subtitles, that I can live with. Now I don't have an issue with an actor trying his best to speak in a language that is not really his own. And appreciate
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Isn't much of the dialogue in movies and on TV re-recorded after the shooting and over-dubbed anyway? Like when they do an outdoor shoot and can't remove all the background noise or have mics close enough without being visible in the frame.
It does seem overblown. The sound in movies has always been manipulated, and this is just using a new tool to do it. I actually look forward to not being jarred by the terrible pronunciation of non-native languages in future.
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I agree. I do not understand why the use of AI in this way would create such a backlash.
Also, there are so many American movies in which the foreign accents are TERRIBLE and in some cases even in the entirely wrong language that's claimed (I remember "The Thomas Crown Affair", where the person spoke Swiss German and it was claimed to be Hungarian). So they get massive points for trying to do it properly, with or without AI.
And the dying dinosaur screams (Score:3)
Video image generation of entire scripts will happen. The studios will resist, but the hobbyists will embrace it and make cool stuff
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Wait till they find out (Score:2)
the entire story is made up and the people in it are just pretending to be someone they aren't.
Shrugging my shoulders (Score:2)
Objecting to this usage is silly. If you don't mind washboard abs digitally enhanced in post, it shouldn't bother you to have vowels tweaked. It's just regional autotune. And, like autotune, purists will get bent out of shape about it, industry will embrace it, and most of the rest won't give a rats ass.
Now, the larger feature set of respeecher is scarier. But that isn't this story.
The greatest conspiracy ever- (Score:2)
Couldn't find any Hungarian actors? (Score:3)
You've gone to the trouble of teaching a Yank and a Pom enough of the Hungarian language only to overdub them with 'correct' Hungarian.
I'm not defending the use of AI but in terms of crimes against cinema, this is not the least inauthentic part of the story.
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I know, right? I was aghast when Anthony Hopkins played Lecter. I don't think he's ever eaten a liver in his life.
Authenticity is incidental, if it matters at all.
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* "human liver" :)
Would it work for sharner? (Score:2)
That man is his own accent
A waste of electricity (Score:2)
No Sympathy for AI (Score:2)
Specious arguments to the contrary wrt. state of digital science, state of the art digital filmmaking or enhanced sound processing either a bad film falls flat on the metaphorical editing room floor or in the marketplace. I don't care to watch any of these false films - faked upon the public.
AI, only IBM got right its DEEPMIND application to gene folding for discovery of molecules in humans. Everyone else has lost their mind fixated on a pursuit of perfection for perfection sake. And thank goodness IBM pull
Unlike some other Robin Hoods (Score:4, Funny)
The industrial revolution continues... (Score:2)
What a silly thing to worry about. It's still the actor's voice, just slightly processed to refine an accent. I mean, David Prowse didn't really sound like Darth Vader. By the way, how is this any different that using tech to make Harrison Ford look younger in his movie: altering his appearance, as opposed to altering his voice?
Yes, voice acting is on its way out. Extras are already replicated using technology. Bit-part actors will be next.
Technology progresses, humans move to other jobs. Life has been
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In Lucas' defense, Prowse never appears on screen mouthing his lines without the helmet.
I recall the Spanish film Kika (worth seeing if only for sex-symbol Victoria Abril at the height of her powers in outfits that would have made Madonna blush.)
In that movie. Almodovar hired American actor Peter Coyote, who from all reports had reasonable Spanish. They shot the entire film and dubbed it in post-production with a very heavy accent from Spain - destroying any authenticity of an *American character* for heav
No CGI tamper? (Score:2)
Counter example: A de-aged Robert De Niro in "The Irishman" who still moves like a 75 year old man.
Fear of change (Score:2)
The real discrimination (Score:2)
Why not hire a Hungarian actor?
Damn English-speaking people taking Hungarian jobs!
Then don't watch the movie. (Score:2)
Autotune? (Score:2)
Films != Movies. If the actor agreed then fine. (Score:2)
The argument is coming from someone who defends the purity of film. That is great and I respect it. But they aren't the fashion police who can or should attempt to legislate what a movie director wants to do, so long as the actor agrees. There may be a problem with becoming sensitive to people not looking Photoshop perfect, or there may be an impact on employment of young actors / extras, but it's difficult to find someone actually being harmed in this case. It is a movie, not a film. That said, iit seems t
Gina Carano's voice in Haywire (Score:2)
She has a fine voice as her other performances demonstrate, but it was decided to "sweeten" it and/or make it unique by adding the voice of another actress's on top of hers. Perhaps not so noticeable when she was basically an unknown, but it's jarring now.
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