On 17 January 2025, this year’s crop of Oscar nominations were announced, with the films Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist leading the pack with 13 and 10 nominations apiece. For Emilia Pérez, this marks a record number of nominations for a foreign language film, and the recognition of Karla Sofía Gascón for lead actress marks the first time an out transgender actor has been placed on an Oscar shortlist.
However, early into The Brutalist’s campaign disaster struck: on 11 January, RedShark News released an interview with director Brady Corbet and editor Dávid Jancsó, where they detailed how they used generative artificial intelligence to aid the post-production process. News broke soon afterwards that Emilia Pérez had used similar technologies.
The backlash was swift and fierce. Outraged cinephiles took to social media to question the Academy’s seeming indifference to the use of artificial intelligence in film, claiming that this was cheapening the creative process. In particular, there was upset over the fact that Adrian Brody has been nominated for best actor for his role of Jewish-Hungarian architect László Tóth in The Brutalist, despite AI being used for the Hungarian portions of the film. This poses important questions for the future of cinema: what technology should we welcome and what should be avoided, and is there a place for AI in cinematic production?
The revelation that AI was used in what are (according to the critics) the best films of the year is certainly an uncomfortable one. For most, it is important to consider exactly what technologies were used. It was initially reported by RedShark News that The Brutalist implemented generative AI to create a sequence of architectural blueprints and finished buildings, which were shown near the end of the film. This news was met with distress, because not only does using generative AI take away from the humanity and creativity of cinema, but its increasing use in the creative industries siphons jobs away from real people.
This fear was central to the Hollywood strikes in 2023 and 2024, as writers and actors feared that they would lose out due to studios cutting costs by using these cheap technologies. How then, can we accept the Oscars lauding two films which actively use these technologies, when they harm artists and devalue human-made art?
We can accept it with a little more clarity, it seems. In response to the backlash, Brady Corbet released a statement to various Hollywood publications on the nature of the AI used in the production process. Perhaps upset punters were imagining generative AI such as ChatGPT, but this is quite unlike the technology used by both The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez. Both films implemented Respeecher, which is a speech synthesis software used for manipulating an actor’s vocal performance.
Adrian Brody is not a native Hungarian speaker, but The Brutalist editor Dávid Jancsó wanted to create an accent so perfect that “not even locals will spot any difference.” To do this, he fed Brody’s and his own voice into the software to refine vowels and polish the performance. Similar work was done in Emilia Pérez, where Respeecher was used to extend the vocal range of Karla Sofía Gascón. Respeecher can be seen as just a newer (and cheaper) version of ADR, which has been industry-standard practice since the 1990s. ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) is the process of re-recording audio in the studio to correct mistakes or change dialogue in a pinch. Respeecher essentially does the same job, but speeds up the process. Corbet also refuted the claim that AI was used to create renderings of buildings, stating that “[The Brutalist’s production designer’s] team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings.”
Perhaps that’s that, then. It seems that the claims that generative AI has overshadowed the creative process are unfounded. However, there are questions that can be asked of what this means for the future of cinema. Do the nominations of The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez legitimise the use of generative AI in film? And is there any significant difference between AI and other technologies in the industry?
Cinema is a startlingly new medium, and films today are almost an entirely different art form from the first pictures to grace the silver screen. Take Robert Egger’s 2024 hit Nosferatu, which is a remake of Murnau’s 1922 silent-era film. The two tell the same story but the similarities end there: differences in cinematography, acting styles, and set design are stark. How, then, do we decide what technologies to accept or reject? The first ‘talkies’ revolutionised the medium, perhaps generative AI should be allowed to do the same.
For me, the difference comes in how the technology supports or takes over the creative process. Although in the late 1920s critics worried the introduction of sound would limit the power of physical acting, letting stars talk opened up new limitless possibilities for the future of film, powered by humans. The problem comes when we lump all generative AI technologies into the same bracket: it is clear tools like Respeecher are vastly different from large language models that can generate a script for a blockbuster in seconds. The former is just the modern iteration of post-production technology and allows the artist the full realisation of their vision; the latter wrestles creativity from humanity and into the wires of an unfeeling Central Processing Unit.
As for fears about whether the use of Respeecher will legitimise the use of all AI in cinema from now on, I am cautiously optimistic. It feels like over 2024 we have watched any and every industry shoehorn AI somewhere into their product (I am very confused as to why Strava now has ‘Athlete Intelligence’), and it is only natural to fear film will be next. 2023’s Late Night with the Devil included AI-generated images, suggesting that some directors do not see generative AI as an existential threat.
Despite this, there is evidence that the community will not accept this trend. My favourite film of 2024 was the wonderful Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. Aardman puts painstaking care into the production of their plasticine characters, and the films have a distinctively human touch: you can even see the fingerprints of the animators left in the clay.
The film (and the entire series) has a poignant message for those who prioritise technological advancement over humanity. Wallace invents a robotic garden gnome and happily presents it to Gromit, thinking Gromit will be pleased that Norbot the gnome can do the gardening while Gromit puts his paws up. Gromit is not happy – for him, the enjoyment comes from the process of cultivation, not just the final product. The same is true of the creative process of making art. If the public (and the Academy) have had such a warm reception of Wallace & Gromit, I can only hope that they’ve taken the message on board and we can resist AI-domination in the world of cinema for a little while longer.