AI and the Oscars: The Brutal Truth about The Brutalist and Emilia Perez

Why awarding AI manipulated films is a very dangerous and slippy slope.

Photo by Mirko Fabian on Unsplash

The Oscar nominations came out, and with only a matter of weeks until the big ceremony, there is plenty of chatter about who will win best picture. Dominating the discourse is the fact that both The Brutalist and Emilia Perez have use AI in their productions — a revelation that has many questioning whether either film should really be eligible for recognition. After all, these are industry awards recognizing hard work and artistic merit. How could we honour something that isn’t human, is trained largely through plagiarism, and isn’t actually doing hard work?

Supposedly The Brutalist only used AI enhancement for creating architectural buildings and backdrops that would be too expensive to make, and also enhanced its actor’s voices to perfect Hungarian accents. However, The Brutalist is a film about a famous architect, and they didn’t even use real architecture? That in itself in quite disappointing. What’s more, is that typically animators would have been used to create backdrops in other situations where a real place couldn’t be used/built, so there’s a whole group of talented folks who have been tossed aside here.

Now let’s move on to the accent issue. Most people will not be able to tell that lead actor Adrien Brody isn’t using a perfect Hungarian accent. Apparently, even with a dialect coach, mastering the nuances of the language is difficult to get just right. But if this authenticity was so important to the film, then why not hire an actual Hungarian actor?

The same goes for Emilia Perez, where an actress’ vocals were manipulated using AI to give her a wider singing range. Again, if this was so necessary to the film, then why not cast someone who could truly do the job?

But in the movie business, none of this is necessary! Film is about story telling, artistic interpretations, imagination, and suspending belief! We’ve never once in the past had an issue believing that the science in Jurassic Park may not totally make sense. Or that Lou Diamond Phillips isn’t an exact doppelgänger for Ritchie Valens in La Bamba — instead we totally understand that it is. Or even that somehow Jack Dawson wouldn’t be able to fit on that door in Titanic. Hey, maybe he could, but we just go with it in the film because that’s how storytelling works.

And besides, if we really want to have a conversation about authenticity, then why is it uncontroversial for Rachel Brosnahan to play Mrs. Maisel, or for Sims Liu to portray Shang-Chi? If we’re really going to get torn up about authenticity, then we have to accept that we’re being awfully selective about it. But hey, this isn’t a post about whether or not actors can or should play outside their own ethnicities. This is about whether or not films need to be authentically perfect in all aspects, and whether or not we should be using AI to do it — even if there are other options (like hiring real live people who can do it instead of manipulating the abilities of those who couldn’t).

So what does this mean for sthe Oscars? Well, I suppose we need to ask whether or not Adrien Brody deserves to win for best actor (since he is the front runner) when his performance was artificially manipulated. The same goes for Emilia Perez and its best actress nom. Where do we draw the line between human performance and the artificial one?

However, there is a much bigger, and dangerous, issue at play here. In order to manipulate his accent, Brody (and other cast members) needed to provide samples of their voice for the AI. So does this mean Brody’s voice is ripe for the taking? Can it now be used in his place? Are his delivered lines even his own now? Will we soon see Adrien Brody (or at least his voice work) featured in movies without his presence at all?

We already got a taste of this when Scarlet Johansson threatened to sue OpenAI over its use of an AI generated voice that sounded identical to hers. The company then offered for her licence her voice for use, to which she refused. Aside from all kinds of legal and criminal scams that could come from that (which is also an issue for non-famous folks), it threatens Johansson’s career and effectively takes away a part of her for whatever means — artistic or otherwise — it wants. If Johansson’s unique voice is really that desirable, then why are we looking to use it without her? Are we really getting into the business of taking people apart for our own selfish means and throwing away the rest?

I’d a thousand times over rather see a film about architecture that uses human-made glue gun and popsicle stick models over visually perfect AI any day. Why do we need things to look and sound ‘perfect’ when it isn’t even real? Give me authenticity. Give me imagination. Give me imperfect magical words made by talented people with artistic integrity. We did it with ET, with Back to the Future, with Labyrinth, with Titanic, with Crimson Peak, with Moulin Rouge, Star Wars, Inglorious Bastards, Romeo + Juliet, The Fablemans, Les Mis, Peter Man, The Sound of Music, Jaws, and on and on and on and on…

Who says we wouldn’t have been able to do it with The Brutalist or Emilia Perez?