AI Is Here At the Oscars

It’s that time of the year. The Oscars are upon us; they take place on March 3, early morning tomorrow if you are switching in from India. And like always, metaphorical thermometers are being passed on to do little temperature checks.

In the acting category, it is widely assumed, Adrien Brody will take home the prize for best actor for his role in The Brutalist. Unless Timothée Chalamet pulls a surprise.

Brody’s performance as a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who becomes a celebrated architect in postwar America has wowed audiences and cineastes, and Brody’s own story, where he has been somewhere in the professional doldrums with a string of odd film choices after winning best actor for The Pianist back in 2003, is being seen as something of a comeback story. The film itself too – both in its subject matter and treatment – is just the kind of movie the Academy traditionally likes to anoint.

But if Brody does take the award, there will be something of a slight asterisk to its name. Brody’s performance as deserving as it is, has been aided, in very small way, by AI. The film has used an AI software to fix Brody’s – and his co-star Felicity Jones’ – pronunciations in the few moments when they speak Hungarian.

Interestingly, the same AI voice-cloning tool Respeecher has been used to help the performance of another actor – Karla Sofía Gascón who has been nominated for best actress for her role in the musical Emilia Pérez. The film has used the tool to blend the singing voice of Gascón with that of the French musician who co-wrote the musical’s score. Most however seem to have soured on Gascón, after the emergence of old tweets that some people have found offensive.

AI is a prickly subject in Hollywood. Its use is growing, much to the dislike of many (it even led to the writer’s strike of 2023). And its stain can be harmful for a film aspiring to awards glory. Ever since the controversy broke out, The Brutalist’s crew has been at pains explaining how the use of AI was limited to the few parts where the actors spoke Hungarian, and how Brody’s and Jones’ performances are “completely their own”. The controversy has somewhat died since, and after some twists and turns, Brody is yet again being considered a front-runner, and the film a serious contender in many of the other categories its been nominated in.

If Brody does win, the award might prove to be something of an inflection point towards the industry’s attitudes towards AI. The use of AI is being bitterly opposed in Hollywood, especially over the fears that it will lead to job losses and may be used unethically (bringing back a dead actor to reprise an old role for instance). But it is being adopted, especially in the non-creative aspects for filmmaking.

Filmmakers and artistes have always used whatever new technological advancements were available to improve a movie or even a performance, from the time a voice could be dubbed over another’s to the now rampant use of CGI in films. Interestingly, there was very little brouhaha when Rami Malek managed to win best actor for his role of Freddie Mercury in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), even though his singing was a mix of Queen master tapes, recordings by Marc Martel (a Canadian singer known for sounding like Mercury) and Malek’s own voice.

One could argue that the use of AI as a tool in movies is an inevitability. We should embrace it and help it improve the process of film-making, and even acting. That it might even be a blessing. How else could have Peter Jackson separated dialogues from the din of studio recording in his acclaimed Beatles documentary Get Back?

But is it so simple, at least when it comes to rewarding performances. Should the Academy reward a human performance enhanced by AI, however minimally, over other performances? If we take the Oscars as a barometer for greatness in film, shouldn’t a performance where an actor has learned to speak the few lines of foreign language in a film correctly be deemed more impressive than one who uses AI to clean it up, or, in the case of Gascón’s performance, isn’t an actor who can act and sign considered more impressive than one who can just act? Also the use of AI in The Brutalist may be minimal, but going ahead, how will one determine how much is too much AI?

Whether or not Brody manages to win best actor, as the use of AI keeps grows in filmmaking, these questions will continue to arise.

Adrien Brodyartificial intelligencecinemafilmmakingHollywoodOscarsThe BrutalistWeb Exclusive