A documentary was released about Anthony Burudne, who committed suicide. For voice acting, an artificial voice of the chef was used

The director of the picture was accused of inefficiency

On July 16, the film “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” (“ Running : The Film about Anthony Burudren”) was released on July 16, dedicated to the famous American chef that committed suicide in 2018. The director of the picture is Morgan Neville, the holder of Oscars for the film about the backwater-vocalists “Two steps of glory” and the author of other popular documentaries (“Abstraction: Art of Design”, “Miss American” about Taylor Swift and others).

Wide fame came to the chef Anthony Burden in the early 2000s, after his book “On Food: Strictly Confidential” (Kitchen Confidental: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly). He later became a star of American television - first led the culinary television show on the Food Network channel, then on the Travel Channel, and in 2013, the premiere of his superpopular program “Unknown parts” (Parts Unknown) was held about the kitchen of different countries of the world; For this project, Burden received five Emmy. In April 2018, the premiere of the 11th season of “Unknown parts” took place, and in June, Burden committed suicide-his body was found in the hotel room in France, where he worked on the next episode of the show.

Neville began to make a film about Buruden a year after his death. During the filming, the author talked with friends and relatives of the chef, traced his path to popularity and tried to understand what was disturbed by. He did not directly answer the question why Burden decided to commit suicide. But he showed how much he wanted to find happiness, how he suffered from the impostor’s syndrome, was tired of popularity - and was absorbed in relations with actress Asia Argento. The author does not consider his work a film about the price of popularity. “What he fought with, arose long before he became famous,” he says in an interview with The New Yorker.

After the release of the film, Neville was accused of inefficiency: the author used the vote of Burudlen in the film, generated by a neural network, and voiced phrases that the chef did not really utter.

In one of the episodes of the film, artist Davil Cho, a friend of Buruden, reads an email from him: “Friend, it’s strange to ask about it, but I am curious ...” - begins to read Cho, after which his voice changes to the voice of Burudlen: “... my life is now quite shitty. You are successful, I am successful, but I still think: are you happy? "

The author of The New Yorker Helen Rosner asked Neville, where he managed to get a file with the voice of Buruden reading this letter (in other episodes, archival shootings, post -classes, audiobooks and podcasts were used). “There were three quotes that I wanted to hear him in a voice, but there were no such records,” the director answered. He decided to turn to the developers, handed them ten hours of audio recordings of Burudlen and received a "model of his voice created by artificial intelligence." The generated voice fit into the film so well that it produced a “terrible effect,” writes the author of The New Yorker. According to Neville, not knowing the exact phrases, the viewer will never guess which three of them are read by an artificial voice. “We can arrange a round table on ethics in documentary cinema later,” he added.

After this publication on Twitter, a dispute broke about whether the author had the right to use the artificial voice of a deceased man, without warning the viewer about it. Critics, who did not know during the viewing of this detail, condemned the authors, calling this fraud and manipulation of the audience. In an interview with GQ, Neville said that he spoke about this idea to his ex -wife Burudin Ottavia Busia and his literary agent - and that they approved her and said that Burden would like it. “I did not put the words in his mouth. I just tried to revive them. " However, later Ottavia denied this information on her Twitter, saying that she did not say that her husband would like it.

The second serious claim expressed to the creators of the picture is that Morgan Neville did not even try to interview Asia Argento, Burden met immediately before his death. Neville told Variety that he did not invite her to the film because she says "the same thing in every interview." He also told reporters that he did not want to turn the film into a picture of their difficult relationships: "If I had an extra minute with her, this would violate the balance of the whole film."

However, it seems that this whole situation did not affect the reception of the film. He received both positive criticism and good box office fees in the first rolling weekend.

Natalia Gredina