Clocking in at nearly three hours and abounding with actual AI images (of Count Dracula, of the Romanian warlord Vlad Tepes that inspired the famous vampire, and much, much else), the film seems almost deliberately enervating. In a climate where many in the film and creative industries see generative AI as an affront to both the medium and their careers, Jude’s use of the technology has proved contentious. Cheeky, satirical, obscene AI-generated images are, after all, still AI-generated images.
When he appeared via Zoom following a screening at the recent New York Film Festival, framed by an AI-generated backdrop, one skeptical cinephile snarked that Jude himself was officially “on fraud watch.”
Jude finds himself in the exact sort of knot his movies tend to draw tighter and tighter. His films have previously used mock-executions to explore the repression of historical memory, pornography to expose the cultural hypocrisy around adult sexuality, and misogynist posturing to grapple with the appeal of such postures. With Dracula, he weaponizes AI to damn AI? Or—as some purists believe—is stooping to use the technology at all a betrayal of cinema and the human creative spirit itself?
To figure this out, WIRED spoke to Jude, who appeared from France via Zoom, backgrounded by an AI-generated image of Donald Trump brandishing an AR-15 rifle while riding a cartoon kitty cat.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WIRED: Who’s that behind you? President Trump?
Radu Jude: I used this image at a European festival, where I was asked to give an online talk. Now that I’ve been invited to discuss my film with some American friends, I thought I’d offer them something they’d appreciate. This image was shared by Trump himself, when he was campaigning as the defender of cats and dogs.