The most challenging film in Damien Chazelle’s discography so far is “Babylon.” “Babylon” is a sizable period piece set during the point in Hollywood’s history when the age of silent cinema gave way to the introduction of sound, unlike the single driven “Whiplash” or the romantic two-hander “La La Land.” Chazelle’s script follows a broad cast, each having their own unique, sporadically interwoven narratives, to better capture this time period.
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The key actors are a diverse group of individuals who had various positions in the industry ecosystem in the second half of the 1920s. There is the well-known actor Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), and the outsider and social climber Manny Torres (Diego Calva). Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a jazz trumpeter who becomes a star in his own right, and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a multi-talented artist and performer whose sexuality keeps her in the background, round out their core trio. Elinor St. John, a sensationalist journalist played by Jean Smart, observes, records, and exaggerates their escapades.
These diverse artists hammer out their intricate make-believe worlds using the ageing equipment during the day, sweating and bleeding for the motion picture industry. By night, however, their Dionysian excess equals (if not surpasses) the effort put forth before it, with lavishly decadent parties marked as much by glamour as they are by hedonism and catastrophic overindulgence. However, this enchanted way of life ends when sound recording permanently affects the fundamentals of filmmaking, and the dramatic last act of the movie discovers some startling and devastating outcomes for each of its most interesting characters.
Coming Home Again
With his wife and their child, Manny returns to Los Angeles in 1952. He strikes up a conversation with the Hispanic security guard about how he used to assist in film production on the other side of the gate as they examine the doors of the studio he had worked for. While his family decides to return to their hotel, Manny continues to wander the streets, filled with regret for the life he had to leave behind. He wanders inside a movie theatre showing “Singin’ in the Rain,” a film that is closely related to “Babylon” because it takes place around the same period. Now that it’s in colour and not just sound on the big screen, it’s a dramatised account of the same events that he and his buddies managed to survive.
Well, a few of them made it. A montage depicts the tragic outcomes for the remainder of our group, including Elinor’s death and Nellie’s overindulgent death. However, the focus remains on Manny and the powerful emotional response he is having to this movie. We also see images of the diverse and enthralled audience. The movie suddenly cuts to a montage of the movies that will come after that, and after that, actually ascending to “Avatar” in the history of cinema.
Despite the fact that Manny had to leave the movies behind, they will always be available to him and the rest of us.
Desperate measures
The two dominoes that are left to fall are Manny and Nellie. It has been evident that Manny loves Nellie ever since they first met in the first act of the movie—possibly more than she is able to give back. Despite all the changes in the industry, Manny has managed to become a successful executive. However, he still has one weakness: his loyalty to a once-promising star who is currently going through a very difficult period. Manny is forced to make one final effort to save Nellie when she appears at his door pleading for assistance since she is too close to some extremely dangerous people.
The Count (Rory Scovel), a Hollywood land jack of all crafts who performs a variety of professions on the set but is primarily a drug dealer, is the person Manny turns to. The Count is able to gather the required funds and set up a meeting with James McKay, the crime boss who Nellie owes money to (Tobey Maguire). McKay’s oddities and shady connections mirror the botched drug trade from the last scene of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” immediately building suspense. As McKay is pitching them bad movie ideas and compelling them to follow him and his cohorts to what he claims is the final true party left in LA, Manny learns that the money The Count has obtained is prop money from the studio, which heightens the stress.
What follows is a terrifying and darkly humorous journey into an underground nightclub with multiple levels that is concealed beneath a tunnel. In the shadowy backdrop, there are all kinds of unsettling and unsettling activities going on, but they are all depicted as the evil twin of the previous parties in the movie. When they arrive at the main attraction, a Herculean man in a mask is performing some extremely bizarre and unsettling actions with mice. McKay finds out the money is false at this point, forcing Manny to flee with The Count.
Last call
Jack is having a fun night out with his pals when he runs into Lady Faye, one of his last fellow countrymen from a bygone period. Jack appears to be resigned to his fate of performing simple, unfulfilling roles in bad movies as favours to the executives who no longer regard him. Earlier in the movie, Lady Faye was a compelling live performer who was also talented behind the scenes, contributing to the creation of movie title cards. She developed a special bond with Nellie since she was one of the few script writers who knew how to tailor a plot to play to Nellie’s advantages. However, one of Manny’s many fixer responsibilities was separating Faye from Nellie because tabloid reports that the two were dating interfered with his efforts to reposition her.
Faye is therefore moving her artistic abilities to Europe, where, in contrast to the new staid tranquilly sweeping Hollywood, the numerous art sectors are blooming. As the two reconnect, Jack’s old flame seems to rekindle as we witness the same charisma and ardour for the arts that he displayed prior to his tragic turn. Jack feels alive again for a brief period before saying goodbye to her.
That is, until he travels a long way back to his hotel room while the camera faithfully follows him, at which point he enters the bathroom and blows his brains out.
Please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialling 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) if you or someone you know is having suicide thoughts.
Not dark enough…
Even Sidney, in the midst of his newfound fame, learns that his new life’s radiance has a limit. In a crucial scene, Sidney is performing with a band made up of musicians who are darker coloured than he is while also filming a set piece for a new film. The producers are worried that when they market the film to the audiences who have previously adored Sidney’s work, it will appear to a layman to be a white man playing with a black band because the black and white cameras cannot distinguish his brown skin for what it is under the harsh studio lights. In order for Sidney to blend in on film with his co-stars, Manny, ever the fixer, is brought in to persuade him to use burnt cork, which is most frequently used for blackface in minstrel shows.
Manny makes use of the fact that none of the other artists will be able to provide for their respective families if they are unable to finish and distribute the film. Sidney does it, humiliating himself, and after the shot is over, he exits the studio property and never comes back. He travels back to the jazz clubs and clubs of his youth, where he may not be as well-known but won’t need to compromise his own craft to maintain stardom.
One last dance
The Count and Manny decide to flee to Mexico for safety, and Manny persuades Nellie to follow them because it’s their last chance of surviving. The two take one more dance at a wedding they crash while refuelling the car while they wait for The Count to pack. Up until the false note poisons it, it is a fascinating and devastating display of a life the two may have together as husband and wife. It feels too ominous to be real given the path we’ve taken throughout this final act.
Nellie slips off, singing and dancing to herself in the dark while Manny rushes inside The Count’s apartment to rescue him, knowing what we had known all along: that this particular love tale wouldn’t end happily. Making matters worse, one of McKay’s men breaks into the apartment as Manny enters and kills The Count while sparing Manny’s life as he cries out for his life. He is granted freedom with the condition that he avoids Los Angeles and immediately departs for Mexico to start a new life.
The Dying Light
Chazelle appears to be fascinated with the constantly evolving nature of the cinema industry and the notion that what it once was might never be again, like many other filmmakers post-Covid. But he is able to reiterate through “Babylon” that this perpetual change is a benefit rather than a flaw. The end of the silent era did not spell the end of movies, nor did it signal the end of those believing that something would. Although some viewers may find this climax to be overly grandiose and its galactic optimism to verge on parody, it is a profoundly encouraging and nutritious note to end such a disorganised and at times taxing movie on.
Technology might evolve. Society might advance. But the desire to tell stories will always exist. On that huge, brilliant screen, many of them look their finest.
The End of an Era
After the film’s extended middle section, “Babylon” turns into a well-stacked Jenga tower that is falling apart at a startlingly fast pace. The audience’s reaction to watching a film where there are no title cards required and dialogue can be heard freely feels like a klaxon heralding the end times when Jack sends Manny to the New York premiere of “The Jazz Singer.” It’s time to change, or risk falling behind.
Everything that made the people we, the audience, have been seeing so particularly talented for creating movies turns out to be regrettable flaws or peculiarities in the new studio production model. The movie spends some time contrasting the hermetically enclosed nature of recording sound under intense studio lighting that air conditioning cannot cool because the fans would be too noisy with the wild and unrestrained structure of shooting silent films.
The scenes that showcase all the adjustments needed for this new paradigm at first are hilarious and enjoyable, but the reality they depict send everyone down unique, frequently sad paths.
The Party is over
Each of our esteemed players gradually starts to crumble in this new environment in one way or another. Audiences turned off by Nellie’s Jersey girl accent and gauche demeanour find her fire and persistence, which made her so seductive in silent films, to be too annoying. When speaking actual words, Jack, a performer so skilled at conveying emotion and intrigue through his eyes and expression, sounds embarrassingly silly. Above all else, though, the ethically acceptable world to which everyone had become accustomed starts to change. The first act of the movie’s elephant parades and graphic sex-filled parties are no longer present. In their place, a new milieu for upper crust parties attended by wealthy elitists emerges that is sanitised and socially oppressive.
Only Manny seems to be able to roll with the changes; after making Sidney into a musical star with new films targeted at Black audiences in the Deep South, he spearheads a rebranding effort for Nellie to make her more appealing in the sound era. The strongest sign that he won’t be able to help her, given that she struggles with money problems, addiction, and gambling, comes when her big comeback at a formal dinner party implodes.
With Elinor by her side, Nellie fully breaks down. She throws her new posh accent and any remaining vestiges of her etiquette into the trash and tells the other guests to go fornicate with themselves both figuratively and literally.
Yesterday’s news
After a few unsuccessful talkies, Jack decides to conduct an interview with Elinor for a feature article about what the future might hold. However, after the publication of the magazine, the cover depicts him as a faded has-been, and executives won’t return his calls, forcing him to meet her in her office. She refers to information that she was unaware of, giving the impression that she had a supernatural understanding of where Jack’s mind has been all week. Jack is questioned by Elinor about whether he is interested in learning why viewers laughed at him at the performance he attended undercover.
Elinor then goes on to explain what she has learned about the movie industry through observation in a passionate speech that Smart beautifully nails. She draws attention to the cyclical nature of fame, the transient nature of telling stories on the big screen, and the immortality that comes with being immortalised on celluloid. Even if Jack Conrad’s days as a bankable celebrity are over, he will continue to live on in the future anytime someone screens one of his movies. once more.
Although it is presented as soothsaying from a respected colleague, this speech is crucial to Chazelle’s thematic preoccupations with “Babylon,” and even though it feels like she is speaking directly to us all about the enduring truth of cinema — that it cannot be killed in a way that truly matters — it feels like she is doing so.
