BABYLON
directed by Damien Chazelle
Starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li
Was watching my favorite classic movie channel, TCM, this morning and got pulled into a classic black and white Western that I had never seen before. I didn't catch the beginning of it, but it was 1940's Wagon Train, with no major stars in it.
This film was truly rough and tumble, showing all the aspects of what pioneers moving into the West faced in a really visceral way. Their own humanity and vulnerability -- they could sicken, be wounded, get food poisoning, lack water, or starve and so could their horses. Their wagons could break down and lack the resources to be fixed while on the trail. They could be decimated by fire or wild animals.
I'm not going to address the historical breach of white settlers into land belonging to indigenous Americans here, that's been documented; the film shows the dangers the pioneers (OK, what are they pioneering again? OK, I said I wasn't going there) faced from native tribes who wanted to attack and stop their encroachment on their lands. But it also showed that they faced treachery and dishonest dealings from their own: Outlaws trying to elude justice by masquerading as settlers and hiding among them, trail robbers holding them up, unscrupulous businessmen swindling and overcharging them for supplies. In Wagon Train, the main issue was a vicious man trying to control the food supply available at the Pecos, NM, trading post this wagon train was heading for, deliberately leading them to deprivation and starvation while fattening his pockets.
As I watched this film I began to think about the effort and coordination it took to film it. This wasn't some drawing room comedy on a closed set. In Wagon Train there was a huge cast of extras and horses out on a set on the plains and in the mountains (according to Wikipedia, it was filmed in Kanab, Utah and in Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks, California, home to the movie industry's Janss Canejo Ranch where dozens of Westerns were shot). Those wagons had to be built. Those cameras had to capture horse-back chase scenes, shootouts, fires, Indian attacks, and an all-out galloping gun battle between men on horses and a cavalcade of wagons led by horse teams careening through the landscape at breakneck speed. These actors were living this reality to get this film and others like it made.
What is the point of all this? It made me reconsider a recent movie.
So as I was watching and thinking about the grit and gumption and grueling effort it took to make this movie just as a piece of enduring cinema entertainment, I began to recall watching the 2022 film Babylon, a Damien Chazelle-directed black comedy about 1920s Hollywood that was released toward the end of the year and has been mostly panned. I will agree that Babylon is an ooey, gooey, mad, mind-melting MESS of a film, but it had extended moments of brilliance. And chief among its pluses was its expression of the pure unfettered JOY and transportive MAGIC of making movies and watching them.
We've seen sooo many movies about movies, about those hungry for film stardom; about the pace, the tradeoffs, the price, the sacrifices; and about the rise and fall of Hollywood personalities: The Bad and The Beautiful, Inside Daisy Clover, A Star Is Born, The Day of the Locust, Sunset Boulevard, The Last Tycoon, more recently Hail, Caesar!, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, The Fabelmans, and Chazelle's own La La Land. And, of course, Singing In The Rain, which Babylon references. But in no other flick that I can remember do two characters -- aspiring actress Nellie (Margot Robbie) and ambitious factotum Manny (Diego Calva) -- sit down and enthuse joyfully about how watching movies makes them feel inside.
The movie has great cinematography and some beautifully orchestrated shots. Another plus is the film's score -- its bright orchestrations that evoke the 1920s but add swagger and charm. In fact, it was Babylon's music that reminded me that this was a Chazelle film, as I loved the original Justin Hurwitz music from La La Land (though I did not like the movie as much).
Babylon starts with a bang -- the distressed fart of exhaust from an overloaded truck hauling a full-grown elephant up a hill to the debauched party of a Hollywood tycoon -- and never lets up. From the mountains of cocaine, nudity, golden showers, elephant poop, champagne, drug overdosing, drunkenness, and hot jazz of the party, Babylon follows the entwined trajectories of brash New Jersey newcomer Nellie LaRoy and Mexican-born Manny Torres as they become further drawn into the pre-talkies era of movie making. Outrageous Nellie is already a star in her own mind, and soon becomes a Hollywood sensation when she turns a walk-on role in a B picture into a breakout acting turn. Manny makes himself indispensable to fading film star Jack Conrad (a highly entertaining and sympathetic Brad Pitt), and soon his proximity and a knack for being a fixer boost him like a rocket into the top tier of the studio film production ranks.
Along the way, we get a tour of all of Hollywood's quirks, personalities, and dark secrets, but we also get a real-time glimpse of how films of the era were made in a visceral, you-are-there way, particularly those Western and Roman epics made on those outdoor film lots in the California hills, much like Wagon Train. We experience the seven circles of hell of Hollywood society, from the ridiculous fawning and posturing of the rich elite in their mansions and luxury hotels, to the middle rank of working stiffs who keep the cogs turning day to day, to the dank and gritty underworld of hustlers, addicts, poseurs and fringe-dwellers who also play a key role in keeping the Hollywood machine grinding.
The movie depicts a rare woman film director; a Chinese American lesbian cabaret performer (Li Jun Li) who moonlights as a script title writer; and shows the experience of an African American trumpeter (Jovan Adepo), who gains more opportunities to appear in films as sound becomes the norm while undergoing more racist humiliations (until he walks away). We get to know these characters and others intimately, Ultimately, though, it's Manny's story and we see things unfold from his perspective; except for most of the film actor Diego Calva is reacting, running, or feverishly trying to reason with a range of difficult personalities. It isn't until later in the film, when Manny is looking back on all that he went through, that we see actor Diego Calva dig deepest emotionally.
With its combination of deep character revelation, riffs on longstanding in-jokes and stock characters, a mix of actual history and Hollywood film lore, and shockingly hilarious set pieces (vomiting in a fancy mansion, a snakebite in the desert, a miscalculated payoff with fake movie money that leads to an underground freak den and a shootout) Babylon owes as much to Monty Python, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino as to Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels) or Stanley Donen (Singing In The Rain, On The Town, Charade).
Ultimately, Babylon is an intense cautionary tale. It shows that stardom is a constantly shifting status that even once attained, has to be constantly chased. In particular, the innovation of the talking picture played havoc with the careers of countless 1920s screen actors and that is the catalyst that changes the fortunes for the lead characters, ground covered by Singing In The Rain. We see it here again: Those who cannot adapt are quickly left behind, as are those whose time in the sun of stardom comes to an end. And those who cannot come to grips with the fact that the party is over are doomed.
But Babylon is also too much -- like when someone orders rounds of shots toward the end of the night and you know you've already had more than enough. We feel for the perpetually drunk, philosophizing and melancholy actor Jack Conrad, who can't cope with his own obsolescence, but his demise seems unearned. The Nelly character is relentlessly loud, self-centered, undisciplined, self-sabotaging, and ruinous not only to herself but everyone around her (but we know why). Margot Robbie is amazing -- she throws herself into the role with furious and physical abandon. But Nelly's antics become tiresome after a while, and we are left to scratch our heads about how many times Manny is willing to sacrifice for her. Extreme circumstance forces him to leave her behind, and while that's a heartbreaking end to their torturous romance, it's the only reason Manny survives to live the next part of his life.
The movie is long, and in places I was enduring it more than enjoying it because it definitely assaults the senses with its relentless pace. Chazelle's drive to keep upping the stakes for the characters, fill each scene with eye-popping color and detail, as well as crank up the level of comic shock and awe is frankly exhausting. But this is also what makes the film so uniquely exhilarating.
I have to say that for all of its excesses, Babylon haunts me. I suspect that this one will become a cult favorite as time goes on and people will come to appreciate its comedy, its craft, its rawness, and the thread of truth running through the outrageousness. For all of its darkness and cynicism, it's also a love letter.
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