Fame, Film, and Filth
Babylon, directed by Academy Award-winning director Damien Chazelle, is a sprawling ode to cinema that landed in theaters with a thud. Despite flopping with critics and audiences, I regard Babylon with esteem. In time, I believe the movie will be plucked from the cinematic dustbin, reevaluated, and given its due. Until such time, you, dear reader, can stream the film now and stay ahead of the curve.
Babylon begins in 1926 and follows a colorful cast of characters navigating the transition from silent films to ‘the talkies’ and beyond. For film freaks and fans of old Hollywood, Babylon is brimming with homages, reverent and irreverent, to the films of a bygone era. It’s a cinephile’s delight: a movie about movies. With its epic runtime and pervasive depravity, it also epitomizes the sensibilities of Acquired Tastes.
Over a year ago, I considered Babylon within the framework of Adrian Martin’s essay “The Offended Critic.” In my piece, “Old Hollywood and Offended Sensibilities - Part I,” I argued that:
“Old Hollywood serves as the pretext through which audiences are confronted with upsetting truths with the potential to provoke offense. [Babylon is] not self-congratulatory, masturbatory celebrations of the wonders of cinema, [it is an] aesthetically splendorous indictment.”
I marveled over the film’s fusion of Oscar bait and unrepentant degeneracy, writing:
“I struggle to recall a film so explicitly interested in the intersection of high and low-brow sensibilities. At its core, Babylon expresses a wide-eyed passion for early cinema akin to that of Scorsese’s Hugo (2011), smeared with cocaine residue and body glitter a la Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).”
I concluded that “broadly speaking, Babylon employs vulgarity with intention,” but that isn’t necessarily a full-throated endorsement. However, after revisiting the film a year later, I’ve decided it deserves explicit recommendation. Clocking in just over three hours, it’s certainly a time investment but a worthwhile one.
Damien Chazelle Does Dark Comedy
As with Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016), Chazelle infuses music into his films' DNA. When Babylon is at its best, the music and cinematic montage feel downright symphonic. Babylon is also a thematic fusion of Whiplash’s elevation of talent over decency and La La Land’s story of the starry-eyed pursuit of stardom and the disappointments and dejection of achieving success.
Babylon, conceived as a dark comedy, highlights Hollywood’s unbridled excesses and inextricable dehumanization. It reveals a world of movie magic bolstered by abuse, exploitation, and unethical work environments. It’s an outrageous presentation of unflinching truths situated within an industry where opportunities to succeed are predicated on someone else’s misfortune. It’s the story of people fighting for their moment in the spotlight, only to find the light fading or the heat unbearable.
This cocktail of desperation and discontent takes many forms, from hilarious to horrendously humiliating, among the film’s varied cast of characters, bolstered by superb performances from an ensemble cast. As Hollywood’s golden boy, Jack Conrad, Brad Pitt gives the funniest and most charismatic performance of his career. People of color like Manny Tores (Diego Calva) and Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) find tenuous success in a Faustian bargain within Hollywood’s white supremacist power structures. However, Margot Robbie steals the show as the up-and-coming actress Nellie LaRoy, whose free-wheeling spirit defies traditional conceptions of feminity. Robbie gives a brilliant barnburner performance that exudes confidence, vulnerability, and volatility.
As I wrote previously:
“Society’s shifting moral demands prove troublesome for Nellie LaRoy, a bawdy actress with a gambling problem and a foul mouth. As Hollywood is subjected to censorship, LaRoy is required to clean up her act. The vulgar vigor that enabled her initial success now acts as a hindrance… She walks a tightrope between a rock and a hard place in an industry that prizes her as a sexual object for viewers’ pleasure, nestled within a society that cannot tolerate a sexually liberated woman. Marilyn Monroe would be forced to walk the same tightrope decades later.”
Singin’ in the Rain vs. Babylon
Situated during the transition from silent films to talkies, Babylon riffs on Singin’ in the Rain, a squeaky-clean classic musical that also foregrounds the film’s difficult transition to sound. Babylon’s second act begins with a reimagining of my favorite scene from Singin’ in the Rain, “Lina Lamont vs. The Mic:”
Babylon’s version of the scene clocks in at over eleven minutes. The sequence’s protracted length evinces how Babylon utilizes its extended runtime to convey its point. It drives home the difficulties of incorporating new technology and, more broadly, the intricacies of film production and all the ways it can be derailed, resulting in an emotionally volatile environment.
Furthermore, contrasting the two scenes reveals the sanitized nature of Singin’ in the Rain self-portrait of Hollywood, which Babylon directly challenges with shouting, swearing, and inhumane working conditions.
Ultimately, Babylon showcases that:
“The cinematic form continues to evolve alongside the public’s sensibilities. Simultaneously, technical innovations allow filmmakers to create movie-going experiences that previous generations could not fathom. Amid the constant changes, individuals are unceremoniously tossed aside, and the next generation of talent prepares to take their place. That will never change… Certain realities remain intractable [and] Babylon refuses to employ restraint as it makes its point.”
Babylon is currently streaming on Prime Video and Paramount+. It is also available for digital rental and purchase, and it’s probably available at your local library.
For more on Babylon, Old Hollywood, and the politics of offense, check out:
…and if you a real one, share Acquired Tastes with a fellow film freak…
Until next week, always make a scene, film freak.
Best movie I've seen this summer!
One of my favorites. Great analysis.