The opening scene in Babylon is the definition of excess. It starts with a few people transporting an elephant up to a mansion on a hill, which is not that special, but then the party starts. In the main room, there are hundreds of people dancing, drinking, and engaging in other debaucherous acts. There is a band playing some jazz at the bottom of the stairs. There are whole rooms filled with drug, whatever kind of alcohol is requested can be provided, and the people are in everything from formal dress to totally nude. Streamers are flying, when Nellie starts dancing with the crowd, everything seems perfectly choreographed. It has the perfect feel between completely planned and improvisation. The whole scene lasts at least twenty minutes as all of the main players are introduced in a variety of ways, and it ends with a woman being carried out of the party, who over dosed on drugs, and the crowd was distracted by having the elephant storm into the party, although it was only 2 a.m, and the host did not want the elephant until at least 3. When the sun comes up there are passed out bodies strewn all over the mansion and in the sandy driveway outside, and our key actors find their ways home. A truly stunning start to the movie, and I did not even mention the elephant pooping on someone, and someone else getting peed on, and so many other details.
Jack Conrad, Brad Pitt, is an actor at the height of the game. It is the late 1920s, and movies are still being made in black and white and without sound. Jack takes Manny under his wing, after Manny drove him home from the party, and Manny immediately makes himself useful on the set. He puts down a strike, and he saves the day by getting a new camera for them to film with just in time for the perfect lighting, and this happened despite Jack spending all day getting drunk in his tent, because when the camera came on, Jack knew what to do.
While this was happening, Nellie, Margot Robbie, went to her first job, which she got due to the girl who over dosed. In Nellie’s words, she had never been in a movie before or signed with an agent, but she was born a star, so she knows what to do, and she was not lying. Once in front of the camera, she immediately started to put on a show, and the director fell in love with her. She could cry on command, and not just have tears streaming down her face, she could plan the tear right on the director’s cue.
Life was moving fast for everyone. Manny started to work his way up in the movie producing world, and Nellie and Jack continued to get good work. They were stars, and everyone wanted to be around them, but then something changed. Movies started to have sound. Initially this seemed great for everyone, and it was especially great for Manny, who realized how great it would be to put the musicians on the screen, like jazz bands, but it did not stay good for the others. Jack was getting old, and his movies, although they were supposed to be serious were now being laughed at by audiences. Nellie, who was lauded for her excellent acting in the silent films was being demeaned for her voice and for her lack of manners. None in the group take the problems well, and Nellie places her problems on Manny, and so he falls from his fame, because he bet on the wrong woman, but love makes people do crazy things.
To me the movie has one overarching theme, and that is mortality, and how people deal with it. There was Jack and one of his friends, who took drastic measures, once they learned that their careers were basically over. Jack had a conversation with the reporter, who wrote the article that decreed his career dead, and she told him, that some actors just have a hard time knowing when to fade into the dark and stop making movies. Instead of fading away, he went out with a bang, and took his own life.
Then there was Nellie. She started from the bottom, rose to prominence, and then she also started to go downhill, but she refused to change her lifestyle. She did not spend her money wisely, and she continued to gamble until she was in $85,000 of debt, and she placed it on Manny’s doorstep. She never changed, even when she was putting her life and career in danger, she was unapologetically herself, and she did not care if it put others in danger as well. So although she was found dead, she never let the end scare her or change her, which in a way is admirable, but her reckless abandon for others was not.
Lastly there was Manny. Manny had the chance to stay in power, but instead he chose to hitch his wagon to Nellie. This led to Manny ending up in a totally depraved LA underground club, with Toby McGuire’s character, who gave an incredible ten minute performance, and he became inches from losing his life, but instead he was able to flee to New York and start a new life. When he returned to LA, and he saw the way that the movies had changed, at first, he looked depressed and saddened at what had happened to the industry, but then he seemed to see the beauty in it, and he accepted it for the amazing new things that were to come.
This could also fully be an allegory for the current state of movies. Pre-pandemic the movies had slowly started to decline, but not at a rapid pace. The movies were slowly becoming less of a draw for massive crowds, but in the early 2000s, they were alive and well. After the pandemic, the audiences have not come flocking back. They will still come to see the big tent pole franchises, but the more artistic films have fallen to the wayside sadly. So this could be Damien Chazelle’s way of saying that the movies are constantly changing, and it may initially seem bad, and what we are used to may cease to exist, but what comes next can still be great. I guess next would be streaming, but hopefully the death of theaters is not coming. Hopefully it is alluding to a new cinema innovation that will reinvigorate the business so that people come flocking back. Judging by Chazelle’s previous work, I am assuming it would be the later, and after reading an article on the Ringer this morning about how horror is helping to keep the theaters afloat due to their unique stories and their ability to become popular from word of mouth, I have more hope in the theaters.
This was an incredibly beautiful movie, especially the first half. The movie making scenes at the beginning were true art, and they had me on the edge seat, smiling, and quietly clapping my hands to the jazz music. It was so much fun. It was the same length as the new Avatar, but it went by so much quicker. I only looked at my watch once, and it was when there was less than twenty minutes left. The performances were great, and the only downside was when everyone’s career started to go downhill, it lost some of its luster, and it did not create the same amount of despair in the sad moments of joy it created in the heights. The party scene, and then the scene where Manny went into the depths of the underground club were incredible, and they felt new and fresh, and not like anything else I had seen this year. I do not think this is for everyone, but I loved it! I gave it 3.5 Stars
(Movie Poster from IMDB page)
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