KSanders writesGods and Ghosts: A Review of “Babylon”

by Kyle Sanders

Back in college, I took a Film Studies course where we watched King Vidor's The Crowd. Released in 1928, The Crowd is a classic from the Silent Era and was one of the first films nominated for Best Picture (back then, the category was "Best Unique and Artistic Production") at the inaugural Academy Awards ceremony. It tells the story of a young couple struggling to maintain an existence within "Society," that massive, faceless entity referenced in the title.

A landmark in direction, Vidor's kaleidoscopic camerawork follows its protagonists as their beaming ambitions slowly submerge within a vast swarm of indifferent people all clamoring for a piece of the same thing. For a film that came out during the Great Depression, it was not what you'd call a "feel good" movie of the year.

The Crowd came to mind near the end of a new film that takes place during the same era. A dizzying camera pans out above a crowd of theatergoers, tilting down at the tops of their faceless heads watching a scene from Singin' in the Rain. One of the film's protagonists is also in the audience, but in this darkened crowd he nearly goes unnoticed.

The scene is from Damien Chazelle's latest film, Babylon, and it's just one of many scenes that reference important markers of cinema--those magical movie moments that have stirred the hearts of filmgoers for over a century, The Crowd included.

 If only Babylon could summon a new trick from up its overstuffed sleeve.

Babylon takes place during Hollywood's turbulent watershed transition from silent to sound motion pictures. Beginning in 1926 (when Hollywood was nothing but orange groves as far as the eye could see), we meet Manuel (Diego Calva, our sensible protagonist), a fixer of sorts who is introduced--in one of several bizarre moments that must be seen to be believed--escorting an elephant to an isolated mansion as part of a decadent party that only the Roarin' Twenties could perversely conjure up.

And talk about a party! If there's one movie moment that Babylon will be remembered for, it's this one, and Chazelle wastes no time in serving it to his audience. A loud, throbbing atmosphere where everything and anyone is thrown at an immoral tapestry of booze-guzzling, coke-snorting, bare-assed hedonistic debauchery.

So much is going on in the background you'll pay less attention to what's happening in the foreground, as the frame is so overwhelmed in excessive impropriety that I mistook my rapid heartbeat for a panic attack (or perhaps I just became too overwhelmed at what all was happening on screen). 

To describe this scene would require Bill Hader's Stefon from Saturday Night Live ("This party has EVERYTHING: water sports, Fatty Arbuckle, pogo sticks in the shape of a penis, a cocaine mountain, sodomy with a wine bottle, etc..."), and even that doesn't do it justice. The amount of sheer abandonment is astonishing, and once the party is over and the opening title card FINALLY pops up on screen, you realize you're in for an brazenly epic film that will test the amount of absurdities you're willing to sit through for the sake of being entertained (the overall runtime is a copious three hours and eight minutes...you've been warned).

As the movie finally starts and you've finally caught your breath (or in my case, allow my heart rate to settle down), its cast of characters is established. Aside from Manuel, there's Nellie LaRoy (played with chaotic charm by the terrific Margot Robbie), a Hollywood wannabe who has her sights set on being in the movies.

There's also Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt, doing a loose take on Jack Nicholson), an established and beloved actor who goes through as many women as he does divorces. There's a few other supporting players, all being written about by a sensational gossip columnist (national treasure Jean Smart going full Norma Desmond), but our initial trio of leads pull the most screen time.

Babylon follows these characters as they use their talents and smarts to get ahead in Tinseltown, with varying degrees of success. Yet when the invention of sound quickly becomes all the rage, Nellie and Jack must learn to evolve to keep their Godlike screen stature, or fade into irrelevance as a ghost of the past.

While historical conversations about the "talkies" have always disclosed how some silent stars failed to adapt, Babylon shows just how challenging this "new" concept was both in front and behind the camera, with a hilariously frenzied moment of how a simple take can boil into raging nervous breakdowns. When it comes to A/V technology, we've certainly come a long way, baby!

That frenetic pace is what helps keep Babylon from losing its buzz. Between the boozy camera work, the cocaine-infused editing, and the tangential pot-induced script, you'd think Chazelle must have been on quite the bender (he pulls double duty as director and screenwriter). It's a stupefying mix that makes the film more interesting as a hot inebriated mess.

Once it slows down, however, the film just becomes a bloated heap of a nasty hangover. Thankfully, a bizarre extended cameo from Tobey Maguire is just the right amount of electrolytes to push you through to the end.

It is with sober clarity that I realized, for as much as this film celebrates the power of film, from the "gods" of the celluloid to the public staring up at them, from the unbridled ambition of the dream makers to the glamorous appeal of the dream itself, this film doesn't really add much to the cinematic canon.

The plot can be chalked up as just a "Boogie Nights, but for the 1920s": a story that propels its ragtag group of beautiful narcissistic outcasts to great heights only to lead them to their evident downfalls. The familiar plot is just one example of its referential footnoting to better films that came before it. 

Chazelle heavily borrows from the greats like Altman, the Coens, Griffith, Scorsese and--as previously mentioned--Vidor (and these were just the ones that immediately came to mind). Perhaps that was his point all along? It seems like an easy cop-out for someone honored with the distinction of being the youngest filmmaker to win a Best Directing Academy Award.

At one point, Brad Pitt's character philosophizes on the importance of giving the audience something meaningful. Pity then for Chazelle, as I just expected something better that was this grandiose. 

For a film named after the biblical "Gate of God," Chazelle allows a lot of ideas to get through in Babylon, but one thing he seems to have left out: something original.

Babylon opens in theaters on December 23.