"Babylon": Chazelle's Schrödinger Hollywood

A dorky filmic ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Brad Pitt’s Jack Conrad is meant to somewhat resemble pre-Code era leading men such as John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, and Clark Gable. But unable to deliver the diction that talkies demand, he equally brings to mind a character from Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood­­­­; not the stuntman Cliff Booth, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s aging Western actor Rick Dalton and his distrust of the new wave that’s leaving him behind. In an earnest monologue, Jean Smart’s columnist Elinor St. John—call her an amalgamation of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and All About Eve’s Addison DeWitt—tells Conrad his time is up, the party is over, in the identical way it will one day be over for every A-lister that would come after him.

Chazelle's deliciously decadent Babylon has disorderly film sets owned by MGM as well the more ramshackle (and fictional) Kinoscope Studios. And one especially memorable segment when the Kinoscope crew tries to film a single scene with sound. You lose count of the unsuccessful takes, feel the studio’s overwhelming heat (they can’t run air due to sound quality) and wonder how anyone survived this transition. As fictional director Ruth Adler, Olivia Hamilton particularly leaves a strong impression through these repetitive takes, representing the era’s behind-the-camera female talent—a more common occurrence in those early days—with natural authority. But the heart and soul of Chazelle’s jazzy and freewheeling opus are Manny and Nelly, who each experience their own rise and fall through hearty plotting that the writer braids compassionately. In the end, this is Manny’s all-consuming love story: he can't give up on the self-destructive Nelly, even when she piles one poor decision after the next.

“Babylon” remixes old Hollywood with a modern flair. Then again, modernizing the golden ages has never been Chazelle’s problem, and so it hardly comes as a surprise that he only gets lost when “Babylon” starts trying to bridge the gap between yesterday and tomorrow. “Babylon” looks sensational from the start, bangs along to the year’s most brilliant score, and bubbles over with riotous setpieces that frequently capture the headrush of making movies for the big screen by restoring the thrill of watching them on one. It’s a feeling that silent film superstar Jack Conrad’s perch at the top of Mt. Hollywood allows him to see the potential for real art behind the scrim of cheap spectacle—he has too much faith in tomorrow to realize that he’s already been relegated to yesterday. “What is your greatest ambition in life?,” Jean Seberg once asked in Breathless. “To become immortal… and then die,” Jean-Pierre Melville replied. Achieving immortality was easy for Jack, it’s living with it that kills him.

Pitt’s suave John Gilbert stand-in is also the personification of the movie that Chazelle builds around him, which is likewise both ecstatic and moribund in equal measure—50 feet tall and six feet underground all at once (a big reason why “Babylon” feels so emblematic of Schrödinger’s Hollywood in the streaming age). Hosted by Kinoscope executive Don Wallach, the first bacchanal unfolds like a “Dear Penthouse” letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s the height of excess laced with the fall of Rome, as the end of the silent era looms over the festivities. As far as studio assistant Manny Torres is concerned, Nellie’s voice is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

The Mexican-American immigrant knows what it’s like to be typecast for how you talk, and he swoons for Nellie because both share the same dream for their self-invention. Jack Conrad believes in the movies’ power to bring the masses together, but he’s losing faith in an industry that often fails to recognize its own potential. Chazelle’s brilliance isn’t confined to the big setpieces, it’s also on display in the long and crushing close-up that sees Jack’s soul leaves his body as he watches Hollywood’s most powerful figures indulge in another snakebitten night of rank stupidity. Another bizarre scene forces him to perform “Singin’ in the Rain” for a scene in “The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” the actor rolling his eyes at a future that’s staring him in the face. “Babylon” is a romantic nightmare, a bat-shit crazy masterpiece. Source: www.indiewire.com