Babylon

Summary

“Ever notice that when a house burns down, it’s the cockroaches that survive.”

Paramount Pictures has released Damien Chazelle’s film Babylon on 4K UHD in a standard edition and a sharp looking steelbook edition. This film was Damien Chazelle’s big budget follow-up to his triumphant run at the Oscars. La La Land won six Academy Awards. Famously, La La Land was given the Academy Award for Best Picture in error before unceremoniously having the award taken back and given to Moonlight. Paramount went big in putting their financial backing of $78 million into the massive production with stars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie leading an ensemble cast. Every dollar of Paramount’s money shows up onscreen over the course of its daunting three hour length. There is a lot going on in the film. I think it is safe to say that this film in many ways showed that Paramount was willing to take a big swing with hopes of netting as many Oscars as Chazelle’s La La Land and of matching its worldwide gross of nearly $472 million. They had taken a big chance on making a non-traditional musical that had paid off handsomely both critically and financially, and if Babylon could repeat the same feat, it would have proven that Chazelle was an absolute genius and therefore Paramount was brilliant for backing his vision. With advertising costs, Babylon needed to make roughly $250 million to break even. 

It didn’t stand a chance. 

There are many reasons why Babylon was essentially doomed to fail in comparison to their prior success. First and foremost, the Covid-19 epidemic had hurt the box office chances of dramatic films. People simply were less likely to leave their houses to watch a dramatic film (that didn’t feature Tom Cruise and fighter jets.) Secondarily, La La Land was rated PG-13, which meant it was accessible across all demographics. Babylon is a HARD R-Rated film that features explicit orgy sequences and some pretty graphic scatological content. R-Rated films struggle more at the box office in general, but films with strong sexual content are particularly avoided by theater goers in the internet age. I have often lamented the death of the erotic thriller theatrically, but viewers seem to be somewhat shy about sexual content in the internet age. The third hurdle for Babylon was the length of the film. Filmgoers are reticent to watch three hour epics, even though they have are more than willing to watch superhero films with extreme running times. The length of the film inherently hurts the box office take as well based on the amount of screenings a theater can accommodate in comparison with showing a two hour film. The allure of the big stars and spectacle that Chazelle had put together simply could not draw in the types of crowd that Paramount would need even if the film had been a stunning critical success. The final nail in the coffin was that Babylon was critically incredibly divisive. While critics unanimously praised the performances of the actors, the cinematography, and the costume and production design, Babylon faced a headwind of critics who felt the film was overindulgent and excessive. The math simply never worked. Having missed the film’s theatrical run, I was excited to see the film and form my own opinion when my 4K UHD arrived.

Babylon begins in 1926. Manuel “Manny” Torres helps to escort an elephant to a party at a Kinoscope Studio executive’s mansion. Manny and his coworkers deal with being covered with excrement and numerous other difficulties in transporting the animal to the party. At the party, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) arrives in spectacular fashion in a Jeep that she promptly crashes into a statue outside. She stumbles out and meets Manny on her way into the party. He is immediately taken with her. The party inside is an insane orgiastic event with heavy drugs being ingested and a jazz group led by Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) blaring out music to the throbbing revelers. By the end of the party, Manny has landed a job working for silent film heartthrob Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt,) and, thanks to a drug overdose of a young actress, Nellie LaRoy has landed a small acting job. The film charts the rising and falling fortunes of the five central characters while painting a vivid picture of an extremely energetic and dangerous vision of late Twenties and early Thirties. 

I have mixed feelings about Babylon. The film is overindulgent, crass, and is honestly a little too overstuffed to be quite as fun as it wants to be. The film is in some respects a failure – but it is an extremely artistic failure. I felt a mixture of respect for the technical artistry on display in the film, while being repelled by just how far the film leaned into excess. The script by Damien Chazelle is unwieldy, pushing in numerous directions that are surprising and interesting, but failing to convince as any type of authentic portrait of a bygone time. I like the character arcs themselves for the major players in the film -especially the really well thought out story of Sidney the jazz musician which is very well thought out and effective – but the character’s dialogues are too full of flighty self congratulatory patter about the magic of cinema to be taken seriously. People simply do not talk in the same manner as the characters do in Babylon. Many of the monologues in the film are so heavy handed that they made my eyes roll. The third act for Nellie and Jack could have worked if there had been characters to actually latch onto in the film, but the characters never felt quite real enough for me to become emotionally invested. 

It is obvious that Babylon is a work of passion for Chazelle that displays his love of film and his disdain for the rotten core of Hollywood that has always been there. The film has been clouded by an overworked imagination for how people could act, instead of showing how people did act. The film does boast a real Fellini-esque quality in its outrageous party atmosphere that takes up the first third of the film, but even in those moments the film oversteps its boundaries. I have been to a good amount of parties in my life, and none resemble what the film displays. I can’t imagine so many party goers being okay with people literally having sex right next to them at a party. Unnecessary moments of crass overindulgence hurt the film’s overall ability to convince viewers of believing what they are seeing.

I think that drawing comparisons between Babylon and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate may at first seem a little strong, but the comparison makes sense on many levels. First and foremost, like Heaven’s Gate, a lot was expected of Chazelle’s follow up to La La Land in the same way that audiences expected a great amount from Michael Cimino’s follow up to The Deer Hunter. Both films are extremely long and extremely expensive – epic in scope and given massive budgets. Both films are visually striking and boast exceptional production design. Unlike Heaven’s Gate, Chazelle’s original vision is on display, whereas Cimino’s film was edited by the studio against his will before release – which did not give it a proper chance of success on its own terms. Babylon was critically divisive and suffered many negative reviews, but it was not eviscerated. Critics lambasted Heaven’s Gate, but when Criterion allowed Cimino to restore his cut of the film, it was widely praised by critics. Like Heaven’s Gate, Babylon lost more money for the studio than any film in recent history. I will be interested to see how Babylon will be reappraised in the years that follow. Is this film destined to become a misunderstood classic? Quite possibly – but that remains to be seen.

The film features an exceptional ensemble cast. Brad Pitt is perfectly cast in the role of Jack Conrad. Pitt is always fun to watch and is my favorite actor in the film. Margot Robbie is dynamite as Nellie LaRoy. Robbie is a strong actress and very capable of meeting the hectic demands that the film makes of her. Robbie is excellent in the role, even if her character still feels like a personality instead of a person. I had never seen Diego Calva in anything prior to this film, and I thought he was very good in the film. Jovan Adepo has a great role in the film as Sidney Palmer. I thought his story was the most interesting of all the characters and he did a great job as the jazz player who deals with the inherent racial politics of the era. Toby Maguire has an excellent small part in the film that is memorable. He steals every scene he is in. Jean Smart has some great moments in the film as Elinor St. John. Li Jun Zi plays a memorable performer and love interest. The rest of the cast is fleshed out with performances by Flea, Lucas Haas, Spike Jonze, Eric Roberts, Rory Scovel, Max Minghella, Samara Weaving, and many, many, more.

As it stands, I am not completely sure where I land on Babylon. I know that the film is overlong, pretentious, and unconvincing. Characters are underwritten. The dialogue veers far too often into monologues about moviemaking that are at once self congratulatory while telling us almost nothing about the characters. The film veers too far into debauchery and excess to be able to be taken totally seriously. At the same time, the movie is beautifully shot, well acted, and the music in the film by Justin Hurwitz is great. Hurwitz had worked with Chazelle on La La Land and their solid working relationship provides an excellent backdrop for the manic film. Production design, costume design, and cinematography are all excellent. The film looks like the $78 million that the studio put into it. Time will tell us if the film will be a “misunderstood masterpiece” like Heaven’s Gate, or an absolute disaster… like Heaven’s Gate was considered for decades. I had a lot of issues with the film, but I may need to revisit it again in the future to see how I feel about it on a second viewing.

Video

Presented in Native 4K in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, Babylon looks wonderful in Paramount’s UHD presentation. Whether the film is fully successful is debatable, but the visuals of the film are certainly appealing. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren shot the film on 35mm film in anamorphic widescreen. The look of the film benefits from their clever use of crane shots, spyder cam, and steadicam shots to make the viewer feel engrossed in the insane party sequences. The use of anamorphic widescreen allowed as much detail from the production design to enter the frame as possible. It is a really beautifully shot (and at times disgusting) movie. The 4K transfer comes from the 4K digital intermediate made of the film, so it is a good representation of the filmmakers original intentions. Until we get 8K projectors and an 8K scan of the 70mm print, I am pretty sure this is as close to reference quality as we will get.

Audio

Babylon benefits from an exceptional Dolby Atmos track. The film has a lot going on for the majority of the picture, and the Atmos track brings everything to life. The pulsating jazz score by Justin Hurwitz is a big piece of the connective tissue of the film and continues to drive the pace of the picture even when some of the storytelling slows down. Fans of the film and the soundtrack will be pleased.

Supplements:

The supplements are on the Blu-ray Disc included in the package.

• A Panoramic Canvas Called Babylon – a half-hour piece on the making of the film.
• The Costumes of Babylon 
• Scoring Babylon 
• Deleted and Extended Scenes 

Overall Scores:

Video: 5

Audio: 5

Special Features: 2.5

Overall – 3.75/5

Babylon is certainly a bold artistic statement from director and screenwriter Damien Chazelle. With strong performances by the central cast, excellent cinematography, and a wonderful score, there are a lot of things to admire about the film. At the same time, the film runs over three hours long and many of its monologues fail to land in any convincing way. The film is also distractingly scatological at times in a misguided attempt to repel the audience. I am not sure exactly where I land on this film. I feel like the film is a little overdone and the script is a little undercooked. The biggest issue I had with the film was that simple omissions could have made the film much better, such as removing the couples having sex in the party sequence would have made the energetic and ridiculous party sequence feel more realistic while still delivering the desired effect. Keep in mind this is a sequence that involves an elephant being brought in to a party, but the sex occurring inches away from dancing revelers manages to make the scene even less realistic. As it stands, I thought Babylon was okay. I would like to reevaluate the film in a few years and see if I enjoy it more on a second viewing. Fans of the film will be happy to know that Paramount has brought the film to 4K UHD with a truly beautiful transfer. It looks fantastic in 4K. The film also benefits from a reference quality Atmos track which brings the pulsating score by Justin Hurwitz to life. Special features are a little thin, but fans of the film should be very happy with the 4K presentation.