"Babylon" Is No La La Land
“Babylon” ? Distributed by Paramount Pictures, 189 Minutes, Rated R, Released December 23, 2022:
When New York Times drama critic Herman Mankiewicz was lured west to Hollywood in 1925 with a promise of an enormous paycheck to write scenarios for silent pictures, he spent the first weeks studying the studio system--meeting the executives and movie stars, learning his responsibilities, observing the production process.
A month later, Mankiewicz sent a telegram to Ben Hecht, a columnist for the Chicago Daily News, exhorting his friend to join him in Hollywood.? Mankiewicz’s telegram read, in part, “Millions are to be grabbed here and your only competition is idiots.? Don’t let this get around.”
It makes sense that Herman Mankiewicz’s emigration from New York to Hollywood occurred at the same time as the events of “Babylon,” the new movie from filmmaker Damien Chazelle and Paramount Pictures released on December 23 to some 3342 theaters across the United States and Canada.? “Babylon” spends its marathon running time of 189 minutes doing little more than proving the accuracy of Mankiewicz’s telegram.
Set in 1926, “Babylon” follows the careers of four disparate characters employed in the movie industry during Hollywood’s transition from silent movies to talking pictures.? After making movies since the advent of nickelodeons, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is Hollywood’s most popular and highly-paid movie star, but he fears his speaking voice--and his skills as an actor--might not withstand the scrutiny of microphones during the advent of the talkie revolution.?
Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is a Mexican-American immigrant employed in menial jobs on the periphery of the film industry but aspires to a more important and lucrative position as a producer at Kinoscope Studios, the most prosperous film company in Hollywood.? Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a trumpet player in an on-set mood music band, finds a golden opportunity in talking pictures as the star of musical short subjects, but his career advancement might be at the expense of his African-American heritage.
And aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) seeks to be Hollywood’s most glamorous movie actress, an ambition threatened by her near-complete absence of acting talent.? Having already survived a hard-luck life on the streets, Nellie seems impervious to the dangers and pitfalls of partying, drinking, and sleeping her way to the top tier of the Hollywood social order. ? “Honey, you don’t become a star,” she tells her confidante Manny, “Either you are one or you ain’t.? I am.
Written and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Damien Chazelle, best known for examining the dreamlike fantasy of Hollywood musicals in the 2016 blockbuster “La La Land,” “Babylon” turns out to be a three-hour-plus wallow through degradation, ugliness, perversity, corruption, and immorality--a 2022 version of the trashy Harold Robbins adaptations of the 1960s like “The Carpetbaggers.”? Even worse, the picture tries to foist itself off on the audience as a factual representation of an era of Hollywood filmmaking, when in reality it’s anything but.
A brief course in Hollywood 101:? Besides the weather, the reason Hollywood became the center of the film industry is that in 1912 or so the laws of the east were unenforceable in the west.? The patents for the cameras and projectors were owned by the inventor Thomas Edison, and the film industry moved to the west coast to avoid paying royalties.? Between Edison and Hollywood were the almost-insurmountable barriers of the Rocky Mountains and the Wild West.? And at the time, the reach of the US Patent Office did not extend beyond the Mississippi River.
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Translation:? The first Hollywood films were produced by people with barely a casual acquaintance with the niceties of law, morality, and social responsibility.? And some of the early movie stars were hired not for their talent and experience so much as for their magnetic personalities and their ability to photograph well.? Paid enormous amounts of money with none of the discipline learned through education or hard work, a few of the early movie stars were like children let loose in a candy shop.? And for some, the choice of candy was liquor or narcotics
A few of the characters depicted in “Babylon” are inspired by actual personalities of the time, but their names likely wouldn’t be recognized by anyone except movie historians.? They represent only a small segment of the movie industry, and were as doomed as the dinosaurs.? The handful of silent movie stars who are still remembered today--Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Lon Chaney, Lillian Gish, and Stan and Ollie are a few--were hardworking, disciplined performers who toiled for years to develop their craft and transitioned from silents to talkies without a bump in the road.
Of the performers in “Babylon,” Brad Pitt probably fares best.? After years as a modern Hollywood matinee idol, Pitt seems to have finally found his voice as a serious actor. ? As Jack Conrad, a character based strongly on the career of silent film actor John Gilbert, Pitt seems to be wistfully aware that his time at the top is limited and philosophical about his imminent fall from stardom.? Pitt’s recent motion picture performances have been almost uniformly excellent, and his work in “Babylon” isn't an exception.? It’s a shame the movie isn’t worthy of his effort.
As the self-destructive party girl Nellie LaRoy, a character based on the self-destructive 1920s Hollywood “It Girl” Clara Bow, Margot Robbie contributes an eye-catching performance, but it's just a variation on her other roles, Harley Quinn in the outfit of a Jazz Age flapper.? Mexican actor Diego Calva as would-be producer Manny Torres lacks the confidence to carry off his role--he seems constantly on the cusp of tears or an anxiety attack.? Only Jovan Adepo has the emotional gravity to carry off his role as a principled man in an unprincipled business.
Repugnant from its first scene until its last, “Babylon” is actually a repackaging of urban myths and apocryphal tales that have swirled around the movie community for decades.? It’s likely filmmaker Chazelle actually based his screenplay on Kenneth Anger’s notorious 1959 underground classic “Hollywood Babylon,” which purported to expose the truth behind Hollywood’s scandals from the 1900s to the 1950s.? But even Anger’s book was without a single redeeming merit, more a collection of scurrilous rumors than an actual historical account.
Lascivious, gamy, and degrading for both the performers and the audience, “Babylon” is worth seeing only for dedicated film buffs and those viewers with masochistic tendencies.? When Chazelle and company really get their freak on during the movie’s third hour, the audience might flee for the exits.? A tacked-on denouement seems to suggest that all the ugliness of Hollywood’s past was worthwhile because of the great movies that came afterward, but don’t believe it for a second.? As Winston Churchill noted, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Filmed in Hollywood and Santa Clarita, California, “Babylon” is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, and pervasive language concerns.