Babylon (dir. Damien Chazelle)

Started by jacques100, July 15, 2019, 10:59:18 AM

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jacques100

Several studios are lining up for Babylon, a script that Damien Chazelle has written to direct as his next film. I'm told that Lionsgate, which distributed the 14 Oscar-nominated La La Land, is considered the frontrunner to land a project described to me as an original drama that is set in period Hollywood. Emma Stone, Oscar-nominated for La La Land, is circling to star. Sources said the film is a bold auteur piece with a significant budget and that other studios are in the mix. Rumor was Chazelle had written another musical, but I'm told that is not the case here.

At a moment when the Hollywood box office is being dominated by sequels and live action reboots of animated Disney films, Chazelle's film is a breath of fresh air, something to get excited to leave the house to see. I expect it to land quickly once a series of meetings are completed between the filmmakers and all the studios. It is a commitment though, and that is why the auction is playing out methodically. The film will be produced by Olivia Hamilton, Matt Plouffe and Marc Platt. Stay tuned.

https://deadline.com/2019/07/damien-chazelle-emma-stone-period-hollywood-script-babylon-hot-project-1202646258/

jenkins

Quote from: jacques100 on July 15, 2019, 10:59:18 AM
set in period Hollywood

https://deadline.com/2019/07/damien-chazelle-emma-stone-period-hollywood-script-babylon-hot-project-1202646258/

lol @ "period Hollywood" my god. does that automatically mean the golden era and no further description is required anymore?

there was an update after the initial news item, the update reads like this:

QuoteI can add that Brad Pitt also is circling Babylon, the early-Hollywood period drama that is likely to reteam La La Land filmmaker Damien Chazelle with Emma Stone. Sources confirm that Pitt also is in the mix, though neither he nor Stone has made a commitment. I've also heard that Babylon is a drama that mixes real and fictional characters and is solidly in the R-rated category. Pitt is about to open opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie in the Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It's one of the most impressive screen turns for Pitt in a long time.

so now they say "early-Hollywood period drama," yes the golden age.

Ghoulardi69

"Fellini Satyricon" Meets "Day of the Locust"
A friend has slipped me a May 2019 draft of Damien Chazelle's Babylon, his theatrical follow-up to First Man. (Chazelle is currently working on The Eddy, an eight-episode Netflix series set in Paris.) Babylon is a late 1920s Hollywood tale about a huge sea-change in the nascent film industry (i.e., the advent of sound and the up-and-down fortunes that resulted) and about who got hurt and who didn't.

A la Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Babylon (which may or may not be distributed by Paramount or Lionsgate) offers a blend of made-up characters and a few real-life Hollywood names of the time — Clara Bow, Anna May Wong. Paul Bern and an "obese" industry fellow who represents Fatty Arbuckle. (I'm presuming there are others.) I've only read about 40% of it, and I'm certainly not going to describe except in the most general of terms. It runs 184 pages, and that ain't hay.

Most of Chazelle's story (or the portion that I've read) is amusingly cynical and snappy, at other times mellow and humanist, and other times not so much. It takes place in the golden, gilded realms of Los Angeles during this convulsive, four or five-year period (roughly 1926 to 1931, maybe '32) when movie dialogue tipped the scales and re-ordered the power structure. Everyone above the level of food catering had to re-assess, re-think, change their game.

It starts out with a long, bravura sequence that will probably impress critics and audiences in the same way La-La Land's opening freeway dance number did. Except Babylon is darker, raunchier. The first 26 or 27 pages acquaint us with the main characters (one of whom may be played by Emma Stone) while diving into the most bacchanalian Hollywood party you've ever attended or read about. Cocaine, booze, exhibitionist sex, an elephant, the singing of a lesbian torch song, heroin, blowjobs, and a certain inanimate...forget it.

Unless Chazelle embarks on a serious rewrite, the 27-minute opening of Babylon is going to seem like quite the envelope pusher. It's basically Fellini Satyricon meets Day of the Locust meets the secret orgy sequence in Eyes Wide Shot meets the Copacabana entrance scene in Goodfellas. Plus Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby meets The Bad and the Beautiful meets Singin' in the Rain meets The Big Knife...that'll do for openers.

It seems to me that Chazelle wrote Babylon with a jaded, somewhat angry attitude. When a couple of scenes tip into near-porn you say to yourself, "Yeah, I get it — he's showing this stuff in quotes...as commentary." Laugh if you want but the audience will be attending this party in the company of a lot of self-obsessed, deluded or ruthless types. Anyway, that's all.

source:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com

Drenk

His camera had the weight of five elephants in the party scene of La La Land. That movie—if it's funded (the dude did First Man after his Oscar, how ambitious, and is now doing a Netflix series, maybe Oscars mean shit nowadays...)—might be an overlong, dreadfully joyful trainwreck about, what, a producer realizing he needs to leave his wife to be the greatest producer of the universe! Can't wait.
Ascension.

Reel

Quote from: Ghoulardi69 on August 02, 2019, 07:17:45 AMa certain inanimate... forget it

This wouldn't happen to be a coke bottle... would it?

Drenk

Ascension.

WorldForgot

LMAO
Never thought I'd read fkn Wells on Xixax.

Capote

YES. Comparison to Satyricon gets me hyped. I hope he explores more themes in this one though. His first three movies were mostly about ambition and troubled men (and Emma Stone) and how unchecked ambition can ruin relationships and families.
Cast my boy Brad Pitt in this.
Nah fuck this. I have a choice between shit with the FBI or Getting my fucking IP leaked? you guys are fucked. im not leaking shit. leak my fucking IP, Im done

wilberfan

What Babylon And Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights Have In Common — And How They Go In Totally Separate Directions

This post contains major spoilers for "Babylon" and "Boogie Nights." 

Damien Chazelle's newest film, "Babylon," might be one of his biggest swings to date. After his trip to the Moon in "First Man," Chazelle is back in his element, once again telling a story of ambitious dreamers making their way through a beautiful depiction of Hollywood. However, Chazelle crucially takes a big step away from his cleaner image, characterizing 1920s Hollywood through cocaine, chaos, bodily fluids and scandal. The opening scenes of "Babylon" make it definitively clear to the audience that we're not in "La La Land" anymore.

Despite finding himself in edgier, darker territory, Chazelle's reverence for the medium of film and the artists that came before him are as clear as day. Like Chazelle's other films, "Babylon" is a hodgepodge of different influences and inspirations, from a perversion of "Singin' in the Rain," to the ironic amounts of excess in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street." If you're a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, you might have picked up on just how much "Babylon" borrows structurally from Anderson's breakout film, "Boogie Nights."

The parallels are abundant — an introductory long take of an epic party that slowly introduces our entire ensemble cast of characters, a midpoint shift in technology with drastic changes, and even a tribute to Alfred Molina's iconic epilogue as an eccentric drug lord paralleled here by Tobey Maguire. It's obvious why Chazelle would want to pull from Anderson's classic; "Babylon" and "Boogie Nights" are both movies about movies, chronicling the changing tides of their respective industries. What Chazelle's film lacks, however, is a certain amount of respect and empathy for his characters and their lifestyles that makes "Boogie Nights" a special and uniquely transgressive work of art.

Drugs, sex, and the pursuit of great art

In his fourth feature, Chazelle feels at his most jaded. His undying love for the artistic medium of film finds itself clashing with the exploitation and corruption he's experienced in the film industry. It turns "Babylon" into a film of contradictions, embodying an aesthetic that's equally crass as it is luxurious. Chazelle's regular composer Justin Hurwitz orchestrates infectiously rhythmic Jazz pieces that make the party sequences truly come to life. However, the Hollywood glamor is all juxtaposed with displays of debauchery. Chazelle seeks to destroy the sacred veil of Hollywood by emphasizing the drugs and kinky sex as symbols of depravity.

In "Boogie Nights," Anderson is also fascinated by the entertainment industry — albeit a side of it that is much more marked by taboo. In Anderson's examination of the porn industry in the 1970s, he portrays what Chazelle presents to us as "debaucherous" with a refreshing kind of casualty. Anderson depicts hard drugs and explicit sex as a simple reality of his character's lifestyles, but there's no inherent moral value attached to it. The ensemble cast of "Boogie Nights," despite their successes and wealth found within their industry, are still underdogs ostracized from the rest of conservative American society. They might be creating what is deemed as "low" or "degrading," but Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) and Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) are set out to do exactly what Chazelle's good hearted characters also aspire to accomplish: make real art.

In "Babylon," our stars Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), and Manny Torres (Diego Calva) however, seem to be firmly on the path of damnation after the alcohol and money runs dry and talkies take over the business.

PTA's non-judgemental character study

That's not to say Anderson doesn't understand the intersections between porn and exploitation (the third act shifts into violence serve as a reality call amongst the disco), but his narrative priorities are focused on his ensemble characters' unique bond. Their "shameful" positions in society and the wild party lifestyles they lead are their connective force. It keeps his cast of misfits together as one big family.

There's a refreshing lack of judgment towards the more abrasive sides of these characters and an admiration of their inner souls. One of the strongest examples is Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), a porn star and mother who is robbed of her ability to reach out to her own blood children, but shows her nurturing side through taking care of her community. Amber is especially a motherly figure to young Roller Girl (Heather Graham), whom she even encourages to finish her high school G.E.D. by the end of the film. These characters are rightfully shown as victims of circumstance, but are also portrayed as dynamic humans outside of their social status.

In contrast to Anderson's sympathetic treatment, Nellie LaRoy's (Margot Robbie) tragic journey in "Babylon" feels particularly regressive. Nellie was born a natural star; her first time on a set is a direct parallel to Dirk Diggler's first ever shoot in "Boogie Nights." Though her ability to cry on command is what truly gets her ahead of other actresses of her caliber, Nellie forges a career out of a hypersexual celebrity persona that launches her into fame. Loosely based on real silent-film star Clara Bow, "Babylon" only superficially hints into Nellie's childhood traumas, destructive impulses, and desire to be loved. The result is a character whose dark fate is thematically fitting but feels vapid and cruel.

Edge for the sake of edge

Throughout "Babylon," we watch Nellie carelessly dance with child-like whimsy, do countless lines of coke, gamble, and irreverently make scandalous headlines. When the silent film era comes to a crash and burn, and Nellie is forced to recreate herself due to the rapid popularization of talkie pictures, Manny, now a hot-shot producer, guides Nellie to a prim and proper, rehabilitated image to match the new fancy side of Hollywood elite (which includes severing her romantic ties to Lady Fay Zhu). Though Chazelle certainly shows contempt for the prudish upper echelons that are forcing Nellie into a box, it makes the previous moments of pearl clutching and gawking at her party animal behavior feel all too hypocritical.

Eventually, that "wild child" side of Nellie becomes her and Manny's undoing. After finding herself in a massive debt owed to eccentric kingpin James McKay (Tobey Maguire), she reaches out to Manny for help. Although reluctant at first, Manny decides to look towards his crew for financial assistance and unknowingly takes on prop money to exchange for Nellie's safety. This is a clear homage to the scene in "Boogie Nights," where Dirk and company sell fake cocaine to wildcard gangster Rahad Jackson, famously portrayed by Alfred Molina.

Chazelle, a fan of extravagant finales, decides to take this one step further by having James show Manny and his crew the "a****** of Los Angeles," a shady underground den of orgies, alligators, and a buff man being paid to eat live rats for spectacle. In an attempt of a maximalist portrayal of Hollywood's most repugnant criminal underground, Chazelle makes horror out of disabled, dwarf bodies and fetish aesthetics. James and his gang of deviants are far from pure people, but the way Chazelle conveys their depravity feels tasteless.

Babylon leaves its characters in the dust

Manny narrowly escapes James' gang and returns to Nellie, begging her to run away with him to Mexico and leave show business behind. Still the impulsive character we've seen throughout the film, she feels that her heart belongs in Los Angeles. Nellie dances and disappears off into the night while Manny tries to gather his possessions. In a montage of newspaper headlines, we learn Nellie was found dead at age 34, following the death toll of Jack Conrad's suicide from the scene preceding it. The third act tonal shift in "Babylon" emulates Little Bill's (William H Macy's) suicide in Anderson's film, but crucially, there's no space for Chazelle's characters to reach a proper end point.

There's a frustrating lack of depth to Nellie's story, failing to contextualize her self-destructive path to obscurity and only briefly hinting at her inner psychology. It's disappointing to see from Chazelle, who has always been good at expressing his characters' burning passions and ambitions. "Babylon" is Chazelle's largest scaled film, but he becomes too obsessed with the film's scope that he abandons the pathos that has always made his movies feel like true epics in themselves. The film doesn't just fail Nellie, but also all the characters that have significantly less screen time than her, such as Li Jun Li's Lady Fay Zhu and Jovan Adepo's Sidney Palmer, who represent the margins of the entertainment industry.

One of the most common critiques of Chazelle as an artist is his dependency on homage. I don't find this to be an inherent problem — all modern directors are in some way riffing on what they love, including our greatest — but Chazelle's particular, misguided remix on the beats of Anderson's "Boogie Nights" in "Babylon" reveals a lack of understanding of the source material.

The end of two eras

With his explosive, grand finale sequence, Chazelle begs the audience to see that despite all the pain and suffering that goes into the act of creation, movies are a transcendent good. There's a distinct modernism to the film's production and costume design that never feels like it's setd in the 1920s, but that's because "Babylon" is making a larger connection. The death of the silent film era is not unlike the current state of the theater industry. Despite the slight hope that cinema will always reinvent itself and evolve, Chazelle's ending is brimming with defeatism.

"Boogie Nights" similarly tracks the end of an era: the transition from film to digital videotape in the porn industry. The barrier of entry is lowered, and it briefly changes everything for our ragtag family of provocateurs. With his lack of relevance, Dirk is forced to sell his body. Still the child who ran away from home at the beginning of the film, he finds his way back to Jack Horner, who has been forced to sacrifice his "auteurist" reputation to stay afloat. Roller Girl struggles to get her degree, and while Buck (Don Cheadle) and his wife Jessie (Melora Walters) have started their own business and life together, it has been forever tied to a bloody deed.

Despite all the excess and hedonism, Anderson's film is still full of heart. Whether or not "Boogie Nights" ends on a happy note is debatable. In a sense, the status quo has not totally changed. But, this family of outsiders have endured through the storm and the art they created together still matters. "Boogie Nights" doesn't feel a need to punish these characters or make judgements on the art they create, and that is its greatest, enduring quality.

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1158356/what-babylon-and-paul-thomas-andersons-boogie-nights-have-in-common-and-how-they-go-in-totally-separate-directions/

The Ultimate Badass

In Babylon, Hollywood is revealed as the unstoppable, shape-shifting devourer of souls that we mortals are helpless but to be held in thrall to. Or, at least that's how it used to be. Because Babylon is also a eulogy for Hollywood as we know it, which after years of increasingly moribund stumbling has finally been put out of its misery with a Covidian death punch. It is currently a lifeless cadaver propelled along only by its own inertia. Something new will soon emerge from its dead husk, and I don't think anyone really knows what form it will take this time.

Yes, to me Babylon says all this, among other things, and entertainingly so. The movie easily held my attention over its 3hr+ running time.

As mentioned previously, Chazelle liberally borrows from the great director's of the past and present, though he does seem to fall slightly short of his influences on a technical level. What he does have going for him is an incredible knack for building tension. The way he constructs a scene brings to mind the way that music is structured (something I admit to knowing little about). He builds, builds, and builds until it seems like it cant build anymore, and then it does build more, until it reaches its massive, orgasmic catharsis. This is not a new trick, but Chazelle does it particularly well and it works for me.

All in all, I don't remember the last time I found a movie as thought provoking and satisfying as Babylon. The fact that a movie like this produces such little interest is yet further proof of the artform's demise. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.


Alexandro

Quote from: The Ultimate Badass on February 06, 2023, 10:50:06 AMIn Babylon, Hollywood is revealed as the unstoppable, shape-shifting devourer of souls that we mortals are helpless but to be held in thrall to. Or, at least that's how it used to be. Because Babylon is also a eulogy for Hollywood as we know it, which after years of increasingly moribund stumbling has finally been put out of its misery with a Covidian death punch. It is currently a lifeless cadaver propelled along only by its own inertia. Something new will soon emerge from its dead husk, and I don't think anyone really knows what form it will take this time.

Yes, to me Babylon says all this, among other things, and entertainingly so. The movie easily held my attention over its 3hr+ running time.

As mentioned previously, Chazelle liberally borrows from the great director's of the past and present, though he does seem to fall slightly short of his influences on a technical level. What he does have going for him is an incredible knack for building tension. The way he constructs a scene brings to mind the way that music is structured (something I admit to knowing little about). He builds, builds, and builds until it seems like it cant build anymore, and then it does build more, until it reaches its massive, orgasmic catharsis. This is not a new trick, but Chazelle does it particularly well and it works for me.

All in all, I don't remember the last time I found a movie as thought provoking and satisfying as Babylon. The fact that a movie like this produces such little interest is yet further proof of the artform's demise. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.



Mostly, I felt the same. I have some misgivings about the final 20 minutes or so (and I'll rewatch surely) but it's a bit baffling and depressing to read the negative reviews for this. When fucking Wakanda Forever gets universal praise and this is deemed superficial or reiterative, we're fucked.

It's way better than the industry reaction led me to believe.

WorldForgot

Wakanda Forever is campaigning really hard in LA. For Your Consideration efforts are all over the city so I think you can feel that most of the praise iz lubricated.

Alexandro

Quote from: WorldForgot on February 06, 2023, 07:11:57 PMWakanda Forever is campaigning really hard in LA. For Your Consideration efforts are all over the city so I think you can feel that most of the praise iz lubricated.

Sure, but Babylon had it's share of studio muscle behind it when released and it got a very skeptical reception (to say the least). I understand the Marvel machine pushes hard but damn, son. From the best picture nominees this year, I still have to watch Women Talking and Triangle of Sadness. I've liked them all so far, but with the exception of Tar (it's own beast, no doubt), this one was a more stimulating time at the movies than all the others combined.

Alethia

I basically agree with that relative to large chunks of the film, but overall the experience was too uneven for me to fully climb on board. That said...

...I'm eager to rewatch. Also I thought the ending was sublime.

WorldForgot

This 'moves' so much like a late 90s PTA flick. Obviously the whip-pans and the editing, but also the way shots are slightly overexposed and soft-focus.

And going into it - I was enthusiastic! La La Land had worked for me well right before my move to LA and this has come about in my last year before heading out to another city. But I dont think there's an actual character in 'Manny' just an audience surrogate. Characters like Dirk Diggler love cinema but they have their own lives. Manny didn't need to be that, but he wasn't anything. Not Cinema Paradiso OR a Coen Bros style modality of 2d-that-works.

Very expressive. I love the first half. It's also funny as fuck for most of its sequences. For me the experience felt akin to realizing Chazelle has got to collaborate with a better screenwriter, and he might reach a cinematic level he can clearly craft.