Not all Damien Chazelle films are about jazz. However, the significant ones are. Indeed, two of his musicals present jazz-obsessed male leads – Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and La La Land. However, the psychological drama Whiplash scanned an abusive drum instructor whose regimented teaching sapped all the spice out of the inherently seasoned genre. Indeed, now Chazelle makes a return to his roots with Babylon. Babylon is a Tinseltown epic planted in the decadent known as the jazz age. The movie is seeing the light of the theatres on December 23, 2022. The atmosphere of the film is soaked in amphetamine and alcohol.
Hollywood glamour and excess fill the mood of the film. You will see Pitt and Calva sitting in tuxedos around champagne bottles. Indeed, we see Robbie in a high-slit red dress crowd-surfing a nightclub. In fact, Pitt performs the character of an aging movie star reassessing his life in a mirror. The film depicts a changing society.
Indeed, Chazelle possibly named the film Babylon for the other sense contained in the word: a degenerate society. The time is the 1920s. Thus, Prohibition is all the more intense. However, the illicit nightclubs are teeming with trombonists. You will also see flappers with extravagant headpieces and cross-dressing cigarette smokers. The setting of the film is the 1920s Los Angeles during the flux from silent pictures to talkies. Indeed, some movie stars are acing it in the brave new world of synchronous sound, earning power and wealth. However, others are voyaging into obscurity. These others have shored only their vices against the ruins. The ambience is the decadence of Hollywood’s incipient golden age.
Theme
Decadence, depravity, and shocking excess consequence in the rise and fall of various ambitious dreamers in 1920s Hollywood. Indeed, the film records the times of Hollywood’s transition from silent films to sound films with uncompromising aesthetic honesty. The camera comes ruthlessly close and we stand face-to-face with our personal documents of our individual journeys across the platform of Life.
Indeed, Chazelle’s films make you feel that you can live out your dreams no matter what life throws at you. Thus, the films echo the American Dream. In the film, Babylon, you will experience an unrestrained indulgence into the labyrinths of drugs, sex, and alcohol. The film shows that ambition plays a major role in deciding the characters’ careers. It also foregrounds how much the careers depend on the characters making or breaking their ambitions. Thus, the film exploits the Sartrean concept of man being condemned to make a choice.
Babylon: The narrative reveals itself through the lens of an Outsider
The film is gritty with an Outsider as its protagonist. His name is Manny. In fact, Manny is a passionate guy who believes that every project should have substance. Indeed, he desires to do something with integrity. In fact, it is interesting that the name of the outsider is Manny. Manny is close to the word ‘many’. Thus, the character of the outsider contains the elements of Everyman. We see Manny once again encountering the ghosts of film history as he makes his trip to New York.
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