Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Babylon.
It is no secret thatDamien Chazelleis an admirer of old Hollywood and the concept of “the fools who dream.” After showcasing the glossed-up version of the film industry inLa La Land, the director decides to take a step back and analyze the tumultuous transition from the silent era to the talkies. InBabylon, Nellie La Roy (played byMargot Robbie) and Manny Torres (Diego Calva) meet at a wild Hollywood party with a common goal: “be part of something bigger.” Both aspire to eventually join the film scene and play a small role in the larger-than-life cinematic experience. After dancing it off and meeting silent film star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), they get their golden ticket to join showbiz. La Roy is given the opportunity to shoot a scene for an upcoming black and white feature, while Torres becomes Conrad’s assistant on set.
In the first chunk ofBabylon, there is an emphasis on the chaotic shooting process and the masterful aftermath of scenes when the perfect shot is attained. While La Roy and Conrad continue to excel in front of the camera, their lives remain rocky when the director calls cut. However, things only get progressively worst for both when the talkies come into play. The extended pressure of memorizing lines and delivering them in the right tone without any external sounds being captured on the recording turns their world upside down. After being a phenomenon in the silent era, these two suffer when they see that they can never be as successful as they were when sound wasn’t in the way. While the movie stars find it hard to keep up with the ever-shifting demands of the industry, Torres rises from assistant to an executive role on set. Now that he is finally pursuing his dreams of becoming “part of something bigger,” he wants to use his post to relaunch La Roy into a more reserved movie star while also showcasing musicians on screen, like jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo).
Hollywood Chews Them Up and Spits Them Out
The more Torres becomes a consolidated name in filmmaking, the more he falls into the traps of showbiz over being the kind and humble man he once was. As a studio exec, he must ensure that the cameras are rolling, films are being made, and takes it upon himself to keep an eye out on whether his stars are following the norms. This leads him to make Palmer do blackface and La Roy to stop cursing and living in the carefree manner that she used to. These decisions are only the tip of the iceberg in his downfall. After La Roy becomes a drug addict and amounts an enormous debt, she knocks on his door begging for help. Since Torres has always loved her and would do anything to ensure her happiness, he tries to pay off the debt, but discovers the money used to pay the debt is fraudulent. Torres runs away, and gathers La Roy as they get ready to head out of town. The two become engaged, but their happiness only lasts for so long, as Torres is tracked down by the dealer’s heavy and is told to leave town—which he does, without La Roy anywhere to be found. Through a series of newspapers, we discover that in addition to Pitt’s Conrad shooting himself after discovering he’s irrelevant in the industry, La Roy too was found dead.
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Montage of Memories
Fast-forward to the film’s final moments, Torres returns to Los Angeles now with his wife and daughter only to reminisce at the olden days when he worked in the film industry. It all seems so distant to him at this point, up until he purchases a ticket to watchSingin' in the Rain. While he sits and watches the classic musical in a jam-packed theater, he begins to remember everything from his past. The flashbacks of the days on set, the transition of silent epics to the talkies, and his dream of playing a role in the major Hollywood scene. The memories are too painful to deal with, and while people laugh viewing the film, he can’t stop crying. In Chazelle’s words, the character “is having this mixture of pain relief and epiphany watching it, and the refraction on his own life that he’s coming to terms with at that moment, or forced to come to terms with, maybe for the first time, at that moment.”
That is whenBabylontakes a life of its own with a sequence of shots that go fromThe Passion of Joan of Arc,Jurassic Park, andAvatar. All of these films contributed to what cinema is today. When questioned about this mind-bending finale,Chazelle shared with Colliderwhy he decided to include this brief trip in film history.
“Instead of communicating the emotion we were trying to communicate purely through one film, it was, “Let’s use that one film to open up to a whole host of other films, and a host of memories, and eventually just boil down to what I’d call the fundamental building blocks, the atoms of cinema, just colors and music, or color and sound.” It’s just that ultimately it all comes down to that, and it all comes down to a light and sound show.
That basic idea, that is so basic, it has lasted a hundred-plus years. I mean, obviously, you could argue that it has its ancestors before it going back way more than a hundred years. I would argue it’s going to go on for way more than another hundred years.That there’s something primal and eternal about images flickering on a wall, whether it’s in cave-painting days, or in a movie theater, that I think is never going to go away. That bigger idea and our character realizing, that’s the epiphany for me on some level. Not that I want to reduce it to words, but that on some level there’s something bigger that he can only just faintly grasp, that any one of us can only just faintly grasp.”
The finale all boils down to the dream of “being part of something bigger.” Torres smiles when he realizes that he has in a sense been part of a system that is beyond his grasp. An industry that is ever evolving and that no one will be able to fully navigate its trends to a tea. Actors, directors, screenplay writers, will all come and go. But their legacy will be captured in a small chapter of a sector that will never fade.
