Babylon (2022 film): Difference between revisions

* Marc Platt ProductionsStudios

| distributor = [[Paramount Pictures]]

| gross = $6364.49 million<ref name="BOM">{{Cite Box Office Mojo |id=10640346 |title=Babylon (2022) |access-date= FebruarySeptember 130, 20232024}}</ref><ref name="NUM">{{Cite The Numbers |title=Babylon (2022) - Financial Information|id=Babylon-(2022) |access-date=February 1, 2023}}</ref>

In 1926 Bel Air, Mexican immigrant1926, Manuel "Manny" Torres helpsis organizing the haphazard transport of an elephant to a debauched [[bacchanalia#Modern usage|bacchanal]], rifeat withthe sex,mansion jazz,of andhis cocaineemployer, at Kinoscope Studios executiveboss Don Wallach's mansion. Witnessing this event rife with sex, jazz, and cocaine, Manny becomes smitten with Nellie LaRoy, a brash, ambitious self-declared "star" from [[New Jersey]]. HeHimself the son of impoverished Mexican refugees, Manny shares his dream with her—to be part of something "bigger". MannyHe helps carry away young actress Jane Thornton, who overdosed on drugs with [[urolagniac]] actor Orville Pickwick, having the elephant walk through to distract partygoers.

Also attending are Chinese-American homosexual [[cabaret]]-singer Lady Fay Zhu and African-American jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer. The flamboyantly dancing Nellie is spotted and swiftly recruited to replace Jane in a Kinoscope film. During filming, she crudely upstages [[Constance Moore]]. Manny befriendsbecomes benevolenta butpersonal troubled,assistant to the benevolent and oft-married film star Jack Conrad; he drives drunken Jack home. Jackwho helps Mannyhim secure Kinoscope assistant jobs. A director needsWhen a camera tois filmurgently needed for one of Jack's outdoors love scenescenes before nightfall;, Manny getsprocures one to the setit at the last moment., helping Hehim climbsclimb the [[studio system]]'s ranks.

Nellie quickly becomes an "[[it girl]]" covered by gossip columnist Elinor St. John, who also follows Jack's career. As [[sound film]] displaces silents in the late-1920s, Manny skillfully adapts to technicalthe changes. At Sidney's suggestion, he successfully pitches films starring Sidney's orchestra to [[Irving Thalberg]]; Mannyand becomes a studio executive. Nellie struggles to navigate sound film's demands (one cameraman dies filming her), and increases her drug use and gambling, tarnishing her reputation, despite Manny's assistance.

Nellie, shown to have an [[Involuntary commitment|institutionalized]] mother, eggs on her drunken father (and inept business- manager) Robert to fight a rattlesnake duringat a party; he passes out. Nellie fights itthe snake, which bites her neck; Fay kills it and sucks out the venom. Nellie passionately kisses her.

By 1932, Jack's sensespopularity hiswanes waningbut popularity, buthe still works in low-budget [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] films. As Hollywood becomes less [[libertine]], executives tell Manny to [[Social exclusion|fire]] Fay, a Kinoscope title-writer, due to her being homosexuallesbianism. While practicingpractising lines with new wife Estelle, Jack is devastated to learn his longtime friend/producer, George Munn, has committed suicide.

Elinor and Manny attempttry to revamp Nellie's image and ingratiateget her into Hollywood's high society, but at a party with [[William Randolph Hearst]] and [[Marion Davies]], Nellie lashes out against upper-class snobbery at a party, vomiting on [[William Randolph Hearst]]. Jack findsconfronts Elinor's over her cover story abouton his declining popularity and confronts her; she explains that although his star has faded, but he will be immortalized on film.

Sidney is offended when studio executives insist he don [[blackface]] for [[Southern United States|Southern]] audiences; he leaves Kinoscope to perform live in black establishments. Jack encounters Fay at a hotel party; she reveals her departure for Europe and [[Pathé]]. Afterwards, in his hotel room, a despondent Jack fatally shoots himself.

Eccentric gangster James McKay threatens Nellie's life over her massive gambling debts. Manny rejects her distraught pleas for help, but later secures funds from the movie-set drug-pusher/aspiring actor "The Count", and visits James with him to pay off Nellie's debt. Manny panics upon learning the money is [[Counterfeit money|counterfeit]], made by his own prop-maker. JamesRaving invitesabout potential film ideas, the mengangster drags them along to a subterranean gathering- space for depraved [[Zoosadism|zoosadist]] parties, raving about potential film ideas. When Jameshe realizes the cash is counterfeit, hethe attemptstwo are about to killget shot them, but they narrowly escape, killing James's henchman Wilson.

Manny asks Nellie to flee with him to Mexico, marry, and start a new life. She resists,; butshe eventually agrees. James's associate tracksfinds Manny down, killing The Count and his roommate. Upon seeingWhen Manny self-urinateurinates, the henchmenhenchman agree to spare Manny's lifehim if he leaves Los Angeles. While Manny gathers their belongings, Nellie reneges on her decision and dances away into the night. A [[Montage (filmmaking)|montage]] of newspaper clippings reveals Elinor's death at age 76, and Nellie's death from a drug overdose at 34.

In 1952, Manny returns to California with his wife Silvia and young daughter, having fled to New York City and established a radio shop. He shows them the Kinoscope Studios entrance, then visits a nearby cinema alone to see ''[[Singin' in the Rain]]'', whose depiction of the industry's transition from silents to talkies, albeit sanitized, moves him to tears. A century-spanning series of vignettes from various films follows. As the focus returns to ''Singin''', Manny tearfully smiles.

Despite the polarizing response, later critical and public reevaluation has tended to focus more on the film's strengths while deeming it as a misunderstood masterpiece. Author [[Stephen King]] praised the film, calling it "utterly brilliant–extravagant, over the top, hilarious, thought-provoking" and "one of those movies that reviews badly and is acclaimed as a classic in 20 years."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sim |first=Johnathan |date=August 11, 2023 |title=Stephen King: Babylon Might Be Acclaimed as a Classic in 20 Years |url=https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1318883-stephen-king-babylon-might-be-acclaimed-as-a-classic-in-20-years |access-date=August 12, 2023 |website=[[ComingSoon.net]] |language=en-US |archive-date=August 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230812013035/https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1318883-stephen-king-babylon-might-be-acclaimed-as-a-classic-in-20-years |url-status=live }}</ref> In August 2023, ''IndieWire'' ranked the film's score at number 15 on its list of "The 40 Best Movie Scores of the 21st Century," writing "Filled with booming trumpets and epic saxophone solos, it’s a truly epic score, perfectly fitting the changing world of ’20s and ’30s Los Angeles perfectly. But it’s the way the score builds upon its motifs[[motif (music)|motif]]s and elements from song to song, that makes itsit special."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.indiewire.com/feature/best-movie-scores-21st-century-1201918634/3/ | title=The 40 Best Movie Scores of the 21st Century | date=August 10, 2023 | access-date=November 20, 2023 | archive-date=November 20, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231120200340/https://www.indiewire.com/feature/best-movie-scores-21st-century-1201918634/3/ | url-status=live }}</ref> In June 2024, ''[[Collider (website)|Collider]]'' ranked it number 30 on its list of the "30 Best Movies of the 2020s So Far," with Jeremy Urquhart writing "It's another movie of his [Chazelle] about passion, a desire for greatness, and the ups and downs of pursuing one's dreams, only this time the scope is epic, with such an approach taken to investigating Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, instead of just one or two people, like his smaller/more personal movies. ''Babylon'' is dazzling from a technical perspective and has some of the best music composed for a movie in recent memory. It challenges, provokes, celebrates, and condemns all at once. It's overwhelming and messy, but history will likely be kind to it."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Urquhart |first=Jeremy |title=The 30 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far), Ranked |url=https://collider.com/best-movies-2020s-ranked/ |access-date=August 19, 2024 |website=Collider |date=December 31, 2023 |archive-date=January 16, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116220938/https://collider.com/best-movies-2020s-ranked/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

! scope="row"| [[Belgian Film Critics Association]]<ref>{{cite web |title='The Quiet Girl' Grand Prix de l'UCC 2024 |url=https://www.cineart.be/fr/news/the-quiet-girl-wint-grote-prijs-ufk-2024 |website=Cinéart |access-date=March 26, 2024 |date=January 8, 2024 |language=French |archive-date=March 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240326091232/https://www.cineart.be/fr/news/the-quiet-girl-wint-grote-prijs-ufk-2024 |url-status=live }}</ref>