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In March, the Oscars
take place. It’s the most
important event in the American film industry. This year, choosing nominees and
winners is not an easy
task. It was tough for the folks at the Golden Globes and us at the Critics
Choice Awards when it came time to vote on the nominees. There were lots of
good things to see and choose from.
Today, however,
I decided to talk about a film that spoke to my heart and that should have the
same effect on various film lovers around the world. A film that did not get as
many nominations as expected, but which pleased a large part of the American
public and the press. I'm talking about BABYLON from director Damien Chazelle.
Chazelle is
that young filmmaker who enchanted everyone in 2016 with the film LA LA LAND; a
box office success, which grossed over $430 million and received 14 Academy
Award nominations. It took the Best Director Oscar (Chazelle), Best Actress
(Emma Stone), Best Cinematography, Best Original Score (Justin Hurwitz), Best
Original Song ("City of Stars"), and Best Production Design. The film
is a declaration of love to Los Angeles and the entertainment industry – Emma's
character was an aspiring starlet and Ryan Gosling's a jazz musician.
It's nothing
new the fact that Hollywood loves a movie about itself - Narcissus is eternally
in love with his image. No wonder Quentin Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN
HOLLYWOOD took home two Oscars in 2020 – Brad Pitt, Best Supporting Actor and
Best Production Design for Barbara Ling & Nancy Haigh; having obtained 10
nominations. THE ARTIST, a 2011 French comedy-drama by Michel Hazanavicius and
starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo; set in 1920s Hollywood and shot as a
black-and-white silent movie, was nominated for 10 Oscars and won five - Best
Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Dujardin, making him the first French
actor to win in this category. And, let's not forget my favorite, SUNSET
BOULEVARD (1951) by Billy Wilder (which had 11 nominations and won 3 Oscars –
best screenplay, score, and art direction).
Even so, this
second foray by Chazelle in this direction did not obtain the same results as
his previous project. BABYLON
received only one Oscar nomination, for Best Soundtrack. The Golden Globes
nominated the film for Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt) and Best Soundtrack
(Justin Hurwitz), and it ended up taking the second one home. And, at the
Critics Choice Awards, Chazelle was nominated for Best Director and Margot
Robbie for Best Actress. Neither of them won. I wonder why?
Leaving aside the possible allegations of
cleverness in the pursuit of awards by pleasing the Hollywood voting crowd by
talking about Tinseltown, the fact is that for anyone who loves the seventh art
and has a special affection for the genesis of cinema, BABYLON is a delightful
film to watch and enjoy.
I love the historical period of Hollywood that
the film pays homage to. I'm an amateur tour guide to historic locations and
places linked to the silent film era here in Los Angeles, where figures like
Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Gish, Mary Pickford,
Harold Lloyd, and Gloria Swanson ruled the field.
A time when creativity soared and Hollywood
wasn't conservative at all quite the contrary...
To write his screenplay, Chazelle delved deeply
into this historical period, basing his characters on real people and factual
situations of the time - however far-fetched they may seem.
When people talk about that period, they
usually call it “The Roaring Twenties”. Hollywood was unconventional back then.
Cinema was taking its first steps and the media was looking for its language. The
established society, the old money, and the “High Society” saw cinema as a
business for immigrants, vaudeville people, delinquents, and associates. And what
they produced was mass entertainment, cheap stuff and they preferred to stay
away from it. That opened the doors to artists, dreamers, and loony ones to
occupy this space that was growing fast and yielding unexpected profits. With
the shift of film production from the east coast to Los Angeles, a new era of
the Wild West has dawned there.
Let's see the real stories that
inspired Chazelle in the creation of his film:
Brad Pitt's character Jack Conrad is inspired
by more than one silent film star. The most obvious of all is the so-called
“King of Hollywood”, Douglas Fairbanks. He was the first action star of
American cinema, having lived on-screen characters like the thief of Baghdad,
Robin Hood, and Zorro. Married to “America's sweetheart”, Mary Pickford, the
couple was 'Hollywood royalty'. But Fairbanks' career quickly declined with the
advent of talkies. His last film was THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN (1934). He
walked away from Hollywood of his own free will, disgusted with the talkies’
film production of those early years - soundproof studios, with fixed
microphones, prevented his essentially physical silent film performance. He
died 10 years after the change, a victim of a heart attack.
Another who inspired Chazelle in the creation
of Pitt’s character was the cowboy Art Acord (1890 - 1931). Acord was a cowboy
and rodeo champion. During World War I he served in Europe and earned the
“Croix de Guerre” for gallantry from the French government. He was married 3
times, to three different actresses. No marriage worked. In 1928 he suffered a
domestic accident that damaged his eyesight. Drinking and the inability to
adapt to talkies ended his film career. He committed suicide in 1931 in Mexico
by taking cyanide in a hotel room. None of his films survive so we can’t see
his work on screen anymore.
Margot Robbie's character, Nellie LaRoy, is an
amalgamation of more than one silent film star who failed to make the
transition to talkies like Vilma Banky, Mae Murray, Pola Negri, and Norma
Talmadge. But the closest thing to her BABYLON's bubbly character is
undoubtedly Clara Bow, Hollywood's "it" girl, whose wild, sexy, and
explosive reputation was a favorite subject of gossip magazines.
Bow was born into poverty in a New York
tenement and became famous, among other things, for being able to cry when the
cameras focused on her. Unlike the others who moved away from the screen
because of the sound, Clara Bow maintained her position as the highest-grossing
person in Hollywood even after the change. Her downfall was emotional.
In 1930, with the films PARAMOUNT ON PARADE,
TRUE TO THE NAVY, LOVE AMONG THE MILLIONAIRES, and HER WEDDING NIGHT, Bow was second
at the box office only to Joan Crawford. In 1931 she remained among the top box
office actresses, but the pressures of fame, public scandal, and overwork took
a toll on Bow's fragile emotional health. To recover, she moved away from
Hollywood to a ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise". But soon returned
and continued to be successful in talkies. Even so, she decided to retire
permanently in 1933, when she began to show symptoms of mental illness. Bow
ended up alone in a bungalow in Culver City, under the constant care of a
nurse. She rarely left the house until her death in 1965, aged 60, from a heart
attack.
The film also pays homage to actress Anna May
Wong (1905 –1961), with the character Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li). Of Chinese
origin, despite the racial prejudices of the time, Anna May Wong starred in
films such as THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1924) and later, alongside Marlene
Dietrich, SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932). Managing to have a TV career as well.
Another honoree is Adela Rogers St John (1894
–1988), a columnist who worked for Photoplay magazine in the 1920s. In BABYLON,
the wonderful Jean Smart plays the character Elinor St John, a gossip columnist
who summarizes with her eloquence the important moments of the film, defining
its subliminal messages. The real-life columnist was also a fascinating
character, dubbed "the world's greatest female reporter" in the 1920s,
and later a literary author.
BABYLON creates a wonderful panel of the
historical period in which the seventh art was in its infancy. Written and
directed by a movie buff like me, Chazelle constantly refers in BABYLON to one
of my favorite films from the 50s, SINGING IN THE RAIN. Interestingly, when I
watched this film for the first time, I felt a certain irony when I saw that
the story minimized the drama it portrayed for most people who worked and lived
in Hollywood when silent movies change to talkies. An entire
artistic/professional world was uprooted. To survive (those who did), they had
to adapt. I knew the tragic stories this change spawned. Stories are far
removed from the happy ending of SINGING IN THE RAIN. In other words, many
people stood in the rain, without an umbrella and without any desire to sing or
dance... Despite being a great cinematic fantasy, BABILON is the realistic
version of SINGING IN THE RAIN.
Maybe that's why BABYLON doesn't appeal to
everyone in Hollywood, but for those who like me love cinema, the story that
Chazelle told on screen is great. Here I take advantage of a quote from the real
Hollywood columnist, Adela Rogers St John that journalist Megan McCluskey
recently posted:
"Hollywood was a gilded slum with tinsel
covering the drama and heartbreak, a center of the beautiful and damned."
END
