Babylon

Rewatch It's actually such a lovely feeling to notice new details in films with every rewatch (also I had my last watch exactly a year ago so perhaps this should be my Babylon day). I find this viewing of mine was especially different since I've seen Singing in the Rain now but I'll get to that later since I want to go into my newer observations chronologically. Firstly, I think the elephant at the party is supposed to be a metaphor or so I'd like to think of it as one. It seems quite literal to me since it was an actual elephant in the room. The metaphorical elephant, however, is not very clear but visually the elephant entered right after Nellie gets cast in her first film. A few minutes earlier, Nellie spoke of how Billie Dove would fade into oblivion because every star has a small time frame in which they are relevant in the industry and the cycle continues. Nellie getting cast and then the elephant entering the party just seems to me like the elephant in the room is the new cycle beginning. Characters happily acknowledge the start of this relevance but fail to acknowledge that this too is temporary (thus the temporariness being the elephant). Thus the elephant is presented not only as a means of conveying the nature of the “roaring twenties” but also becomes a symbol for the obvious and painful truth that characters choose to ignore in efforts to make the most of the time they have. Secondly, prior to this watch I don’t think I ever really thought about the perspective through which the entire film was explored. It is clear that it is Manny’s lens through which viewers are presented with the narrative but more importantly, it is all in retrospect meaning we witness Manny’s memory unfold and real time Manny sits in the cinema watching Singing in the Rain while Babylon unfolds in his mind. We witness his memory. This creates an unreliable narration since now some aspects of the narrative change. For instance, at the first party, when Nellie was seemingly the center of attention, it was likely exaggerated and the painful reality may be that she was never as much as a “star” as she thought she was but rather only as much of a star as Manny thought she was. I think that at first when she began to gain recognition, he viewed this as a sudden surge in her stardom which is why she’s portrayed to reach such intense fame relatively fast whereas after the recognition is no longer new he fits this into the opposing side of the binary and views her career as finished which is why Nellie’s experience in the industry appears so black and white. This may have also been to convey how impulsivity seeps into every aspect of her life but it is Manny’s perspective that entirely shapes how viewers see her. Thirdly, another observation I made this watch around was that the way the title screen appears very clearly outlines the fate of the film’s subject matter. To elaborate, the title screen appears like a horror movie with the word “Babylon” suddenly popping up in red against a plain black background accompanied by an anxiety inducing score. It reminded me of the Insidious title screen which when thinking about it feels like it was to act as a preface or a disclaimer of sorts to inform viewers that almost every character they are introduced to is victim to a tragic fate. Fourthly, Gold Coast Sunset is my personal favorite out of the score and also just my favorite instrumental ever and when it played I noticed that the music’s crescendo was symbolic of Jack’s career. The instrumental crescendos right as his career peaks and arguably right as his entire life peaks. There is nothing else for him now and it is destructively beautiful how the score accompanies scenes both on a literal and symbolic level. Fifthly, this is less of an observation that is relevant to the film itself and more just a general observation I love but when Nellie goes to buy a cinema ticket and tells the cashier that she’s in the movie it’s almost a copy/paste version of that same Margot Robbie scene from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Sixthly, the scene where Manny fires Lady Fay is shot under this melancholic green light that’s very similar to the one observed in La La Land and was originally inspired by Vertigo and I just think that specific green light shot is now a Damien Chazelle staple in his movies which is most wonderful. Seventhly, like I mentioned in my fourth observation, the score plays a crucial role in regards to symbolism and I noticed that Manny and Nellie’s theme plays in practically all their scenes together but does not play within the footage of their impulsive marriage. Matter of fact, it plays right after the footage of their marriage depicting how their love truly existed in unpredictable and brief moments of shared solitude sheltered from the pressure of labelled commitment. And lastly (or eighthly), I cannot believe I ever watched this without having watched Singing in the Rain first. This whole entire film was Singing in the Rain explored through an alternate perspective. As though Damien Chazelle wished to extend empathy beyond passive viewership and created this. Since I already went into how I believe the entire film is Manny’s memory unfolding, I am unsure of which perspective from Singing in the Rain this embodies. At various points in the film, Jack is portrayed as Don, Estelle as Kathy and Nellie is crafted as Lina through the lens of empathy and understanding. I suppose then maybe it would not be too insane to consider that Manny is meant to embody the role of Cosmo. Ever present and yet not noticed enough. Moving on, towards the very end of the film, Damien Chazelle frames Babylon as if it were the inspiration for Singing in the Rain which is clever and also a pivotal moment that conveys his entire message which is that cinema is beautiful but the industry is not. I look forward to my next rewatch now where I hope to find a lot more that I’ve overlooked.