3 characters collide in the excess and collapse of 1920s Hollywood. One is a Mexican immigrant desperate to get into the film industry. One is a silent film star whose voice can't survive the switch to sound. One is a jazz musician working in a racist industry. I feel like Damien Chazelle's 3-hour film is a hymn to the movies and an autopsy of them.
Babylon is a 2022 drama, comedy and history film directed by Damien Chazelle. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (1 narrative, 1 editing and 2 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood uses several of the same techniques.
Making a film that criticizes the film industry from the inside. It shows the cruelty under the glamour of stardom and how easily talent gets thrown away.
How this film uses it
Chazelle builds the most extravagant sequence of Hollywood excess he can and then takes it apart piece by piece. The film's first hour is a love letter to the movies. Its final hour is an honest look at what the industry does to the people who need it most.
Where to see it
The film's closing montage, which cuts from Hollywood's golden age through cinema's entire history to the present. Manny watches it in a theater. The movies themselves are the last thing the film loves and can't have.
Timing the cuts to the rhythm of the action or the music. The fast, precise editing gives a scene momentum you can almost feel physically.
How this film uses it
Tom Cross edits the opening party sequence at a deranged speed. The cuts match the pulse of the music and the camera is never still. The orgy's chaos gets a rhythm of its own, in a film about films that cannot contain itself.
Where to see it
The opening Bel-Air party. The editing cuts between the elephant, the band, the bodies and the drugs so fast that you physically feel the excess on screen.
Moving the camera in 1 long, unbroken and carefully planned shot that follows the action through several spaces. You see how people fit into their world without a single cut.
How this film uses it
Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren pull off several elaborate tracking shots, where the camera travels alongside the action, through the open-air silent film sets. The camera weaves between several productions shooting at once. You take in the chaos of early Hollywood as one continuous space.
Where to see it
The desert silent film shooting sequence. The tracking shot moves between several films being shot at the same time. You see the productive chaos of the early industry in a single unbroken movement.
Changing the color, film texture and camera style for each time period, and using the fashion and architecture of the day. Every era gets its own distinct feel.
How this film uses it
Sandgren shot the film on 35mm and push-processed the negative for more grain, color and contrast. The look follows Hollywood's move from silent pictures to talkies.
Where to see it
The transition from the silent film sequences to the talkie sequences. The look of the film changes to mark the new technology, which is the break that destroys Jack Conrad's career.
Questions
Babylon: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Babylon use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Babylon (2022): Hollywood Self-Indictment, Kinetic Editing, Tracking Shot Choreography and Era-Coded Visual Grammar.
Who directed Babylon?
Damien Chazelle directed Babylon, released in 2022. CineCode also covers Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2016), First Man (2018).
What films are similar to Babylon?
Films that share techniques with Babylon include Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), The French Connection (1971), Whiplash (2014), Goodfellas (1990).
