Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Apr 23, 2025

Orgies and overdoses: the scandalous truth behind Babylon

The wild scenes in Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie's new film aren't a patch on Kenneth Anger's original Hollywood tell-all
Babylon is Damien Chazelle’s rocket-powered dive into the early days of Hollywood, decorated with orgies, elephant faeces and cocaine. There is spanking. Bacchanalian dancing. Chairs tossed through windows. And that’s all in the first 15 minutes. La La Land, Chazelle’s Oscar-winning, Bambi-eyed paen to artists, poets and the “fools that dream”, would drop dead from fright if it ever came face-to-face with it.

Tailor-made to divide audiences, this debauched drama – and a clear repudiation to those who once accused Chazelle of being too sentimental a director – puts a bullet in the head of any notion that the film industry’s silent era was ever austere or quaint. This was a frontier time, where the art of cinema was built from the ground up with zero rules and very little restraint. It was a place where the soul-sick and hungry could reinvent themselves, but not without considerable personal cost.

We enter this world through the eyes of two such ravenous individuals, actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) and film assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva). Both are fictional amalgamations of real-life figures, as almost all the characters of Babylon are. Nellie combines aspects of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Jeanne Eagels, and Alma Rubens. The Mexican-American Manny is a stand-in for the many immigrants who carved out spaces for themselves within the industry.

The duo intertwine not only romantically, but spiritually, too – twinned stars on a rapid-fire ascent. Calva wears a poet’s heart on his sleeve, and beautifully so, while Robbie’s feral performance feels extracted from some higher plane of existence. The film may have an extensive ensemble cast, but it’s Robbie who funnels the true spirit of Babylon. She wrestles with (literal and metaphorical) snakes and bids adieu to polite company with the killer line: “I’m gonna go stick some coke up my p****”.

The film’s vision of the Twenties may be propelled to the very border of believability, but it’s rarely inauthentic. This is a work of studious imagination. Justin Hurwitz’s hip-shaking, feet-stomping jazz score is pulled right from the underground music scene of early Los Angeles. When a newly famous Nellie steps out in a blue-sequinned, skimpy two-piece, she may seem ready to party down at Studio 54 decades later, but Mary Zophres’s costume work is extrapolated directly from the daring looks already sported by Clara Bow and her ilk. Nellie’s hair and makeup, by Jaime Leigh McIntosh and Heba Thorisdottir, were partially inspired by mugshots from the era.

But it’d be a mistake to believe that Babylon presents excess merely for excess’s sake. These extremities call to mind F Scott Fitzgerald’s portrait of the Jazz Age, in which material splendour was the gauzy curtain pulled across the corruption and carelessness beneath. Chazelle’s film is really about the cost of immortality – what it takes to achieve that one perfect moment, like the single tear Nellie conjures in her first on-camera role.

Reinvention is a playground to some, like established star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt, whose presence is coloured by the recent accusations of domestic violence by ex-wife Angelina Jolie, which he denies). He gets to dip his toe in a little white exoticism by painting himself as an Italian lover. But it’s a stark contrast to singer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), who must carefully cultivate a kind of sensual Orientalism whenever she enters white spaces. Or Black trumpet player Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), who’s offered a chance at screen stardom – in the film’s starkest, most painful scene – only if he darkens his skin in order to comply with the industry’s racist preconceptions. In Babylon, you have to stand out to be seen, but only as long as it doesn’t upend social norms.

The film, which opens in 1926, frames Hollywood’s transition into the sound era as one of creative catastrophe. Directors become confined to poky soundstages. Actors must hit their marks in order to be heard by the microphones. A new conservative moral code starts to take hold as the industry becomes increasingly corporatised. Chazelle draws a throughline from here to the most famous depiction of the silent era on film, 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, and then onwards into the modern era – how he achieves it feels too wondrous and surprising to spoil here. The film then closes on a character’s silent tears. Are they crying at the transcendent beauty of it all? Or at the pain suffered in its creation? Chazelle, in his ultimate provocation, leaves the answer unclear.

Dir: Damien Chazelle. Starring: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Tobey Maguire. 18, 189 minutes.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Woman slaps man at sports game and gets herself and husband beat up
Pope Francis: head of the Catholic church who pushed for social and economic justice
China do not pay these tariffs - you pay it. This is new 145% tax you pay to the US government.
Nightlife in the streets of Manchester
In God We Profit
Cultural Battles in the Vatican: The Candidates in the Battle for the Holy See and Pope Francis's Testament
Global Leaders Pay Tribute to Pope Francis Following His Death
Wild Chimpanzees Observed Bonding Over Alcoholic Fruit
US Federal Reserve Chair Issues Warning on Tariff Impact
UK Prison Officers Demand Electric Stun Guns Amid Safety Concerns
China, China, China!
Australian National Charged as Mercenary for Fighting in Ukraine
Israel Considers Limited Strikes on Iran's Nuclear Facilities Amid Diplomatic Efforts
Prince Andrew Joins Royal Family Attends Easter Sunday Service at Windsor Castle
Saudi Arabia Offers Max Verstappen Unprecedented Deal to Join Aston Martin
Global Pistachio Shortage Amid Rising Demand for 'Dubai Chocolate'
Trump is assembling a coalition of Western leaders aligned with the MAGA vision, strengthening a unified front for global change
IMF Predicts No Global Recession Amid Trade Tensions
Here’s a police officer with a brilliant gift for swift education
"Some complain that we put thousands in prison. In reality, we set millions free."
This is Vienna, Austria in 2025.
Boeing Jet Returns to US from China Amid Tariff War
Canadian Federal Election: Candidates' Positions on US-Canada Relations and Donald Trump
Resentencing Hearing for Menendez Brothers Who Killed Their Parents Delayed Amid Legal Disputes
Australian Woman Gives Birth To Stranger's Baby In IVF Mix-up
US Sets Deadline for Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal Brokerage
Italy Introduces 'Sex Rooms' in Prisons for Inmates
California Launches Legal Challenge Against Trump Administration's Tariffs
"Groundless": China Dismisses Zelensky's Claims It's Supplying Arms To Russia
UK Psytrance Festival Cancelled Amid Local Protests Over Noise Concerns
French Far-Right Writer Renaud Camus Denied Entry to UK
UK Police Force Updates Search Policy for Trans Individuals in Custody
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Meets with Donald Trump to Discuss EU-US Trade Tensions
Canada's Federal Party Leaders Engage in Final Debate Ahead of General Election
Ukraine and US Sign Outline of Minerals Deal
Fast Food Chain Refuses to Apologize for Online Comment About Katy Perry's Space Voyage
New York Attorney General Letitia James Faces Criminal Referral for Alleged Mortgage Fraud
Mark Cuban admits support for Trump executive order: ‘Gotta be honest’
US Senator Meets with Deported Immigrant in El Salvador Amid Custody Dispute
U.S. State Department Raises El Salvador’s Safety Ranking, Making It Safer Than France and Other European Nations
UK Government Assumes Control of British Steel's Scunthorpe Plant Amid Shutdown Threat
UK MP Wera Hobhouse Denied Entry to Hong Kong During Family Visit
Bangladesh Issues Arrest Warrant for UK MP Tulip Siddiq
China Urges United States to Cancel Tariffs Amid Escalating Trade Tensions
The Empire’s USD Pyramid Scheme Is Working Brilliantly—So Why ‘Fix’ It?
China Raises Tariffs on U.S. Goods to 125% Amid Escalating Trade Dispute
Elon Musk Reports $150 Billion in Projected Government Savings Amid Fraud Investigations
U.S. and Panama Finalize Defense Agreements Amid Canal Access and Chinese Influence Concerns
China Stands Firm Amidst Trade Disputes with the US: A Factual Analysis
U.S. Tariff Escalation Sparks Global Trade Tensions
×