A Wild, Adult-Oriented Old Hollywood Revisited In ‘Babylon’

Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood. And the Oscars love movies about making movies. It’s no surprise that more recent films like “The Artist” from 2011 and “La La Land” from 2016 were such huge hits and swept the Oscars. “Singin’ in the Rain” is considered one of the greatest films ever made.

But the good will and patting-itself-on-the-back Hollywood has only goes so far. While many of those types of films have one scene or a subplot hinting at the darker side of the film industry, a 3-plus-hour movie that’s nothing but sex, drugs, violence and horrors in Tinseltown is not what most moviegoers wish to see.

Apparently, no one told writer/director Damien Chazelle that — or he just didn’t care — because his new film, “Babylon,” is not so much a love letter to Hollywood as it is a written confession to all the crimes committed during any out-of-hand celebrity party ever held in the past century.

Over the course of its 189-minute runtime, the admiration of film history Chazelle tries to fit into every frame of “Babylon” quickly becomes overwhelming, making references to or explicitly copying scenes from better movies that, by then end, most audiences would rather watch instead. I know I was.

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, the story traces the rise and fall of four characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood during the transition from silent films to talkies.

During a party in 1926, silent star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is on top of the world while young actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), musician Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) and for-hire assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva) dream of stardom in Hollywood. And through a series of chance encounters, they get it.

But as the Roaring Twenties become the more reserved and puritanical 1930s, the stars and antics of the silent era have a tough time surviving as progress moves Hollywood toward a golden era none of them saw coming.

As a filmmaker, Chazelle made a big splash early in his career and has been chasing that Golden Boy ideal ever since. His first feature, “Whiplash,” is his best with each one since, “La La Land” and “First Man” getting less and less good while he keeps trying to go bigger and grander and more out of his comfort zone. We get it, Damien, you love old movies and jazz. We don’t need three non-stop fever-dream hours forcing how great they are down our throats.

In between sequences of the debauchery of the era, there are some genuinely funny and nostalgic scenes about making movies at the time. From a chaotic war movie battle where extras could die to the struggles of making the first sound movies with primitive equipment, Hollywood’s less flattering aspects aren’t always in mansions at 2 a.m. And the way Chazelle and his crew perfectly capture why people love movies despite the process’s setbacks is lovingly on display.

With a big cast of many A-list stars from today and beloved character actors, everyone except for Irving Thalberg and William Randolph Hearst are made up names meant to represent real people. But after nearly 100 years, whose estate will sue for having Pitt actually play John Gilbert or Douglas Fairbanks? Who will get upset if Robbie is actually Clara Bow? Probably no one.

While the story itself is both derivative and exhausting, and Chazelle far from being on top of his game, at least the look and the feel of “Babylon” is as gorgeous as it is grotesque. With everyone dolled up in period-appropriate costumes and makeup, and a 1920s Los Angeles and New York City all around them, the characters inhabit a wide-eyed and eager world where dreams come true.

Throw in Linus Sandgren’s phenomenal cinematography and Justin Hurwitz’s catchy musical score — the two best elements of “La La Land” and “First Man” — and this film is likely to win over some audience members by sheer force.

But I have to wonder who “Babylon” is for. Older generations like classic Hollywood history and younger generations like all the wild and graphic parties, but the Venn diagram of people who like both are probably few and far between.