If you take a moment to look past all the drug-fueled orgies, snake fights and elephant excrement, there is actually a much deeper meaning in Damien Chazzelle’s Babylon. The film is a fascinating insight into the search for meaning and identity at a time of unprecedented social change. Not only did the 1920s and early 30s see a transition from silent films to talkies, it also heralded a new era of huge profits, wider audiences and mass censorship. Each of the five main characters responds to this new world in a different way, highlighting the far-reaching consequences of the sound revolution.
The film begins at the height of the silent era, a time of artistic innovation, technological leaps and…outrageous orgies. No, really, as excessive as it may seem, the opening party in Babylon does actually have some basis in fact. Orville’s deadly sexual escapade references that of real-life comedian “Fatty” Arbuckle, who was accused of killing actress Virgina Rappe at a wild San Francisco party in 1921. Anyway, I did promise to look beyond the orgies, so let’s get back to the main feature of 1920s cinema, artistic innovation.
By the middle of the decade, there were 20 different Hollywood studios that output a combined total of around 800 feature films a year, almost double what we can expect today. Each film contributed to a rapidly growing art form that seemed to invent new styles, genres and techniques by the minute. Panning, three-point lighting, the close-up, the long shot, continuity editing and even some early attempts at colour-film were invented. We see our five main characters flourish in this pioneering world. Manny starts climbing the ranks of Kinoscope. Nellie lands her first role to become Hollywood’s next sensation, Zhu enthrals as a famous cabaret singer, Sidney doesn’t miss a beat playing sax, and Jack becomes the world’s highest grossing actor.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. As the film alludes to, there were some serious problems. The Arbuckle trial that I mentioned earlier was just one in a stream of scandals and mysterious deaths that exposed Hollywood’s dark underbelly. On top of this, tales of drug addiction, alcohol abuse and debaucherous parties all made their way into the press, damaging the image of the industry.
Nonetheless, whilst film was certainly becoming more popular through the 1920s, Hollywood didn’t really need to worry too much about its image. For most of its history, the bulk of cinema audiences were made up of the working-classes and immigrants,who didn’t have the same standards as the theatre-going middle class. Popular films could be made on lower budgets and weren’t restricted by censorship, which allowed for more experimentation. Meanwhile filmmakers only had to worry about capturing a moving image without the added complication of sound. This is probably why the decade was such a productive time for filmmaking, a fact that explains the meteoric rise of Babylon’s main characters.
In many ways, the coming of sound film towards the late 1920s put an end to the innovation of the silent era. Suddenly, there was a restricted market for English-speaking films, and limited opportunities for creative freedom. The need for dialogue ruled out actors and actresses with bad voices, whilst those that stayed needed to contend with static microphones that impeded their movement. Then, the Great Depression hit, which led to even more pressure on Hollywood’s workforce with mass layoffs and salary cuts.
At the same time, the growing cost of film production, now with the added complication of sound, put smaller studios under pressure. Soon Hollywood’s many production companies consolidated into the so-called big-5 of Warner Brothers, MGM, RKO, Paramount and Fox. Despite the ongoing recession, profits surged, which led to even more investment in the industry, the search for wider audiences and the rise of distinct brands. The biggest of the Big 5, MGM, began to tailor its movies to the new movie-going middle class, with bright lighting, opulent production design and a celebration of conservative values. To support this appeal, the Hays Production Code was introduced to clean up the image of the movie industry, by barring scenes that were overly violent or sexual and regulating the conduct of actors. It’s against this radically changed backdrop that we see our five main characters desperately trying to stay relevant.
Nellie struggles with the high stress of working on a talking set as well as the demands of a new middle-class audience that expects a more ladylike image. She would have faced competition from classically trained actresses that came from classier theatre backgrounds. This friction between the two mediums is explored through the argument between Estelle and Jack, wherein film is referred to as a ‘low art’ in comparison to theatre. As films became more and more middle-class and theatre-like, actors and actresses like Nellie would have had to reinvent themselves.
To help reinvent the image of Nellie as a paragon of middle-class values, Manny decides that her budding romance with Lady Zhu needs to end. Zhu is fired from the studio for the sole reason that a lesbian relationship would be disagreeable to the puritanical new audience and production code. Zhu responds to this snub by moving to Europe, a part of the world that had a more accepting film industry at the time.
Jack also finds his career threatened, albeit in a much less direct way. He goes to the cinema and sees the audience laughing at his latest film, shortly before noticing a column about his growing irrelevance as an actor. This is a shock since there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with Jack’s acting. Many silent actors fell from grace in the sound era because they lacked a pleasant voice or the ability to perform in more demanding conditions, but these weren’t problems for Jack. As Elinor explains:
It wasn’t your voice. It wasn’t a conspiracy and it certainly wasn’t anything I wrote. There’s nothing you could have done differently and nothing you can do. Your time is up. There is no why.
As arbitrary as this explanation sounds, it was a common theme during the transition to the sound era. Audiences started to perceive silent-era stars as old fashioned, even if they had everything they needed to succeed in talkies. Harold Lloyd is one such example. Despite being considered one of the top on-screen comedians of the 1920s and being an early adopter of sound film, his career went into a steep decline in the 1930s.
In the face of this brutal transition, Manny and Sidney seem to buck the trend and come out relatively unscathed. Manny skillfully adapts to sound film, takes directorial jobs and eventually becomes a studio executive whilst Sidney develops a reputation as a renowned musician with his own musical and orchestra. Yet, there is a sour taste to this success. It seems as if Manny has had to shed his Mexican heritage to get where he is. He insists other people don’t call him Manuel, and introduces himself as Spanish instead of Mexican, presumably to avoid any prejudice. Sidney also reckons with prejudice, but more in the sense that people seem to be so interested in the colour of his skin that they forget to notice his musical talent. This comes to a head when he is forced to wear blackface makeup so he can appeal to Southern audiences and maximise Kinoscope’s revenue. Both characters are forced to make a terrible choice; between continuing their dream in Hollywood or staying true to their identity. There is no room for those that don’t fit this new mould.
The full image of this new Hollywood world is perfectly encapsulated within the upper-class socialite party that takes place in 1930. It sits in stark contrast to the Film’s opening festivities where, despite the chaos, all the characters were free to be themselves and dream about a brighter future. Now, it is clear that the industry they fell in love with has changed beyond recognition, and so has their place within it. In the words of Elinor,
What happened is you thought the house needed you. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t need you any more than it needs the roaches.
Leave a Reply