‘Babylon’: a lurid look at movies in the 1920s

  Director Damien Chazelle takes three hours and nine minutes to bring Babylon to its predictably ironic conclusion. As I watched the film, I wondered exactly what Chazelle had in mind with this indulgent, lurid look at the early days of the movie business.

   Chazelle takes a sensationalized bold-faced approach to his material. Not only are the characters and events Chazelle depicts notably lewd but the movie serves them up so breathlessly we're probably meant to take them as revelations about the way things really were.

   Chazelle immerses his story in the nothing-succeeds-like-excess school of filmmaking, which, at least for me, meant that watching Babylon was like being elbowed in the ribs by someone who winks as he says, "Can you believe this?"

     Babylon begins with a party that brims with over-the-top debauchery. Silent film stars and wannabes gather for a bacchanal at which anything goes. The movie's major characters are introduced as they step around throbbing piles of partygoers.

     How lascivious is Chazelle's portrayal of early Hollywood? At the opening party, an immense actor -- presumably suggestive of Fatty Arbuckle -- enjoys a golden shower. A drug overdose death? Yes, that, too.

     About those major characters: 

     Margot Robbie plays an aspiring star who crashes the party in hopes of meeting the folks that will launch the big-screen career she believes she's destined to have. 

    Brad Pitt portrays a matinee idol with a devil-may-care approach to work, a hard-drinking life and his many marriages. 

    Newcomer Diego Calva appears as a worker at the party who slides into movies, a sideways entrance. He quickly falls for Robbie's Nellie LaRoy, a love that persists throughout the film but adds little to the proceedings.

     Chazelle plunges into the wild atmosphere generated by an industry that was only beginning to find its cultural footing. The doors swung open for hollow ambition to mingle with genuine talent and the two sometimes became indistinguishable. 

     Fueled by energy, sexiness, and bravado, Robbie's performance proves a stand-out, although not always in a good way. She's working so hard, you wonder whether OSHA should have looked into it.

     Pitt can play this kind of role without much apparent effort. His Conrad is a star for whom everything comes easily. He's conquered the world of silent movies. 

     Jean Smart plays Elinor St. John, a powerful gossip columnist who chronicles the Hollywood scene. She's a star builder and a star destroyer.

     Li Jun Li evokes images of Anna May Wong as a mysterious cabaret singer.

     Perhaps because of his encompassing approach, Chazelle also makes room for racial issues. Jovan Adepo plays a Black trumpet player who finds a niche in the movies but eventually must confront his conscience about Hollywood's blatant racism.

    And, alas, poor Tobey Maguire. He turns up as a leering gangster who travels through a degraded underground, happily enjoying the sleaze. 

   It might be said that Babylon has it all: death, sex, tragedy, shiny dreams that curdle into dashed hopes, and a large cast that's been tossed into Chazelle's sometimes frenzied narrative.

    Of course, Babylon does have it all — but in quantities that amount to wanton overload. Elephant defecation and rattlesnake wrestling appear as if plucked from a crazy highlight reel, sideshows to the main event.

    Of course, all that rises must fall. The arrival of the talkies brings a need for nuanced vocal talent many of the movie's silent stars don't possess. When the wheel of time turns, the hands of the clock point to sad endings for many of these characters.

    In Babylon,  Chazelle (La La Land) seems to be striving for something big, bold, and culturally meaningful. He's not holding back. But what he gets is something less than epic, a movie that's weird, long and, finally, tiresome.

      For a movie with so much uninhibited energy, Babylon proves a drag.

     

    

The story of the moon landing

Director Damien Chazelle avoids cliches in First Man, a carefully calibrated look at an epic event.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of director Damien Chazelle’s First Man arrives in the form of a reminder: Great feats often begin with baby steps that stutter, shudder and sometimes go terribly wrong.

To establish the point early, Chazelle opens the story of NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon with Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) taking a bone-rattling ride on a 140,000-foot test of an aircraft that’s meant to approach the edge of the atmosphere. Armstrong, who later will become the first man to set foot on the moon, encounters a malfunction but pushes through.

The sequence serves as a powerful overture for a movie about the early days of space flight. By today's standards, men were riding in vehicles that look fragile, almost jury-rigged. They were putting their lives on the line to break barriers and extend humanity’s reach — and not everyone thought space exploration was a great idea. A costly US space program was pitted against pressing domestic needs and a rising chorus of protest against the Vietnam War.

Chazelle evokes the tumultuous political atmosphere of the ‘60s, but doesn’t dwell on it nor does he sound triumphant chords about space achievement. He doesn't glorify the NASA astronauts who risked and sometimes lost their lives in pursuit of the moon landing President John F. Kennedy had chosen as a national goal.

Moreover, the movie doesn’t have a standard-issue hero.

As played by Gosling, Armstrong comes across as an emotionally reticent man who seems only able to survive by pulling a curtain across the pain that stemmed from the death of a daughter from cancer. He sheds tears when he’s alone, but doesn’t talk about the loss with his wife (Claire Foy), his sons or his friends.

A stand-out scene finds Armstrong removing himself from a gathering after the funeral of a fellow astronaut. Alone in his backyard, he scans the skies through a hand-held telescope, pushing away a concerned colleague by telling him that he's not standing alone in the night because he's looking for a conversation.

With Armstrong training, traveling and immersing himself in his work, it falls to Foy’s Janet to hold down the homefront. She does, but Foy never turns Janet into the loyal wife of cliche. She supports her husband, but she’s also angry in the way of many wives of the '60s, women who were left to tend to chores while their husbands found adventure in the workplace.

Of course, there was one key difference between Armstrong and the legions of overworked office slugs: Armstrong risked not coming home from his workplace.

And that’s the Armstrong we meet here, a no-drama guy who regards what he does as “going to work," a job.

You may want to think of First Man as a "space procedural." Chazelle takes us through the various stages of development of a moon landing that began with the Gemini program and culminated with Apollo.

To make clear the dangers at hand, Chazelle includes the cockpit fire that took the lives of White, Gus Grissom (Shea Whigham) and Roger Chafee (Cory Michael Smith), three astronauts who died in a fire during a “plugs out” test of the spacecraft.

Naturally, the moon landing becomes the movie's climax. Chazelle handles the moment Armstrong stepped onto the moon with exquisite balance. He doesn't italicize its awe or underplay it.

When the Eagle touches down on the moon, Chazelle allows the silvery expanse of the lunar surface to speak for itself, so much so that the movie goes silent. I confess to disappointment when — after some minutes of sobering silence — Justin Hurwitz’s score began to chime in.

Ryan's controlled performance makes us wonder whether the actor opened a tap and drained out three-quarters of his emotional life. That could be exactly what Chazelle had in mind. We come to understand that Armstrong performs with cool equanimity when he's able to keep a lid on anything that might break his concentration.

It may be fair to say that the movie — based on a book by James R. Hansen — finds its meaning in the choices that Chazelle doesn’t make. He takes a neutral path that mirrors Armstrong's personality. That’s not to say that the movie is without emotion or tension, but it’s not buoyed by an identifiable point of view, a limiting factor. That, an overly long running time and a slight whiff of sentimentality keep the movie from greatness.

Still, First Man struck me as a far more ambitious and worthier work than either Whiplash or La La Land, two of Chazelle's previous movies.

Chazelle has been criticized for not showing the moment when Armstrong planted an American flag on lunar soil. Please. I took the omission as a significant part of Chazelle’s approach. He wants us to see the Apollo mission fresh, to avoid the kind of signature images that have degenerated into cliche.

As if to emphasize work-a-day life in the space program, Chazelle also refuses to celebrate the hotshot pilot ethos that made The Right Stuff so engaging. Only Corey Stoll’s Buzz Aldrin approaches his job with bravado and public expressions of ego. It’s not something that Chazelle dwells on.

At two hours and 15 minutes, the movie's tension and single-minded determination become a bit of a grind, so much so that the lunar landing generates more relief than excitement. I don't mean that as a criticism. When the Eagle lands, the movie relaxes.

I’m one of those people who believe the US benefits from a strong and adventurous space program. First Man reminds us that no such program can be risk-free and leaves us to ponder whether the rewards are worth the risks.

Decide for yourself, but wouldn't it be grand to see the world again focused in awe and appreciation at an accomplishment that really had the power to expand the way we see ourselves? I'm not holding my breath, but sometimes a little dreaming helps.

Music and romance in 'La La Land'

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star in an attempt to breathe new life into the Hollywood musical.

I liked it, OK? Now, let me tell you why the much-praised La La Land didn't totally lift my spirits, change my mood or otherwise transport me to heights heretofore unattained in the history of human movie watching. And, no, I'm not talking about some post-election funk that prohibits me from enjoying anything.

For me La La Land is a bit of an oddity, a movie I enjoyed (some of it immensely) and also quibbled with (often).

Director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) opens the movie with a dance number staged on an LA freeway exit that sets a snappy pace that defines the movie in its earliest going. Scenes feel carbonated, as if they're about to bubble off the screen.

The single-shot camera work of the movie's opening proves fun in a razzle-dazzle sort of way, but if you look at other elements (the music and the dancing), you may be slightly less impressed. La La Land feasts on candy-colored imagery and an unashamed reckoning with its musical predecessors.

La La Land centers on a romance between aspiring artists -- one a jazz-obsessed pianist (Ryan Gosling), the other an actress (Emma Stone) who has yet to make her mark in Hollywood.

Watching Gosling and Stone do a Rogers/Astaire-like number on a deserted street overlooking the city's lights proves a bit of a strain. They're both trying their best, but I've seen Fred Astaire and ... well ... you know how the rest of the sentence goes.

Of the two stars, Gosling seems the least likely to turn up in a musical. He's playing a character who dreams of restoring a jazz club in Los Angeles, and he's written a song for piano that becomes one of the movie's major motifs. Sorry to say, the tune sounds trite when compared to Gosling's character's purported heroes: Bird, Coltrane, et. al.

Eventually, Gosling's Sebastian is presented with the opportunity to join a successful band led by former pal Keith (John Legend), a musician who embraces a youthful audience and thinks that Sebastian's devotion to jazz might be a bit pointless.

By this time, Gosling's Sebastian and Stone's Mia are a couple; she urges him to join Keith's touring show, but in the end, regrets having encouraged him. She thinks Sebastian has sold out his art, and betrayed his avidity. Who's left to defend the purity of jazz?

Stone's Mia faces her own struggle. She finds herself humiliated at audition after audition, familiar scenes handled with aplomb by Chazelle. Sebastian encourages Mia to write a play, and stage it as a one-woman show. She does. No one comes. She heads back to her home in Nevada, but eventually achieves her dream, and becomes a star.

Will the romance between Mia and Sebastian survive all this career angst?

While pondering that question, you'll find trace elements of Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Vincent Minnelli and Jacques Demy. But even if you don't catch the references, you'll get the feeling that Chazelle wants to meld old-fashioned movie magic with an upbeat sensibility that can play to contemporary audiences.

The stars of the movie are production designer David Wasco, art director Austin Gorg and cinematographer Linus Sandgren, whose work affords considerable pleasure in quiet sequences in which Stone's Mia simply walks down a dimly lit street or in a fantasy sequence set at Los Angeles's Griffith Observatory, which you'll recognize as a centerpiece location in Nicholas Rey's Rebel Without a Cause.

Chazelle uses the observatory's planetarium for the movie's most fanciful and charming sequence, which offers a helping of gossamer enchantment that can't help but make you smile.

Don't be surprised if Stone wins the best actress Oscar for her work here. To the extent that the movie has a true beating heart, it emanates from Stone, who has been given a showcase musical number -- a song that she pulls off with more conviction than vocal talent.

The movie's bittersweet ending isn't entirely satisfying, but we have La La Land, and it's possible to like it without totally surrendering to all of its carefully concocted charms.

Drumming to beat the band

Whiplash has enough energy to stock 10 movies.

I've always thought of jazz as an art form that allowed skilled, disciplined musicians a great measure of freedom. But jazz -- like just about everything else -- has been transformed by time and social change.

Music once was mastered in clubs and learned from other musicians now can be studied in conservatory-like situations where highly motivated young people pursue jazz with the zeal and determination you'd expect to find among a group of Harvard MBA candidates.

That's the environment we find ourselves in Whiplash, an exciting and sometimes disturbing debut feature from Damien Chazelle, a director who obtains fine performances from Miles Teller as Andrew, an aspiring jazz drummer, and from J.K. Simmons as Fletcher, an unapologetically judgmental and sometimes sadistic teacher.

Simmons, who portrays Fletcher as if he were a Marine Corps drill instructor, hasn't had this kind of a badass role since he portrayed white supremacist Vern Schillinger on HBO's Oz.

If ever a teacher could create performance anxiety in his charges, it's Fletcher. He leads the school's prestigious first-string jazz band, and takes pride in its ability to win just about every competition it enters.

Teller's Andrew desperately wants to find a place in Fletcher's world. He's the kind of driven kid who'll practice until his hands bleed. He sweats and drums himself to the point of exhaustion. When Andrew plays, it feels as if we're watching an action movie.

Fletcher specializes in pushing his students' buttons, learning about their personal lives and using information he acquires to test their ability to withstand public humiliation. He's quick to make fun of Andrew's English teacher father (Paul Reiser), calling him a failed writer, for example. Simmons sarcastic tirades include a repertoire of homophobic slurs, delivered by him without an apparent second thought.

All of this makes Fletcher frightening. He can be sympathetic when he chooses to be, but he'll turn brutal in a minute, presumably to spur his charges to higher levels of performance.

In a way, Fletcher is a second and much tougher father than Andrew's biological father, who raised the boy alone and seems to display (heaven help him) a degree of sensitivity. Andrew's mom left when he was quite young.

Teller shows us some of Andrew's vulnerability, but he also can be cocky. Andrew grows in confidence as the movie progresses, even dumping his girlfriend (Melissa Benoist) because he knows she'll want more from him than he's willing to give. Nothing takes precedence over drumming.

Of course, there would be no movie if Chazelle didn't build toward a major clash, and when it arrives, it hits the screen with near-explosive force.

I don't know exactly what Chazelle intended, but it's striking to see jazz as a kind of competitive, striver's pursuit for young men, most of them white.

Whatever the movie's messages (intended and unintended), the duel between Simmons and Teller proves mesmerizing, as is the music of Justin Hurwitz, who wrote original numbers for the movie, which also makes use of such jazz classics as Duke Ellington's Caravan.

The idea that artistic excellence can't be achieved without this kind of torment may be baloney. The movie's notion that greatness can be tortured out of students isn't likely to win many converts.

But I wouldn't miss the battle waged by Andrew and his mentor. It's not just about musicians pushing themselves; it's about actors pushing themselves and about the desire to stand-out from the anonymous crowd.

When it's done, you may find yourself arguing with Whiplash, but you won't be able to ignore a movie that feels every bit as driven as its characters.