On the Fitzgeraldian Inspirations in Damien Chazelle’s Hollywood Spectacular Babylon

Margot Robbie looking more like a Halston model than a flapper 

BABYLON 

(Damien Chazelle, USA, 2022, 189 minutes) 

When I was in New York last week, I caught a screening of Metropolitan with filmmaker Whit Stillman in attendance. Afterward, he spoke at length about his 1990 debut with journalist Abbey Bender. Stillman specifically cited the work of Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald as inspirations, something that should be obvious to anyone who has seen his 1990 film, particularly since Austen and Mansfield Park appear prominently in the script. 

Though I don't recall any Fitzgerald references, the influence of the Jazz Age novelist isn't hard to find, since Princeton student--Fitzgerald attended Princeton--Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), the central character, recalls The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway, a decent guy who gets mixed up with some indecently wealthy people. The deb scene of Stillman's film also suggests the deb scene that produced The Great Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan. 

I don't know if Damien Chazelle looked to Fitzgerald as an influence for Babylon, but it wouldn't surprise me, since he builds his fifth film around three characters with Gatsbyesque traits: jack of all trades Manuel "Manny" Torres (Mexican actor Diego Calva), aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie, whose other 2022 period film is David O. Russell's Amsterdam), and fading silent film star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt, last seen in Bullet Train). 

These three aren't exact analogues for Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, and Jay Gatbsy--or any of Fitzgerald's other glamorously doomed characters--but they come close, not least because the film opens in 1926, ends in 1932, and takes place in the same Hollywood milieu the writer depicts in his unfinished 1941 novel The Last Tycoon (my 2002 Modern Classics edition includes notes Fitzgerald left behind regarding the ending, so it feels fairly complete).

Both novels would inspire major motion pictures, which Chazelle is likely to have seen: Jack Clayton's 1974 The Great Gatsby with Sam Waterston, Mia Farrow, and Robert Redford (the actor Pitt has always most closely resembled), Elia Kazan's 1976 The Last Tycoon with Robert De Niro, and Baz Luhrmann's 2013 Gatsby adaptation with Tobey Maguire (who acts in and coproduced Babylon), Carey Mulligan, and Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Nonetheless, according to Esther Zuckerman's New York Times piece about the film's occasionally anachronistic sartorial style, the look of Gatsby--if not the characterizations/storyline--wasn't exactly the filmmaker's intent. As she writes, "Chazelle was intent on creating a portrait of the 1920s that didn't look like the one audiences knew from, say, 'Great Gatsby' adaptations."

As he climbs up the ladder, Manny takes on some of the traits of The Last Tycoon's Monroe Stahr, a studio head inspired by Irving Thalberg, MGM's VP of Production. Not to give too much away, but Manny doesn't die at a young age like Stahr, but nor does he remain in Hollywood for the long haul. In that sense, he's more like Nick Carraway, who comes to see Daisy, Gatsby, and Daisy's philandering husband, Tom Buchanan, at their very worst, and returns to the Midwest from whence he came (Manny returns to Mexico). In Babylon, Max Minghella plays Thalberg; he's a minor character here.

De Niro and Ingrid Boulting in The Last Tycoon

If Whit Stillman made Jane Austen's influence explicit in the script for Metropolitan--and even more so in his excellent 2016 Austen adaptation Love & Friendship--Chazelle has done the same with Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's musical Singin’ in the Rain, possibly his primary influence, since his film follows a similar trajectory from silent cinema to the talkies and because he even includes clips from the 1952 MGM production. 

Singin' in the Rain also revolves around a two-men-and-one-woman trio--Don (Kelly), Cosmo (Donald O'Connor), and Kelly (Debbie Reynolds)--except the dynamic isn't the same; Manny, Nellie, and Jack aren't a team, or even necessarily friends. Their relationships are largely transactional, even as Manny carries a torch for the oblivious, hyper-ambitious Nellie.  

Other possible influences include Fellini and Visconti (particularly in the hedonistic party sequence in which Chazelle introduces the main characters) and Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon exposés--after all, it's right there in the title. But as wildly entertaining as those books may be, they fall into the "print the legend" category. For a thorough debunking of Anger's more spurious claims, I recommend the "Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon" season of Karina Longworth's podcast, You Must Remember This. 

In the party sequence, which includes all manner of bad behavior fueled by mountains of cocaine, Chazelle depicts a rather spherical fellow receiving a golden shower from a willing young lovely. Whether that was the sort of thing comic actor Fatty Arbuckle, who appears prominently in 1965's Hollywood Babylon, really enjoyed, I couldn't say, but that's who he's clearly meant to represent. 

Considering that most of Chazelle's previous films--from his black-and-white 2011 Godardian debut Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to the candy-colored 2016 Jacques Demy-inspired La La Land--have revolved around performers of various kinds, these sorts of influences make sense, and they aren't bad in and of themselves. 

Fitzgerald's novels and stories often took inspiration from figures, both public and not, that the well-traveled author actually knew or had heard about. His trick was to invest his characters with depth and complexity, and for my money, that's where Chazelle has fallen down on the job. If I wasn't exactly bored by the misadventures of Manny, Nellie, or Jack, I wasn't especially invested in them either (and as an actor, the less experienced Calva can't quite hold the screen as effectively as Robbie and Pitt). 

Attractive, charismatic actors can only do so much, and though they give it their all--and then some--it's hard not to compare Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt in Babylon with the more three-dimensional characters they played in Quentin Tarantino's superior 2019 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. 

In Tarantino’s film, Robbie plays Sharon Tate, an actual historical figure, while Pitt plays Cliff Booth, a composite inspired by actors, like Tom Laughlin, and stunt men, like Gary Kent. I'm not about to suggest that they're more likeable than Nellie and Jack--but they're more compelling. 

It may not be fair to compare a low-budget comedy of manners, like Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, to an elaborate studio spectacular, like Damien Chazelle's Babylon, but one film proves that it's possible to create something personal and distinctive out of recognizable elements. The other doesn't.  

Babylon opens on Friday, Dec 23, at theaters nationwide. Images of Robert De Niro and Ingrid Boulting from the IMDb and Hollywood Babylon from Amazon. All others via Paramount Pictures. Other inspirations Chazelle has cited in interviews: The Godfather, Modern Times, and Babylon Berlin.