Babylon explained (2022)

What is Babylon about?

Babylon is the latest addition to a genre of movies about the highs and lows of Hollywood. It joins the likes of Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, and Chazelle’s own La La Land. Babylon extends its scope to become a kind of bridge between silent era Old Hollywood and the present. In some ways, it’s a testament to everyone in the industry, past, present, and future, acknowledging the difficulty of what it is they do, the impossibility of the demands. It questions whether or not the sacrifices are worth it. Whether or not these are people we should even care about. This existential bleakness has a counterpoint in the lasting immortality of the work and what it means to so many. The work everyone in film did yesterday has made possible what appears on the screen today and will appear tomorrow. Babylon is as much a condemnation as it is a love letter. It spits at the system that uses and grinds and ruins while admiring those who dare join the party. 

The ending of Babylon explained

Recap

The end of Babylon begins with Manny leaving Los Angeles after the assassin spares his life. We witness Sidney Palmer in a new gig outside of Hollywood. The funeral of Jack Conrad. A montage that informs us of the passing of Nellie then Elinor. A time skip from the early 1930s up to 1952. In the intervening time, we see visuals of Hollywood’s growth. New actors. Bigger studios. Technicolor. 

We pick up with Manny in 1952, with his wife and daughter, outside of Kinoscope’s studio. It’s his first time back. He’s been in New York City, running a small audio shop. Miguel wanders the area, his wife and daughter off on their own, before arriving at a movie theater. It’s been a while since he’s watched a movie. Having left Hollywood, it seems he left the world of cinema behind completely. So it’s with fresh eyes he returns to a dark theater. He falls asleep. 

When he wakes up, he’s about 10 minutes further into Singin’ in the Rain. It’s a scene about a studio making the change from silent films to talkies. It’s eerily similar to events we saw earlier in Babylon that involved Miguel, Jack, and Nellie. The very next scene is a series of newspaper articles that look exactly like the newspaper articles we just saw during the transition to 1952. Miguel watches as the character of Lina Lamont struggles to overcome her high-pitched Brooklyn accent and speak in a way befitting the period drama she’s in. Again, it’s identical to an earlier scene with Miguel and others trying to help Nellie speak in an upscale way. 

We then see a flashback to Miguel and Nellie’s kiss. It’s in black and white, as if it were a film. Then a flashback even further to the original party where Nellie was so full of power and potential. Nellie ends up leading a parade through the middle of the party, as the main song, “Herman’s Hustle” plays over everything that follows, evolving along the way.. 

We return to the first conversation where Nellie asks Miguel why he wants to be in the movies and he says “I just want to be part of something bigger. To be part of something important, something that lasts, that means something.” A whole montage then unfolds that’s visual jazz and takes us from scenes from Babylon to actual footage from other movies, starting with the famous origin of cinema, The Horse in Motion, by Eadweard Muybridge (a focus in Jordan Peele’s Nope). We then hurl through film history, in chronological order, going from the distant past to the immediate present. There’s an emphasis on films that evolved the medium in some technical way. Like Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon. And The Wizard of Oz. Ben-Hur. Un Chien Andalou’s eyeball slice. 2001: A Space Odyssey. A series of purely abstract films. Tron. Terminator 2. Jurassic Park. The Matrix. Avatar. This gives ways to a bunch of colors spilling into water. Frames of film. Then the colors again. Seeping. Swirling. Spiraling. Nellie dancing. The music breaks down. Jack’s in purple. Sidney in red. Lady Fay in green. A series of single blocks of color. Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. The black and white countdown: 8, 7, 3, 2, 1, interspersed with those blocks of color. “Start”. The clouds of color. The blocks of color. Movie scenes. Babylon’s own clapperboard that shows a filming date of 10.14.21. A quick burst of a dozen shots in less than a second. Then back to Miguel’s face. 

Miguel’s crying face. As “Singin’ in the Rain” is sung. Then the music of Babylon crescendos over everything as Miguel smiles and we fade to black. 

Meaning

As gigantic and strange as the end of Babylon can feel, the meaning is actually quite simple. It’s a love letter to those who sacrifice for the industry. It’s Chazelle speaking not to the characters or the audience but to his peers, both past and present. 

Most of Babylon is about the highs and lows of Hollywood and how the industry is so spiritually and physically fatal. Jack, Nellie, Manny, and Sidney aren’t exceptions. They’re archetypes. Representative of what happens, generation after generation, to talent that comes in, blows up, and is blown down by a vampiric system. In that way, Chazelle acknowledges the very real pitfalls and travesty of this industry. From the inside, it’s not magic. It’s madness. It’s the pied piper playing a tune of fame and wealth that causes everyone to follow him to their doom. But from the outside…

When Manny enters that theater in 1952, he’s no longer someone in the industry. He’s a person who gets to experience the movies in their final form. And what he sees is his life, the events of Babylon, repurposed for Singin’ in the Rain. And suddenly he understands what he was part of. Which is why the film goes back to his words to Nellie. “I just want to be part of something bigger. To be part of something important, something that lasts, that means something.” What they did mattered. It lasted. It’s important. And that’s when Chazelle jumps from Babylon to showing movies from throughout history. It’s him acknowledging all the Mannys, Sidneys, Jacks, and Nellies, all the nameless, faceless millions, who have collaborated to build this universe of cinema. 

The breakdown at the end is visual jazz about nerdy film stuff. Like the color filters we see over images of Sidney, Jack, Nellie, and Manny are probably references to the Technicolor process of colorizing films. Which would explain some of the liquid color. You could make a number of arguments about the meaning here. Like comparing color in film to notes in music. Or viewing it as something elemental. Like the DNA of modern cinema. The building blocks. Regardless of the interpretation that feels right to you, it all comes back to the idea of making movies. And the wonder of it. The beauty of it. And, yes, the implied horror of what goes on behind the scenes. But, at that moment, it seems that Manny is satisfied. As horrible things got, he did it. He was part of it. And isn’t that something?

The themes and meaning of Babylon

Hollywood and its cycle of promise and heartbreak

Hollywood is one of Hollywood’s favorite topics. Every few years there’s a new twist on the Sunset Boulevard story. Specifically, the promise and heartbreak Hollywood offers. You go in with big dreams. Worst case scenario, you’re crushed and have nothing to show for it. Best case scenario, you’re wildly successful but it’s just a long road to a different kind of disappointment. Mulholland Drive, The Artist, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, even something akin to Hollywood like A Star is Born. Birdman. Even Chazelle’s own La La Land. 

What makes Babylon different is that it takes a grander look at the whole machine. We’re not seeing just a time capsule of early Hollywood, like in The Artist. Or just how heartbreaking the industry can be, like Mulholland Drive. Or exploring someone in the twilight of their career. Chazelle does all those things, then zooms out to say, “This is a pattern. These are archetypes. Nellie is an archetype. Jack is an archetype. Manny is an archetype. They weren’t the first of their kind. Nor will they be the last. Their stories, the highs and the lows, will repeat over and over again, for decades, for centuries.” That’s why Chazelle bookends the movie with the party. The party never stops. Different house. Different people. Same party. The same allure and promise and potential. That we know will lead to the same fallout. But…

Immortality through the contribution to something greater

Despite the personal struggles people in Hollywood face, Babylon offers hope in the form of reminding everyone involved that they become immortal. Their work transcends each individual lifespan and becomes part of the whole tapestry that is cinema. From the producers to the filmmakers to the talent to the crew, every single person matters. Whether they’re known or not. Whether they’re remembered or not. They become a ghost in the machine. 

This topic first comes up when Jack confronts Elinor about the article questioning whether Jack’s career is over. Jack’s initially angry. But Elinor gives this speech about how it doesn’t matter if he’s finished now or not, because Jack’s already eternal. We see the full force of this concept when Manny returns to Hollywood and sees a movie for the first time in decades. It’s Singin’ in the Rain and it causes an out of body experience that kicks Manny and us into the astral plane of cinema. Chazelle explodes Babylon in a way that it becomes a bridge between Hollywood’s origins and 2022. Then recedes back to Manny, in the theater, satisfied. Because he knows he was part of something world defining.

It makes Babylon very similar to Chazelle’s own Whiplash and La La Land, as well as Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler and Black Swan. 

Why is the movie called Babylon?

Background

For such an epic movie, the use of the word “Babylon” feels appropriate. It’s a complicated word. 

On the one hand, Babylon was a very real city in ancient Mesopotamia. It’s considered one of the world’s first great cities and often hailed as a bastion of science and art. It was eventually conquered by the first Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great, in 539 BC. Then by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. But after Alexander passed, the region became a political minefield and the population evaporated. Over the next century, it hung on, but it was eventually torn apart, literally brick by brick, and the materials used to build other towns and cities like Hillah and Baghdad. There are still legends of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, immortalized in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Contrasting the reality of Babylon is the Biblical references to the city. It shows up in the Book of Genesis and is famously associated with the Tower of Babel. 

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the world earth.” The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused (balal) the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. 

Even though there’s no specific mention of a formal Tower of Babel, the reference to Babel and its tower became a frequent target for mythologizing. The typical idea is that God punished humans for reaching too high. That the tower was a demonstration of humanity’s hubris and also a challenge to the divine. It’s essentially the original “Icarus flew too close to the sun”. Icarus is the city, and the tower is the act of flying, and God is the sun. 

The reality and mythologization of Babylon has led to a polarized legacy. Sometimes the city is held up as an ideal, representing a kind of utopia where people are united and galvanized. In other cases, it’s thought of as a place of ego and blasphemy, a selfish culture that “decent” people should not only fear but reject. 

Application

So Damien Chazelle could use the title Babylon as a reference to the literal city. A place that once thrived but slowly wore down. Which is kind of what we see. The Golden Age of Hollywood is a romanticized place that our main characters thrive in. But that empire comes to an end. And a new one takes its place, built on the ruins and legacy of what once was. 

He could also be referring to the Biblical story. That Hollywood essentially built an industry that was the equivalent of a tower reaching to the heavens, and God came through and struck it down and scattered the people. That also tracks, as we see the unsustainable lifestyle that Nellie and Jack and so many others have. Eventually, there’s a comeuppance. 

But it doesn’t seem to be as simple as that. As those readings fail to account for the fact that Hollywood has continued to thrive. It’s a vital part of modern culture. In the climactic visual jazz sequence, Chazelle bridges the divide between Hollywood’s Golden Age and modern times. So Babylon isn’t necessarily only about the gloom and doom aspect. Hollywood is still a place of wonder. A haven for emotion and imagination and dreams. 

Like Babylon, Hollywood is complicated. Simultaneously  real and unreal, caught between history and mythology. A giver of wonder. A consumer of souls. It balances wealth and ruin. Hope and tragedy. It takes what it gives. But always, always, always, gives what it takes.  

In Chazelle’s own words

Back in November of 2022, about a month and a half before Babylon released, Chazelle did an interview with Entertainment Weekly. This is what EW wrote about the title:

The film’s title is a nod to its ultimate inspiration. Chazelle says he became interested in “stories about societies in transition” throughout history. “It’s basically what the early film industry was, this makeshift society that had been built up really fast, in this kind of unbridled, reckless way. [Babylon] was a name used to describe Hollywood in those days—the idea of a sinful place, a city of decadence and depravity that was heading to ruin,” he says. “It’s like the story of Los Angeles itself.” 

Did Chazelle take inspiration from Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon?

So there’s an infamous book by the name of Hollywood Babylon that was essentially Page Six or The National Enquirer or The Sun but in the 1950s. It had all these salacious stories about Hollywood celebrities. It claimed some insane things. From Wikipedia: Other debunked urban legends started by the book include claims that the silent film star Marie Prevost’s body was partially eaten by her dachshund after she died in her Hollywood apartment in 1937… 

Another great quote: Film historian Kevin Brownlow repeatedly criticized the book, citing Anger as saying his research method was “mental telepathy, mostly.”

People have speculated that Chazelle went with the name Babylon as a reference to Hollywood Babylon. But as he said in the EW interview, that ‘was a name used to describe Hollywood in those days.” So it’s not like Anger’s book created the nickname, rather the nickname existed and that’s why Anger used it. 

But it does seem Chazelle had to have been aware of Anger’s text and leaned into it a bit. For example, Anger had claimed that Clara Bow slept with the USC football team. Chazelle has Nellie, who is partially inspired by Bow, show up to a party with the USC football team, most of them shirtless. Nothing promiscuous happens because of the whole going out to the desert to fight a rattlesnake thing. But you can see how word could spread and morph. First it’s just a story about bringing the whole USC team to the party. Then it’s told and retold and retold and eventually becomes: she slept with the entire USC football team. 

So while Hollywood Babylon in some way affected the story, it doesn’t seem to be the primary inspiration for the title or the movie. 

Important motifs in Babylon

The party

The opening party at Don Wallach’s mansion serves as an overall metaphor for Hollywood. The extravagance, decadence, grandeur, beauty, mayhem, absurdity, cruelty, and ugliness. It’s not a coincidence that Nellie’s arrival to the party and becoming the life of it foreshadows her arrival to Hollywood and immediate success. 

But Chazelle doesn’t rely on the singular party. Instead, we see several play out. Each with more chaos thrown in. With more negativity. These crescendo with the “who wants to fight a snake” party that almost ends Nellie’s life, then, finally, the high society party where Nellie has to, in order to fit in, dress like someone she’s not and talk like someone’s she’s not, until the pressure becomes too much and she self-destructs. 

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Every party foreshadows the next chapter in the lives of our main characters, sets the tone for what comes next, and embodies the relationship the characters have with Hollywood itself. It’s meaningful then, that, at the very end, when Manny has his out of body experience while watching Singin’ in the Rain, that Babylon brings us back to the opening party and uses it to kick off the whole “History of Movies” sequence. That party is, in Babylon, both the literal and figurative big bang, and comes to embody Hollywood as a whole. It’s the wildest party you’ve ever seen, in ways both transcendent and obliterating. 

Questions & answers about Babylon

Is Babylon based on a true story? How historically accurate is it?

Yes and no. No, in the sense that people named Nellie LaRoy, Jack Conrad, Manny Torres, Sidney Palmer, and Lady Fay Zhu did not exist. Yes, in the sense that Chazelle took inspiration from real people and real archetypes. 

Entertainment Weekly: Pitt’s Jack Conrad was inspired by John Gilbert, Clark Gable, and Douglas Fairbanks, while Robbie’s Nellie LeRoy is a combination of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Jeanne Eagles, and Alma Rubens. The goal, Chazelle says, was to “take an honest, unvarnished look at the good and the bad of a really seismic shift” through different characters. 

In terms of historical accuracy, it definitely takes liberties, but, again, Chazelle wanted to capture Old Hollywood. So aspects like breaking a camera and having to send someone to a camera rental store and wait for someone else to drop a camera off—accurate. But Manny stealing an ambulance to bring the camera to set—not accurate. Or needing to house cameras in soundproof rooms so microphones didn’t pick them up—real. But someone locked in the room until they overheat and pass away—eh. 

Why did the assassin let Manny live?

It’s probably a few things. One, being an assassin probably isn’t a very rewarding job. Two, he was probably told to take out Manny and The Count. Since the assassin had already done the job on The Count and The Count’s roommate, there was probably a bit more wiggle room to let Manny go. We saw how busy and weird James McKay was. It’s likely he already moved on to caring about something else so wouldn’t grill the assassin for details. “Did you get the guys?” “Yeah.” “Great.” 

Also, Manny looked truly sad and pathetic. That’s not a knock on him. Most of us would be in a similar state. But seeing someone like that—yeesh. It’s highly likely the assassin was overwhelmed by Manny’s pleas and wanted to feel somewhat good about himself as a human so let Manny live. 

Why did Nellie leave Manny?

Nellie is LGBTQ+. And the one relationship we saw her have in Babylon was with Lady Fay Zhu. While it seemed that Nellie was open in her sexuality, it didn’t mean she wanted to be in a relationship with Manny, much less any man. Even if she did, Nellie also didn’t seem the type to really settle down and be a wife, and have kids, and focus on family. At least not then and there. 

But Nellie also had a lot of demons and self-loathing and probably felt that being in a relationship with Manny would only bring more hardship to him. She was aware of what a burden she had been. To Manny’s career and to his very mortality. Nellie most likely believed she would only hurt Manny more, that self-destruction was inevitable, and that it was sparing both him and her the heartache and hardship. 

It also kind of captures the Hollywood dream. For a moment, Manny and Nellie were their fairy tale ending. Just like they had their big moments in Hollywood. Only for it to go up in smoke.

Cast

• Nellie LaRoy – Margot Robbie
• Jack Conrad – Brad Pitt
• Manny Torres – Diego Calva
• Lady Fay Zhu – Li Jun Li
• Sidney Palmer – Jovan Adepo
• Elinor St. John – Jean Smart
• George Munn – Lukas Haas
• Ruth Adler – Olivia Hamilton
• Max – P.J. Byrne
• Robert Roy – Eric Roberts
• James McKay – Tobey Maguire
• Don Wallach – Jeff Garlin
• The Count – Rory Scovel
• Otto Von Strassberger – Spike Jonze
• Written by – Damien Chazelle
• Directed by – Damien Chazelle

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about Babylon? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!