Babylon | Ending Explained

In this section of our Colossus Movie Guide for Babylon, we will explain the film’s ending.

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

The end 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. Manuel 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 Manuel, 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. Manny 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 Manuel and others trying to help Nellie speak in an upscale way. 

We then see a flashback to Manny 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 Manny 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 Manuel’s face. 

Manny’s crying face. As “Singin’ in the Rain” is sung. Then the music of Babylon crescendos over everything as Manny 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?

What are your thoughts?

Is there more to the ending that you think should be part of the Colossus Movie Guide for Babylon? Leave your thoughts below and we’ll consider adding them.