: (Justin Hurwitz) After winning countless
awards for his previous three films, writer and director Damien Chazelle
uses 2022's
to test just how demented a "prestige film"
can be before losing both critics and audiences. Such movies are meant
to bolster perceptions of artistic prowess for a studio or filmmaker,
but
is so excessive in its depictions of debauchery that
critics were badly split and audiences weren't enticed. The story is one
with poignant potential, telling of how a 1920's Hollywood and its
flashiest characters adapted to the transition between the silent and
"talkie" ages. Many of the powerful figures of the silent era lost their
way during this time, and
exposes a handful of actors and
other production members as they struggle to succeed but mostly fail to
adapt. Much of this loss comes due to the unashamed personal sin common
to the industry at the times, and the behavior shown individually and in
parties in this movie include the kind of unthinkable sex, drug, and
alcohol acts that cause religious organizations to lose their minds and
protest. There are interesting and compelling individual stories in
, mainly involving an actor, Jack, in decline due to the
industry shift, an ascendant actress, Nellie, with severe habit issues,
and a Mexican crewman, Manny, who strives to achieve a permanent place
in the industry by denying his heritage. How these characters deal with
mortality and acceptance is key to the story, but don't expect much
happiness to come from their fates. What does result from such glitzy
prestige films are mainstream awards, and
continues
Chazelle's collaboration with composer Justin Hurwitz to yield such
obvious music in the picture that it beckons awards consideration simply
because it is so brazen. Hurwitz composed this score over three years
and handled all the orchestrations and conducting himself on the
project, and the picture was a logistical nightmare to score for because
of its haphazard blend of source music and traditional underscore. Half
of the soundtrack contains music heard by the characters in the film
while the other half tries to piece together a meaningful narrative in
the underscore. Stylistically, both halves are all over the place,
though, and that's what
Strategically, 1920's jazz wasn't deemed viable for
Babylon by Chazelle and Hurwitz, so the authenticity factor is
not even attempted. Rather, the base elements of 1940's jazz form a
foundation for influences from the many decades thereafter to inform
individual pieces that make the soundtrack a hybrid of quasi-vintage
jazz and outright comedy of a contemporary nature. The extremely
discordant tones of this atmosphere are the whole point of the
soundtrack; it's meant to be as flamboyant and irreverent as the golden
showers, projectile vomiting, and fecal play shown on screen. The base
performers of
Whiplash and
La La Land return, but Hurwitz
throws sounds from countless genres on top, from the big band jazz
marginally related to the era to modern electronic dance elements and
everything in between. Each of these modes is manipulated in ways to
suggest humor, too, and party-appropriate vocal cheers and singing are
overlaid for additional effect. Some of the Latin elements in
"Champagne" and "Señor Avocado" evoke
La La Land's
"Another Day of Sun." The electronic gangster material in "Toad" and
"Blockhouse" offer loud theremin-like synthetics and deep throat vocals
that exude a very science-fiction vibe. Oriental elements weave into a
few cues. Straight classicism for the orchestra pilfers a number of that
genre's works. Wild crescendos and explosions of wailing sound, such as
in "Babylon," remind of the outrageous parts of Nami Melumad and Michael
Giacchino's
An American Pickle. Hurwitz supplies
parody-appropriate humor in a few massive band disintegrations during
"Voodoo Mama" and "Finale," these cues dissolving into whimpering
disarray by the end for comedic purposes. Essentially, for a film with
visual depictions of barely filtered excess, the composer has responded
with music that tries just as hard to shock and repel expectations. In
some ways, this tactic works, but, as one might expect, it also produces
fatigue quickly. There's a substantial amount of music in
Babylon, and its wildly shifting personalities and recording
traits leave you in a stupor by the end. The latter aspect is embodied
by intentionally different recording qualities from cue to cue, with
some meant to sound archival while others are resoundingly modern. The
whole has severe continuity and narrative deficits that the score's
themes attempt to counter.
Hurwitz's themes for
Babylon are easy to digest
if only because they are extremely simplistic and exist in
self-contained cues that are reprised several times. The ideas lack much
in secondary phrasing or interludes, and they don't vary significantly
in style or inflection. Not only do they fail to evolve meaningfully in
progressions or performance emphasis from start to end, they don't
mingle with each other at all, and perhaps this choice was intentional
to suggest the hopeless silos the characters exist within. While the
themes may thus suffice to represent sets of personalities on screen and
could be interchanged in their applications with ease by the director,
they don't achieve anything other than immediately convenient
association per scene. The most obvious jazz material often associated
with Jack and high debauchery is punctuated by big band enthusiasm with
exuberant party vocals and rowdy cheer in "Welcome," "Voodoo Mama,"
"Wild Child," "Red Devil," "Levántete," and "Heyo." Better
subdued, period-appropriate shades of jazz carry over to "Jub Jub,"
"Miss Idaho," "Champagne," "Pharoah John," and "Jack's Party Band." A
theme for Manny is a simple, growling, repetitive motif for deep
saxophone that sounds like hiccups from a perverse, late light Randy
Edelman and George S. Clinton jam session. Hurwitz doesn't do much to
vary its monotony in "Coke Room," "Herman's Hustle," "Call Me Manny,"
"All Figured Out," and "Finale," though it is manipulated into a grimy,
even more simplistic construct in "Gimme." There is more promise in the
composer's doomed love theme for Manny and Nellie. This basic,
repetitive honky-tonk piano melody is reminiscent of the Mia and
Sebastian theme from
La La Land, and the faintly mixed
keyboarding of "Manny and Nellie's Theme" and "Ain't Life Grand" are
almost identical. In an improvement, "New York" adds electric guitar to
the same bright tones, but "See You Back in LA" and "Meet Miss LaRoy"
restrain it to just the muted piano again. Despite picking up some
desperate life in "Te Amo Nellie," the idea sours into the background in
"Manny and Nellie's Theme (Reprise)." On the upside, one of the
soundtrack's two parody songs is dedicated to this theme; the "I Want a
Man" reggae song adaptation is absolutely hilarious, proving that if you
say the same thing over and over again, it may actually become funny. In
this case, there's a fair amount of ethnic and sexual commentary mixed
in for good measure.
There are several lesser recurring ideas in the score
for
Babylon that don't necessarily rise to the level of qualified
themes, but they do expose some interesting planning by Hurwitz along
the way. The "Gold Coast Rhythm" cues follow the wild parties with a
sort of stupor or lamentation, forming something of a recovery theme
first explored in "Gold Coast Rhythm (Wallach Party)" and subdued most
closely to the 1920's period, even down to the muted instruments. Later,
"Gold Coast Rhythm (Jack's Party)" is more outwardly spirited with a
1970's touch, "Gold Coast Rhythm (Juan Bonilla)" places the idea in
Latin territory, and "Gold Coast Rhythm (Sidney's Solo)" puts the idea
back at the start but with solo trumpet. The sadly stereotyped oriental
theme for the Lady Fay Zhu character consists of an obnoxious erhu motif
in "Kinescope Erhu (Orientally Yours)" and "Orientally Yours," and
oriental stereotypes are pilfered again in "Nea Smyrni." Hurwitz apples
classical music references to represent the Hollywood production aspect
of the story, often accompanying filming scenes. "Morning" uses a Franz
Schubert piece that is then twisted into Hawaiian radio-like source in
"Waikele Tango" and restrained jazz in "Jack's Party Band." In a
highlight, "Gold Coast Sunset" applies Richard Wagner for bloated humor.
Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" is used for an on-screen
orchestral performance while "Hearst Party" apes Maurice Ravel's
Boléro for a lengthy comedy sequence. And then there are other
source-like oddities, led by the vocal performance of "Singin' in the
Rain," which plays a critical role in the plot as a whole. On the
downside, the score cue "King of the Circus" is a uniquely tribal chant,
the "Kinescope" source cues are tough to stomach, and the stomping of
"Damascus Thump" is mind-bogglingly awful. The boing noises with bass
sax at 1:47 into "Señor Avocado" are one step removed from analog
video game sound effects, and the cue ends with rolling eyes as a "yeah"
vocal thrown is in before last boing sound. On the other hand, the
on-screen "My Girl's Pussy" song is outrageously funny, joining "I Want
a Man" as truly delightful creations of perversion. Overall, the
soundtrack for
Babylon is smart dysfunction by design, Hurwitz
opting for insanity as a method of enhancing the overstimulating nature
of the movie. The 97-minute album is an amusing but ultimately
exhausting and defeating experience. It's the kind of work that makes
you laugh and shake your head while vowing never to revisit it again.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on Album: ***
- Overall: ***
