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FILMTRACKS.COM
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Review of Babylon (Justin Hurwitz)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you don't need pharmaceuticals to enjoy insane
soundtracks that throw conventions out the window while blending
discordant genres and time periods into an occasionally hilarious
party.
Avoid it... if you have boundaries to your parody soundtracks, Justin Hurwitz blasting past all such norms to obnoxiously slay expectations and toss in some ungodly perversity along the way.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Babylon: (Justin Hurwitz) After winning countless
awards for his previous three films, writer and director Damien Chazelle
uses 2022's Babylon 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 Babylon 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 Babylon 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
Babylon, 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 Babylon 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 Babylon will be remembered for.
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.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 97:17
* performed by Li Jun Li ** performed by Prince Bernard
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for the digital album.
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