Damien Chazelle and Matthew Plouffe have spoken up about the difficulty of getting original pictures on the big screen and their journey in ensuring their film, Babylon, made it. The director and producer duo also revealed their struggle in getting the film, which seeks to accurately portray the “darkness” surrounding the industry in the 1920s, to Paramount.
In an interview with Deadline, Chazelle and Plouffe revealed the “fight” filmmakers face when it comes to preventing films from skipping theater releases and going straight to streaming. “If you want your movie to play on the big screen, you have to go grab it, you have to demand it,” Plouffe said, putting the onus on filmmakers to create works of art that will capture the audiences’ attention. “I think filmmakers embrace that: What is going to bring people to the big screen? How can I grab that audience? I hope that inspires them. It’s what inspired me when we were making this movie.” Chazelle agreed, acknowledging the difficulty faced in an industry now dominated by direct-to-streaming and day-and-date releases. “There is a fight to be fought. I’m an optimist, but there is work to be done,” he said. Both Chazelle and Plouffe echo statements made by directors and producers in recent months, including Steven Spielberg, who have criticised streaming services for their mistreatment of filmmakers.
Chazelle and Plouffe also revealed they had difficulty in getting Babylon to Paramount. Chazelle, Plouffe, and Chazelle’s wife and producer, Olivia Hamilton, required the help of then President of the Motion Picture Group at Paramount, Wyck Godfrey. “He responded to it and became that champion. He fought hard to shepherd the movie into the studio,” Chazelle revealed. “Without him, I’m not confident it would be a Paramount movie.” Previously, Godfrey had worked on Chazelle’s previous film, First Man, as a producer. Production on the film was delayed by over a year thanks to the pandemic, in which filming was set to take place in March 2020 but did not start in Santa Clarita until July the following year. Chazelle had first told Plouffe about his idea thirteen years ago.
The creators explained their film hopes to showcase what the industry was “really like” during the era, with several scenes showcasing specific problems actors and directors alike had to endure. “[We wanted to] capture what that time was really like,” Chazelle said, including exploring the “unhinged and wild and brilliant people who started the industry.” In one particular scene, they show this with an audience reacting to their first experience seeing a ‘talkie’ film by dancing on top of their seats in a theatre. However, the film also depicts the chaos of the era, with one particular scene set to show a silent movie set in the middle of a desert. In the sequence, orchestras play in the dust, cameras are broken, and riotous vagrant-like extras add to the cacophony of noise. Nellie LaRoy (played by Margot Robbie) must compete against the noise whilst learning to adjust to the ‘quiet on the set’ mode, ensuring she is attentive to her decibel levels thanks to the sensitivity of the microphones. “There’s a disaster movie, a darkness to this,” Chazelle commented, noting the era was rife with “rashes of suicides among stars and bit players.”
Babylon follows several characters as they rise and fall in an era of excess, decadence, and depravity in early Hollywood. The film features a star-studded cast, including Bratt Pitt (as Jack Conrad), Jean Smart (Elinor St. John), Olivia Wilde (Ina Conrad), Diego Calva (Manny Torres), Phoebe Tonkin (Jane Thornton), Troy Metcalf (Orville Pickwick), Jovan Adepo (Sidney Palmer), and Hansford Prince (Joe Holiday) amongst others.
Babylon will premiere in theatres on December 23. In the meantime, check out the official trailer below: