The movie ‘Babylon’ shows the value of fleeting beauty and timeless art amidst the madness and ugliness of Hollywood. Through the story of Manny and Nellie, the film explores the fleetingness and permanence of art, and delicately depicts the essential human desires and futility.
The movie begins with Manny grimly pushing a truck loaded with elephants up a hill. The weight of the vehicle makes it hard to roll, and after getting covered in elephant dung, he finally arrives at a raucous party of Hollywood celebrities. As he opens the gates of the massive mansion, he’s immediately greeted by a chaotic party scene. The scenes of drugged, mangled people, naked and dancing are depicted in a way that is both nauseatingly disgusting and dizzyingly colorful. Manny is just a laborer, a lone stranger who has come to deliver an elephant for the show. As an uninvited guest, he doesn’t deserve to be swept up in this whirlwind of madness.
There, Manny meets Nellie, a similarly uninvited guest. But Nellie is not like Manny, who just sits back and watches the party. Nellie is not like Manny, who just watches the party from the sidelines. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the crowd, Nelly effortlessly takes to the stage and dances with energy. Manny is drawn to Nelly, who performs as if she was born on stage and has been a guest at the party since the beginning.
Babylon pokes fun at the ugliness of Hollywood, the movie mecca, while also celebrating the beauty of the movies that are made there and, more broadly, art. Just as Manny falls for the selfish Nellie, audiences often experience shocking love through the art of cinema. Manny is a young man who has always dreamed of entering the movie industry, but it is not until he meets Nelly that he truly falls in love with the art form. As I watched Babylon, I was reminded that movies (and art) have two conflicting and ambivalent qualities.
The first of these is ephemerality, which is revealed in this scene. Why do humans make art? Art is essentially the act of recording the beauty, inspiration, or appreciation of a moment. Things like writing, painting, video, or music become a means of preserving the moment. Art is like an impurity that briefly intrudes into the life of the recipient. But that brief moment, that sparkle, that glimpse, sometimes stays deep in the soul of the recipient and shakes them for the rest of their lives. Just like Nellie, who captivated Manny in a single moment
Nellie is a “born star,” as she confidently claims. She’s a “born star,” as she claims to be. She’s a star in the movie Babylon, a movie that she’s accidentally cast in, and she shows off her talent in a short scene. She quickly becomes a celebrity, and just as she did at the party, Nelly takes her popularity for granted. Soon, however, new technologies are introduced to the movie industry and the era of silent movies comes to an end, and Nellie’s popularity quickly fades. Nellie’s popularity quickly fades as new technologies are introduced into the movie industry and the era of silent movies comes to an end.
There is one more ‘star’ who loses popularity as the times change. Jack Conrad, a former movie star of the era, is laughed at by everyone in his ambitious first meteor movie, and his downfall is complete. He can’t understand why he’s being laughed at, so he seeks out a critic and gets the following answer: “It’s because the audience is laughing at him. There is no reason for the audience to laugh at him. Times change, fashions change, and stars lose their luster – it’s a natural progression that doesn’t even have a reason.
Yet, paradoxically, art is both fleeting and eternal. We said earlier that art exists to “taxidermize” the moment, but in fact, art has a very important property that distinguishes it from taxidermy. A taxidermy butterfly will crumble at the touch of a human hand, but art is timeless because it is created through an interaction with the recipient. The recipient breathes new life into the art. Jack’s time has passed, but long after he is gone, audiences will watch his movies and talk to him, and his sparkling moments will be captured on silent film and told for a very long time. It’s impossible to be a star forever, but it’s possible to preserve a moment of stardom forever. This is the permanence of art in contrast to the transience of art.
Stars’ desire for eternal popularity may seem vain and foolish at first glance, but at the same time, it is an inevitable human desire. Humans are thirsty for beauty because we forget the fleeting sparkle as if it never existed in the first place. In search of a higher level of beauty, we travel to ‘Babylon’. We long for a fantasy city that is untouched by the divine influence of the passage of time and filled with eternal glory and riches. Hollywood, as depicted in the movie, is a crude recreation of Babylon. It’s a corrupt Hollywood where madness and lust run rampant, and the stars are able to enjoy a brief moment of bliss.
If I had to pick the most memorable scene of the movie, it would be the one where Jack is filming a movie starring himself. Manny has been given a great opportunity and is here helping out with odd jobs. On the set, where the actors and crew are treated unfairly, Manny is told to get a camera by nightfall. It’s a mission that’s nearly impossible to accomplish due to the camera rental store and traffic conditions, but Manny pulls out all the stops and arrives safely and on time with the camera. Thanks to Manny, the director captures the final highlights on film with a beautiful sunset. The sun sets with perfect timing behind the actors as they deliver their lines, and a butterfly flies in and lands briefly on Jack’s shoulder as he declares his love. The scene is immortalized and the movie becomes a smash hit. Although the filming was botched and many people behind the camera suffered, the beauty of the sunset, love, and butterflies is what lingers in the audience’s minds.
This scene reminds us of the essence of cinema. Isn’t art, after all, about capturing the beauty of a moment that blooms in the midst of pain and confusion? No matter how chaotic and difficult the process may be at times, it is the fleeting moments that will be remembered forever. The beauty of a moment blossoms into art in the midst of a series of tedium, and the fleeting moments become eternity. This movie made me think about the intrinsic beauty of art by understanding the painful nature of art.
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