#this is of course from my understanding (re: a christian upbringing) of babylon + what i remember from my ancient religions course

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idk when babylon became a comfort movie for me but. here we are.

anyways. did you guys know that babylon comes from the akkadian word “babilu” meaning “gate of god.” however in the biblical narrative of babylon, it’s a center of sin and evil. hence, the name of the movie being babylon. losangeles is the “city of stars” and “city of dreams”but here, even in its excess, it’s presented as this twisted, evil city where your dreams can come true, but there will always, always be a price. truly i will never understand people who watch this movie for a semi-truthful narrative about hollywood before sound. because that’s not what it is. this is nowhere near what it is! sure, these characters are based on real people and there are real world movies used and referenced in this film, but during no part of this movie does it claim to be like, actually historical. this is historical fiction, this is a story with something to say. idk like. i know a lot of people turned away from this movie because it's gross and beyond disgusting and a distorted look at hollywood pre-talking movies but like. that is the point. it's to show you the evil. why do you think it opens up with that wild party???

do you know two other things the historical/biblical babylon is famous for? the tower of babel and the figure, hammurabi. the tower of babel, of course, is where the babylonians were trying to build a tower so they could reach god & the heavens, only for god to destroy the tower and scramble the languages so nobody spoke the same language after. this time around while watching i couldn’t help but wonder if that part was here in the film, too. because around that halfway mark is when the downfall begins, talking pictures are introduced, after we’ve spent this last hour and a half or so in the grandeur of the stars and their silent movies, trying to reach the heavens—their godhood; their fame—only for it to all come crashing down once talking pictures come onto the scene. talking pictures and the public here being our metaphorical “god” that will tear these silent movie stars down. 

hammurabi, of course, created hammurabi’s code. you know, “an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth,” that guy. i think this movie has traces of that, too. mostly in terms of everyone in this movie has to give something—some part of themselves—up or away. they give, the movies take. an eye (the actor) for an eye (the viewer, the audience) 

(this is also a bit of a stretch, but the animal of historical babylon was a lion. “the lion of babylon.”  and MGM makes quite a few appearances throughout the movie. their logo, quite famously, is the roaring lion.) 

there are some other things too, completely unrelated to the historical babylon, that i can’t help but notice. and one of these things is that: there’s a musical motif here that sounds incredibly similar to a few notes of “someone in the crowd” from la la land. i don’t know if this was intentional on justin hurwitz’s part, or completely accidental, but i think that the musical motif accidentally connects la la land and babylon to one another. that, and the fact that mia and sebastian’s theme and nellie and manny’s theme also sound similar. there’s a connection there that i haven’t been able to make just yet, other than the fact that both couples end, and both couples are kind of doomed. both themes are short and sweet, lively and melancholic at the same time; they know they can’t last, but they’ll always love each other. hell, the ending of babylon is manny reminiscing on his time with nellie, because watching singin in the rain brings back all of these memories of her, and of the work they put in all those years ago. (it does, also, call to memory elinor st. john’s speech from a bit earlier—how a child in 50 years will remember them, and how their ghosts will dine together. i think it’s important to remember that 1.) by the end of the film, we know that jack, elinor, and nellie have died. sidney and lady fay have not, but we don’t see them, either. 2.) there was, famously, a lot fire—quite a few, actually, because it was nitrate film—which destroyed like, most of all silent films.) either way. if mia and sebastian’s theme is melancholy and nostalgic, nellie and manny’s theme could be considered a ghost, as it’s played frequently throughout the film. perhaps it’s nellie haunting manny even before she dances off in the night, just like she said she would. 

sorry this got kind of long….i could pick apart this movie forever <3