How much is too much? Try Babylon,” the latest film from Damien Chazelle. Within five minutes, we realize that excess is in the air—and, indeed, all over the camera lens, in the form of elephant dung. The ensuing half hour, an excursion into the orgiastic, brings us a woman peeing onto the bloated belly of a partygoer, alpine hills of cocaine, and a dwarf using a giant phallus as a pogo stick. Still to come: a movie producer walking around in the desert, at night, with his head stuck in a toilet seat, and, by way of a bonne bouche, toward the end of the feast, a guy who consumes live rats. Happy now?
This is a film about films and filming. It would swallow itself if it could. Much of the saga, which kicks off in 1926, is set in Hollywood, and in the blast area that surrounds it. Our guide to the festivities is Manny Diego Calva), who rises from the rank of lowly fixer to that of studio executive, yet never achieves the solidity of a main character. At the initial soirée, he falls for a gadabout named Nellie LaRoy Margot Robbie), who can't park a car without crashing into a statue, and who caps off her evening with a crowd surf. She, too, will reach undreamed-of heights. Tellingly, both she and Manny begin their ascent on the day after the debauch; he becomes a personal assistant to an affable superstar, Jack Conrad Brad Pitt), while Nellie, at short notice, gets the opportunity to flaunt her acting skills. This she does with gusto—hoofing, grinning, and turning her tears on and off like a plumber fixing a faucet.
This story is from the January 02 - 09, 2023 (Double Issue) edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the January 02 - 09, 2023 (Double Issue) edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.