Oscar Winning Director Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon’ Embarks on a Journey through early Hollywood

Screening Room

GLOBAL NEWS—Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land), an Academy Award-winner, is raising the bar immensely as evidenced in the making of Babylon behind the scenes and its magic in a brand-new featurette.

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures International

From Damien Chazelle, Babylon is an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, with an ensemble cast including Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood. 

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures International

Before director Damien Chazelle typed the first draft of the script and stepped behind the camera to bring his long-gestating epic to life, 15 years of research and world-building went into creating Babylon.

“I wanted to look under the microscope at the early days of an art form and an industry, when both were still finding their footing,” says Chazelle, “and, on a deeper level, I liked the idea of looking at a society in change.”

“There was an incredibly diverse group of pioneers building an industry from scratch combined with a manic pace of creativity that created a strange brew of sex, drugs and music that may never be duplicated,” Chazelle continues. “It’s that alchemy that attracted so many fascinating characters to the edge of the desert to create a new industry and turn motion pictures into a new art form that was still really in its infancy when the movie begins.”

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures International

“That’s what I wanted to explore—the madness and the ambition and the drive of the people who were first in line in creating this art form and this industry, because through all the pain and the heartbreak, the highs and lows of their crazed lives, all that they gained and all that they lost, what they pioneered still lives on today,” concludes Chazelle.

Watch the film’s “Damien Chazelle” featurette here:

On February 1st, Paramount Pictures will release Babylon via Columbia Pictures in Philippine cinemas. Join the conversation by connecting with #BabylonMovie and tag @paramountpicsph.