First saw this at Sundance. Finally got to interview Raven:
You mentioned hands, and I'm sure you've been asked a lot about hands, but what I was particularly interested in is the hands are so emotional in this film. Every time you cut to a hand, there's a lot pulsing through it. I was wondering how you direct an actor's hands?
You know, I try not to when possible ... I mean, there's one scene, the baby washing scene, when…
this is Chazelle's EYES WIDE SHUT
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"A bombastic epic as artistically ambitious as those made during the height of the silent era, writer/director Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" takes the audience on a visceral odyssey through the highest highs and lowest lows of late-1920s Hollywood, from orgiastic parties and chaotic film sets to personal triumphs and melancholic moments of utter despair. As the movie business transitions from silents to talkies, characters like aging matinee idol Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), wannabe starlet…
another great one with Diana Dors. she's dynamite! also had a nice bit with Victure Mature holding a puppy and then the mean trucking boss made him put it down and almost kicked it, which was a great way to establish that trucking bosses are heartless and evil (the puppy was fine!).
straight up Cold War / pro-FBI / surveillance state propaganda, but Raymond Burr is pulpy and Tamara Shayne was heartbreaking.
Works when it's just a fun, weird, popcorn Summer adventure film. But, like Bros last year, it falters when it tries to be an Important Movie.
There's a debate on whether it is a "feminist" movie from those who made it and those who've reviewed it and what I'll say on that is it does the bare minimum when it comes to “feminism” (I’m putting that in quotes because frankly it’s not really a feminist film) and "representation matters" style…
I read once that a historical film should say something about when the story is set and when the film was made. This film does neither. It's a lifeless Wikipedia rehash of Napoleon's greatest hits done in the style of war reenactments. It says nothing about Napoleon the man or Napoleon the leader or Napoleon the strategist that we haven't already seen. Much of the film's "humor" is based in "small man is dumb and angry" which 🙃
It has…
