To be honest, I was pretty deeply disappointed by this film.
I have liked Damien Chazelle's other work, which has largely focused on the theme of how far people are willing to go for success. Admittedly, part of what has appealed to me about both Whiplash and La La Land is that they dealt with jazz and building a career in music... But they were also both very clear stories with compelling characters whose goals and motivations were understandable, even as they suffered the costs of their choices.
With Babylon, the theme -- as far as I can tell -- is that Hollywood is now, and has always been, a hellscape of abuse and debauchery that uses people until they get killed or kill themselves.
Doesn't matter if the characters are young, naïve and hopeful like Manuel; seasoned veterans like Jack; dedicated, talented craftsmen like Sydney Palmer; or people like Nellie who just have charisma and a bottomless need to be the center of attention.
Hell, you could just be prop guy or the sound guy, or the guy in the lighting booth.
Nobody cares who you are, or even if you live or die.
Your sole purpose in the entertainment business is to play your part or do your job, and if you can't or won't, someone else will.
The show must go on.
It is an exceptionally depressing perspective, and it's all housed in a movie that's so self-absorbed with the film industry itself that I don't know how it could possibly accessible to many people who haven't worked in it or who aren't similarly obsessed with it. Most people don't know anything about the history of cinema and don't really care... and to the degree that there are a couple moments in the film that are about the value of movies, it's generally a pleading case that normal people find them meaningful.
Unfortunately, none of the movie is really coming from the audience's perspective, and I think if most people understood that the way their entertainment was created involved the kinds of things this film depicts, they would be pretty grossed out.
Now... The truth, just like with Whiplash and La La Land, is a little exaggerated in Babylon, but not by that much.
The film industry is brutal and disgusting, and historically, there have been so many people so desperate to become famous or be in proximity to what they view as the "glamour" or Hollywood, they'll do literally anything to get in. And that mentality creates awful incentives and horrendous results... But Babylon isn't really a morality tale. It doesn't seem to take a position on the abusiveness of Hollywood, but rather instead just lays it out in plain sight while simultaneously making every moment as sexy and titillating as possible.
This all brings me to a bigger question: Who was this movie really made for?
It's got a lot of funny moments, but overall it's too dark and awful to be a comedy.
Its characters are sometimes likeable, but really thin and the story tracks several of them at once most of the time, so we're not really exploring the depths of one person's journey.
It's a period piece, which alienates some audiences already, and it's also the kind of Hollywood navel-gazing that irritates a lot of people.
Annnnnnnnnd.... It's extremely gratuitous -- full of graphic nudity, scatological gags, and violence. So it's not going to be something you can view with your whole family or a mixed group of friends.
In the end, I'm just kind of confused. It's an expansive, long, and in many ways beautifully crafted movie, but it says almost nothing and what it does say is absolutely horrible.
The takeaway I got was: Hollywood is utterly irredeemable. Rotten to its core.