Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1492834
32 C I N E M O N T A G E C O V E R S T O R Y scene featuring the principal characters converging at a mansion somewhere in Southern California. There is sex, drugs, drinking — the whole works. More than 30 minutes has elapsed before the appearance of the title card, a strategic decision on the part of the filmmakers. "Damien always intended the opening to be an introduction, but it was always designed to be a very lengthy introduction," Cross said. "By the time you get to the title card, Damien really wanted the audience to be reminded that: 'Oh, we're just getting started. We need to buckle up for an epic ride.'" During the opening scene, the audience is confronted not just with Hollywood at its most sordid but also with music — some of it period-appropriate, much of it pushing boundaries: jazz is heard along with hip- hop beats and even techno beats. "Damien wanted to smash all of the audience's preconceived notions about what a 1920s period piece would be," Cross said. That included the volume of the music. "Damien wanted this thing to come in like a storm and just carry you through the sequence," Nelson said. "It was a question of me really setting a music level and then inching it up even more each time. We wanted to see how far we could go before we broke it, to get that complete sense of overwhelming musical style." D i a l o g u e h a d to s h i n e t h ro u g h t h e cacophony. "The only spot where there is production dialogue, everybody is talking at the same time," Iatrou said. "We worked with the great dialogue supervisor Susan Dawes, and she and I had this incredible challenge of having these simultaneous conversations [and] making sure they were as clean and clear as possible so that we could manipulate during the mix." In fact, the party scene was among the first that was cut; in a departure from his usual working methods with Chazelle, Cross edited "Babylon" starting at the be- ginning. "Usually when Damien and I work together, . . . we always start editing at the end, so in the case of 'Whiplash,' we started with the 'Caravan' musical number at the end," Cross said. "On 'Babylon,' he made Mildred Iatrou. P H OT O : M A R K E D WA R D S the decision for us to start at the beginning because he felt that the movie was so vast — where we end up at with our characters, and stylistically, is very different from where we start." By marching through the material in this manner, Cross gained an appreciation for the wide variance of tones throughout the movie. Set pieces notable for their loudness and brashness, such as the opening party, alternate with far subtler and quieter pas- sages. "If he wants to come out of the gate with the loudness playing up at eleven, he knows that that will be extra loud if you bookend it with things that are at zero," Cross said. "As an editor, that's very excit- ing because he builds in these peaks and valleys." For example, somewhere in the middle of the movie comes a long sequence in which Jack (Pitt) pays a visit to the office of journalist Elinor St. John (Smart). In a scene that unfolds in long close-ups of the two performers, Elinor candidly assesses the state of Jack's career. "My goal for a sequence like that is to really stay out of the way," Cross said. "What you're left w i t h a re c h a ra c te r s i n te ra c t i n g, e y e s meeting or not meeting. You're left with faces and expressions." If ever a movie can be said to contain multitudes, "Babylon" is that movie. Cer- tain scenes were cut to reflect the style of various classic movies, especially those from the silent era. For example, one long sequence with several storylines unfolding concurrently — on location in the desert while multiple silent movies are being shot, Nellie makes her first (memorable) appear- ance in front of the camera, while Manny, working on another production, has been tasked with tracking down a usable camera from a camera rental shop in town — was cut using classical editing techniques. "He wanted to feel the excitement of the parallel editing you have in [D.W. Griffith's] 'Intol- erance,'" Cross said. On the other hand, a battle scene in one of the movies-with- in-the-movie was cut like something out of Sergei Eisenstein. "It was Damien's intention to play with cinematic language in that way," Cross said. A n o t h e r s c e n e e c h o e s a n a l r e a d y l e ge n d a r y s c e n e f ro m C h a z e l l e's o w n "Whiplash": Playing a co-ed in her first talkie, Nellie is seen, again and again, walking onto a soundstage to deliver a line: "Hello, college." Each time, though, some- thing defeats her: she stands in the wrong spot or speaks in such a way that doesn't register on the primitive microphones. The repetitive series of actions becomes hyp- notic: the slate boy noting the take number, the director motioning her hand to signal action, the clomping of Nellie's shoes, the thud of Nellie's luggage hitting the floor. And then that line: "Hello, college" — again and again. (If the sound of the scene seems to quicken as it unfolds, it's not your imag- ination: "As the scene keeps going, each of the repeated steps starts getting a little shorter and faster," Lee said.) S o u n d f a m i l i a r ? " D a m i e n a n d h i s producer, Matt Plouffe, always referred to that section as the 'Whiplash' section, . . . because it reminded them of the 'rushing and dragging' scene from 'Whiplash,'" Cross said. In "Babylon," the repetition leaves the audience wondering what will go wrong next. Will Nellie hit her mark? Will she speak loudly enough, or clearly enough? In