Composer
Justin Hurwitz's fifth collaboration with director
Damien Chazelle was an epic one, with the over-three-hour
Babylon focused on the transition between silent and sound film in the late 1920s and early '30s -- a technological advancement with devastating consequences for many in Hollywood. Coinciding with the height of the jazz age,
Babylon's 97-minute score finds
Hurwitz creating a stylized sound rooted in big-band swing but not quite authentic to the period. In addition to the occasional use of a 100-piece orchestra, the score features elements of rock, carnival music, classical music, cabaret, and overseas adventure conspicuously worked into cues with such descriptive titles as "Kinescope Ragtime Piano," "Waikele Tango," and "Damascus Thump." With a trumpet player among the film's main cast of characters, soloists credited with score contributions include noted trumpeters
Sean Jones and
Dontae Winslow. The film's hedonist opening -- set at an estate party replete with crowd-surfing, overdoses, and an elephant -- is accompanied by the boisterous "Welcome," a four-minute big-band romp in the vicinity of "Sing, Sing, Sing."
Hurwitz soon introduces the poignant "Manny and Nellie's Theme" on what sounds like an out-of-tune bar piano before diving headlong into a diverse set of cues, most of which maintain a distinctly playful, freewheeling tone. A small combo eventually introduces the more sophisticated, recurring "Gold Coast Rhythm" theme, and by the arrival of the track-48 "Finale," the score has done its job, assuming the task at hand was to reflect the film's myriad excesses. Already a two-time Oscar and Grammy winner coming into
Babylon (all for
La La Land),
Hurwitz -- a scriptwriter and TV producer as well as composer -- still had yet to compose for any other filmmaker. ~ Marcy Donelson