No other film this year began with as much gusto as Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, an outlandish ode to an industry in transition as talkies swept Hollywood in the '20s and '30s. A dazzling 20-minute sequence set at a studio exec’s debauched mansion party introduced all the story’s key players amid the drug-snorting, dancing, and orgiastic excess.
Below, Chazelle explains how this scene came together and the challenges of shooting it. This interview first appeared in Total Film's Review of the Year 2023 supplement, which you can order online here.
