Stephen King and a staunch defence of ‘Babylon’: ‘I thought it was utterly brilliant’
Every so often, a movie comes along that completely polarises critics and audiences, rendering them incapable of agreeing whether it’s a pioneering classic or an incomprehensible, pretentious mess. In 2022, one of these movies was unleashed on an unsuspecting public, and it was subsequently trashed and praised in equal measure, all while losing its studio an eye-watering amount of money and gaining three Academy Award nominations. Stephen King, however, was one of the first prominent voices to stick up for Babylon, even claiming it could become a classic as it is reevaluated over time.
It’s always fascinating to see the reactions to these kinds of divisive films because they never fail to illuminate what some critics and groups of people value in cinema—and, more importantly, what they don’t. So, when Damien Chazelle’s Babylon came out and people sat through its three-hour ode to the excesses of Old Hollywood in all their dizzying, grotesque glory, reactions were staunchly in one camp or the other. People found it either to be an exhausting, overstuffed, obscene misfire that wasted talented leads like Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie or an ambitious, challenging, wildly entertaining picture that made great use of the inherent star power and charisma of its leads.
King was firmly in the second camp, even if it took him eight months after the film’s release to finally watch it. Despite the movie’s poor box office performance and a wave of harsh reviews, King’s response was unequivocally positive. He even suggested that critics and audiences might have let a genuine classic slip through their fingers.
“Maybe this says more about me than the film, but I thought Babylon was utterly brilliant,” King said on social media. “Extravagant, over the top, hilarious, thought-provoking. Might be one of those movies that reviews badly and is acclaimed as a classic in 20 years.”
This was high praise from someone like King, who knows a thing or two about movies that are written off by contemporaneous critics, only to be embraced as genre-defining classics over time. After all, in 1980, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel The Shining was subject to some scathing reviews and even found itself nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards. Yet, nowadays, it’s generally accepted as one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and the idea of anyone not recognising its genius at first blush is baffling.
However, in the years after Babylon was declared a disaster by industry box-office prognosticators and reviewers took such delight in cutting it to shreds, something interesting began happening. In a much quicker manner than usual, a significant groundswell of fans of the movie started to make themselves known. Social media became inundated with supporters of Chazelle’s debauched vision, and prominent websites began championing the film as a misunderstood work.
Far Out’s own Lily Hardman was one of these Babylon champions, and she wrote, “It is an indictment of the era’s excess, an over-the-top orgy of cinema that explores the toxicity of the film industry. But it also has plenty to say about the tension between artists and the people who exploit them, and the balance between ambition and integrity.”
All in all, King was far from alone in his admiration of the movie, and it’s now starting to look like Babylon’s reputation will be very, very different in the coming decades.
