Script Analysis: “Babylon” — Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: Babylon (2022). You may read the script here.

Written by Damien Chazelle.

Plot summary: A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Babylon
 Scene By Scene Breakdown
 By Alison C. Wroblewski
 GoIntoTheStory.blcklst.com

P 1–2: MANNY TORRES convinces a TRUCK DRIVER in the middle of the desert to transport an elephant in his too-small truck to a glamorous Hollywood party.

P 3: The truck rolls backwards. Manny and his partner, SAMI, get the elephant to shit, lightening the load, getting the truck up the hill.

P 3–5: Manny is stopped by a COP saying they need a permit to transport an elephant. Manny tells the cop the elephant is for DON WALLACH’s party. Manny convinces the Cop to let them continue without a permit and gives him an invite to the party.

P 5: Manny, the elephant, the Cop, and his entire family arrive outside Don Wallach’s house for the party.

P 5: Inside a private room, ORVILLE PICKWICK gets peed on by a YOUNG WOMAN. An introduction into what’s in store.

P 6: Orville asks Manny for more booze establishing Manny’s role as the lowest of the low assistants. BOB LEVINE gives Manny orders to get rid of a drugged-up chicken instead.

P 6–8: A full view of pure debauchery is on display inside the mansion. Manny maneuvers through the party in search of the chicken, passing copulating couples, drug use, performance art? A jazz band plays with SIDNEY PALMER at the lead. ELINOR ST. JOHN stops Manny to get the gossip, but Manny gets re-routed.

P 8–11: Manny gets the chicken out of the house and sees NELLIE LAROY. She’s not invited to the party, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to get past security. Manny gets her in, struck by her beauty and confidence. Nellie tells Manny she didn’t need his help — she’s a big star. A big star without a contract or credits. “You don’t become a star. You either are one or you aren’t. And I am.”

P 11–12: Sidney and his SAXOPHONIST debate music as the party continues wildly around them.

P 12: It’s revealed that the Young Woman who was peeing on Orville is now unconscious. Bob Levine now has to fix this mess.

P 12–13: Manny shows Nellie the drug room in the basement.

P 13–14: JACK CONRAD arrives at the party drunk with his wife, INA. They are mid-fight and Ina leaves Jack by himself, demanding a divorce. Jack staggers into the party like it was just another day.

P 14–16: Jack is the king of Hollywood and it shows as he walks through the party getting photographed, interrupted, and hit on. He flirts with a waitress. His prowess on full display. Jack’s DRIVER tells him his friend is outside and suicidal.

P 17: Jack talks GEORGE MUNN into coming to the party that he needs to get over his latest female obsession.

P 17–18: Nellie and Manny, high as kites, talk about wanting to be a part of something “bigger.”

P 18–21: LADY FAY ZHU gives a sexy performance singing and flirting with both men and women at the party. She seeks validation from Sidney, which he gives at the end of her song. Fay and Jack catch up like old friends. Jack asks Fay to flirt with his friend, George. Nellie and Manny burst back into the party. He watches Nellie fall right in line with the debauchery like she belongs there. He’s mesmerized until Bob Levine finds him.

P 21–23: Manny needs to help get the Young Woman out of the mansion and to the hospital without anyone seeing. It’s revealed just how important this Young Woman was to Don Wallach’s next day production. Bob loses his mind, but Manny gets an idea to use the elephant as a distraction.

P 23–24: The elephant bursts into the party. In the background, the Young Woman is taken out the back unnoticed. Crisis averted with Manny’s quick thinking.

P 24–25: The party is over. The house is a disaster zone. As Manny takes in the aftermath, he sees Nellie playing poker. Bob Levine gives Nellie an order to be on set to take the Young Woman’s place in a new movie. Manny tries to get the same consideration, but he’s told he is where he belongs.

P 25–26: Nellie shouts to the sky her defiance against her family. Manny tells Nellie he’s in love with her. Nellie speeds off just as chaotically as she arrived. Manny gets a job to drive a drunk and passed-out Jack home.

P 27: Manny gets Jack to his impressive mansion. Jack races inside his house, giving a cat and mouse chase.

P 28–30: Jack tells Manny how much he wants to push the boundaries of filmmaking. He wants to do something new, innovative. He falls off his balcony into the pool adding more insanity to Jack and Manny’s morning, and Jack is just fine. Jack hires Manny to be his driver. Manny’s in the game now.

BEGIN MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 30: Nellie in her apartment. It’s pure squalor.

P 30–31: Fay’s home with her family in a laundry. She gives an autograph to a disgruntled CUSTOMER who is enchanted by Fay.

P 31–32: Sidney gets home to his tenement apartment that he shares with other squatters.

P 32: In Jack’s home, Jack wakes Manny, no trace of hangover.

P 32–34: Nellie gets to her set location. There are four movies in production and the silent movie chaos is all around. THE COUNT pushes pills, DON WALLACH shows his producing power, Nellie is introduced to RUTH ADLER, her director. Nellie is not the woman Ruth wanted, but they have to make it work. No time for breaks in this chaos.

P 34–37: Jack gets to his set location on a battlefield. The director, OTTO VON STRASSBERGER cannot get the EXTRAS to work. Jack sends Manny to deal with it. Manny figures it out with gunfire.

P 37: Nellie doesn’t know how to do makeup.

P 37–39: The battlefield set is chaos. Extras running around, actual injuries from swords, Otto screaming at the top of his lungs. A GRIP is impaled with a flag pole. Elinor St. John watches from a safe distance and dictates her gossip column to her ASSISTANT. She’s disappointed in her station. IRVING THALBERG arrives on set.

P 39–41: Jack convinces Gloria Swanson to take a pay cut and be in his film. He’s completely in his element. A power player on set.

P 41: The last camera is destroyed in “battle.” Manny is sent to Hollywood to get another one before sunset.

P 41–43: A quick montage between Manny driving like a madman to Hollywood and Nellie acting her ass off to the astonishment of her director.

P 43–44: Manny gets to the camera rental house and is told there are no cameras. But he can wait a half hour for the next return. An hour ticks by.

P 44: The battlefield set is silent and bored. Elinor St. John tries small talk with the Extras.

P 44: Nellie is no longer nervous. They get ready for her crying scene.

P 44–45: The camera finally arrives. Manny yanks it and sees an ambulance. His only chance to beat the sunset in this traffic.

P 45–46: Nellie dances and, on cue, bursts into tears. She’s an enigma on screen. Ruth is stunned. Wow.

P 46: Manny gets to the set with the camera. They race to the camera spot.

P 46: Ruth tests Nellie with choreographing her tears.

P 46: The battlefield set waits for Jack, on edge. They have five minutes left of sun.

P 47: Nellie nails it.

P 47: Jack is drunk. Manny, defeated, is too late. But they’re going to try. Otto cries, “Action!” Jack becomes the ideal movie star persona. He delivers his line with no indication of alcohol.

P 47: Nellie nails it again. A fire erupts in the background, but Nellie is unfazed.

P 47: Jack nails his kiss on screen.

P 48: Nellie takes direction. It’s magic.

P 48: A butterfly lands on Jack’s shoulder. Is this movie magic or what?

P 48: Nellie is seen by all the important people on set.

P 48: Otto calls “cut.”

P 48: Ruth calls “cut.”

P 48: Wild applause on both sets. Don Wallach asks “who the fuck is that” with his eyes trained on his new star, Nellie LaRoy.

P 49: Fay asks who is writing the titles on Nellie’s film. She’s also entranced by Nellie’s performance. Ruth asks Nellie how she managed to get the tears. Nellie says she just thinks of home.

END MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 49–50: It’s a wrap party for Jack’s movie. Elinor St. John gets a read on Jack like she’s tracking his star trajectory. Jack hooks up Manny with a model.

P 50: A stark juxtaposition to Nellie’s movie’s wrap party. Nellie humps an ice sculpture with everyone looking on.

P 51: Jack works in the editing room on his movie. He also has a new love interest, OLGA. Completely shallow with no real indication of true love. Jack sends Manny on an errand to get flowers. Still an assistant.

P 51: Fay works on the titles for Nellie’s silent movie. She dubs Nellie “the wild child.”

P 52: It’s Nellie’s movie’s premiere. She brings her father, ROBERT ROY. He’s using her notoriety for his own. But Nellie is barred from entering. She’s not on the list until a YOUNG MAN FAN begs for her autograph. She goes into the theater.

P 52–53: The audience LOVES her performance. Cheers, laughter!

P 53: Nellie is swarmed by fans who love her movie.

BEGIN MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 53: A quick radio montage catching up on Jack. He’s now married and his star power is still alive and well.

P 54–57: The montage continues into Nellie’s rising stardom. She has now exploded and has the power to command her set with shut downs and diva extravagances. She brings Elinor St. John into her home where things are over-the-top, and she can orchestrate the men in her life. Nellie has never been higher.

P 57: Manny sees Nellie on the cover of Photoplay. His love for her hasn’t waned.

END MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 57–58: Jack meets an EXECUTIVE in a public bathroom and hears about “sound” being introduced into film for the first time. This is news to Jack.

P 58–60: Jack, Manny, and George discuss sound in film and how exciting it is. This is what Jack has been looking for. But his marriage is also falling apart. His wife, Olga, shoots Jack.

P 60–61: Manny gets a first person tour of sound by a TECHNICIAN in New York. It has room for improvement, but it’s going to be big.

P 61–62: Manny calls Jack to tell him the news and sees Nellie in New York. She gets him in her car. The fandom has found her.

P 62–63: In her car, they catch up. Manny is still in love with her.

P 63–64: Nellie brings Manny to the Thackeray Sanatorium to visit presumably her MOTHER who does not recognize her.

P 64–66: Nellie and Manny get back into the car where they talk about their family lives and how difficult it is to live dual lives.

P 66–67: Manny watches The Jazz Singer. The audience goes mad for sound. It’s a whole new world.

P 67–69: Quick montage cuts of actors trying out their voice chops for sound recording. It isn’t going well and Don Wallach details how movies will not stop being made. Nellie is having an especially difficult time with her harsh Jersey accent.

P 69–77: A party at Jack’s house. Not as hedonistic as the opening orgy, but just as extravagant and chaotic. Jack has a new fiancé, ESTELLE, Nellie brings a group of men as her slaves, and Sidney is back with his band. Fay flirts with Nellie in another sexually charged song and dance number. Nellie overhears harsh criticism over her performance, and brings her anger to her father, Robert. She’s going to make him fight a snake.

P 77: The party ventures to the desert in search for a snake.

P 77–82: Robert passes out drunk before he can fight the snake, so Nellie takes up the charge. The snake attacks her and before she dies, Fay saves her life by sucking out the poison. Jack watches as if he’s watching a movie. Nellie kisses Fay in gratitude.

P 83: Fay brings an exhausted Nellie to set where the stage is empty. The studios are preparing for sound.

P 84–93: Nellie’s first day on a sound stage. Trial and errors with sound, microphone placement, and sneezing results in an unbearable experience on everyone’s part and the death of the D.P. But they got the shot!

P 93–94: Jack is mesmerized by the use of close ups for the first time! Film is evolving, innovating. Just what he wanted.

P 94–96: Jack is on stage singing “Singing in the Rain” in a ridiculous music/film performance. But something’s not right. Sidney tells Manny that they should be filming the band, not the stationary singers. Manny gets an idea.

P 96–98: Manny takes Sidney’s idea and films the band. Manny is the toast of the town and given a promotion — if he can remake Nellie LaRoy.

P 98–99: Manny pitches a new and improved Nellie LaRoy marketing spread to the producers.

P 99: Manny sees Nellie, and she agrees to his alterations. She wants to get back on top.

BEGIN MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 99–103: In a montage, Nellie acts in a costume drama and Manny’s promotion makes him incredibly powerful. Jack calls to congratulate him. Fay and Nellie work together. Sidney gets the keys to a new, massive home. Jack practices running lines with his wife, Estelle. In this montage, Manny and Sidney are rising, Nellie and Jack are falling.

P 103–104: Jack finds out his best friend, George, died by suicide. Jack is devastated and verbally takes it out on Estelle.

P 105: Jack watches his new film in the editing room. Jack’s confidence has been shaken. He’s not as good as he used to be.

P 105–115: Elinor St. John brings Nellie to the Heart mansion for a social makeover. This is Nellie’s chance to have the upper crust see the “new her.” Nellie can’t handle the pressure and snaps, ruining her chance at being remade in Hollywood complete with projectile vomiting. Jack is also at the party and gets the clue that his new movie is a bomb.

P 115–116: Jack watches his movie in the cinema. The audience laughs at his terrible dialogue.

P 116–117: It’s a year later and Jack gives Elinor St. John an interview. He wants to start over. Come back.

P 117–118: Elinor’s article has hit the newsstands and is Jack’s worst nightmare. Irving Thalberg knows Jack’s star is fading fast.

BEGIN MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 118: On a new picture, Sidney is a star.

P 118–119: Manny confronts Nellie about her lack of professionalism, and she hits him back with his betrayal of firing Fay. Manny uses his power to demand Nellie get on set or else.

P 119: Jack tries to call Irving Thalberg again. Irving Thalberg doesn’t answer.

P 120–121: Sidney is not dark enough for the cameras. The film will not play in the South if Sidney looks white playing with a Black band.

P 121: Jack still can’t get through to Irving Thalberg.

P 121–122: Manny asks Sidney to put on shoe polish to darken his skin. It’s humiliating.

P 123: Jack still can’t get through to Irving Thalberg. He decides to find him himself.

P 123–124: Sidney is torn up about playing this way. He gives the performance of a lifetime, but something is broken.

P 124: Nellis is gone. Manny has lost control.

P 124–125: Jack bursts in on an empty Thalberg office. Jack knows he’s done in the business. And it’s because of Elinor St. John’s article.

P 125: Sidney walks away. He’s not coming back. Nellie is gone to Cal-Neva. Manny’s production is done.

END MONTAGE SEQUENCE

P 126–129: Jack storms to Elinor St. John’s office and confronts her about the article that destroyed his career. Elinor tells it to Jack straight. He’s done in this business but he has left something behind that is bigger than that. He’s immortal because of what he put on screen. And there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It just is. Jack knows she’s right.

P 129–131: Nellie comes to Manny’s house for help. She’s in debt to the worst gangster in California for $80,000. Will he help her? She’s dead broke.

P 131–132: Irving Thalberg calls Jack to do a picture. Jack presses Irving Thalberg to admit that it’s a piece of shit and that Jack is on the bottom of his list. Irving Thalberg admits it. Jack agrees to do the picture.

P 132–133: The Count helps get Manny and Nellie the money to pay off the gangster. Nellie is relieved at being saved again.

P 133–134: Jack on set has come to realization himself that he’s done enough.

P 135–141: At The Garden of Allah, Manny and The Count bring the money to pay off JAMES MCKAY. Manny finds out the money is prop money, but it’s too late to go back. James has ideas for Manny to produce. Manny is trapped by his fake money and his need to stay on James’ good graces.

P 142–147: James takes Manny and The Count to The Blockhouse, an underground den of iniquity worse than the parties we saw from the Hollywood elite. James finds out the money is fake. Manny and The Count escape through gun fire, alligators, and an angry underground mob.

P 147–150: Jack is with his new love interest at a quiet bar. He bumps into Lady Fay Zhu. They talk about her transition to Europe and how dull life has gotten in Hollywood.

P 150: Jack heads to his hotel room where he shoots himself.

P 150: Manny tells Nellie to get packed. They have to escape LA.

P 153: Manny and Nellie leave The Count to pack while they get gas.

P 154–155: Nellie, still high, wants to dance despite Manny’s manic need to escape LA.

P 155–157: Nellie finds a cantina where they dance and get photographed. It’s Nellie’s last chance at a spotlight. Nellie and Manny kiss. They are ready to settle down and get married. It’s a Hollywood, fairy tale moment.

P 157–159: They get back to The Count. Manny runs upstairs to get him. Nellie disappears into the night. A mobster kills The Count and tells Manny to never come back to LA.

P 159–160: Sidney has found his happy ending in a small club playing his music as himself.

P 160: Lady Fay Zhu leaves her home for a new happy ending in Europe.

P 161: Elinor St. John reports on Jack’s death.

P 161–163: 1952. Los Angeles has changed. As has Manny. He and his family get off a bus and stare up at his old studio.

P 164–166: Manny goes to see a movie. Singin’ in the Rain. He sees everything he was a part of: silent pictures, the title song, the dialogue, the ridiculous voices. The audience loves the movie. Manny has been transported to his past and sees his life and contributions are cemented in Hollywood history.

A trailer for the movie:

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown, go here.

Major kudos to Alison C. Wroblewski for doing this scene-by-scene breakdown.

For over 100 more movie script scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.