Babylon (1980 film)

Last updated

Babylon
Babylon 1980 poster.jpg
UK release poster
Directed by Franco Rosso
Written byFranco Rosso
Martin Stellman
Produced by Gavrik Losey
Starring Brinsley Forde
Karl Howman
Trevor Laird
Cinematography Chris Menges
Edited byThomas Schwalm
Music by Dennis Bovell
Production
company
Distributed byKino Lorber Repertory Seventy-Seven
Release dates
  • 30 October 1980 (1980-10-30)(United Kingdom)
  • 11 September 1981 (1981-09-11)(Toronto)
  • 8 March 2019 (2019-03-08)(United States)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish and Jamaican patois with subtitles
Budget£300,000 [1]

Babylon is a 1980 British drama film directed by Franco Rosso. [2] Written by Franco Rosso and Martin Stellman ( Quadrophenia ), and shot by two-time Academy Award winner Chris Menges ( The Killing Fields ), Babylon is an incendiary portrait of racial tension and police brutality set in Brixton, London. The film, anchored by Dennis Bovell’s propulsive score, is partly based on Bovell’s false imprisonment for running a Jamaican sound system, Sufferer’s Hi Fi, in the mid-70s.

Contents

Produced by Gavrik Losey and the National Film Finance Corporation, the film is regarded as a classic. [3] [4]

Plot

Babylon follows a young reggae DJ (Brinsley Forde, M.B.E., frontman of the British group Aswad) of the Ital Lion sound system in Thatcher-era South London as he pursues his musical ambitions while also battling fiercely against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbours, police, and the National Front.

Cast

Production

Babylon was filmed on the streets of Deptford and Brixton, London. The story centers on sound system culture [5] and themes of police brutality, racism, poverty, and disillusionment with lack of opportunities. [6]

Babylon was filmed on a six-week shooting schedule, entirely on location in South London and the West End. The production headquarters were above a rambling church in Deptford. The set was totally closed to visitors, including journalists, because of the film's sensitive subject matter and the fact that shooting was taking place in an area of London where there was racial tension.

The cast of actors were carefully chosen, with the help of casting director Sheila Trezise, Franco Rosso, and Martin Stellman, who all already had many contacts within the black community. Aside from the regular actors, there were many extras. The vast majority were West Indians living around the Deptford, Lewisham, Peckham, and Croydon areas.

Music

The film features an entirely reggae and dub soundtrack, including artists such as Yabby U, I-Roy, Aswad, and Dennis Bovell. [7]

Release

Babylon world-premiered at Cannes' Semaine de la critique in 1980.

It received an X rating, and was released in the United Kingdom in late 1980, and appeared at the 1981 Toronto International Film Festival on 11 September 1981. Originally deemed “too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension” [8] to play at the New York Film Festival, the film was not released in the United States until 8 March 2019. The U.S. release was distributed by Kino Lorber and Seventy-Seven. [9]

On 20 August 2019, Babylon was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Kino Lorber. [10]

Reception

Critical response

Babylon received praise from critics both at its original 1980 release and 2019 U.S. release. Many praised its representation of Black youth life in South London during the Thatcher-era. Wesley Morris of The New York Times chose the film as a critic's pick, claiming the film "still feels new… You’re looking at people who, in 1980 England, were, at last, being properly, seriously seen.” [11] Hua Hsu of The New Yorker noted how "few films portray this moment in black British life quite like Franco Rosso’s Babylon". [12]

The film also received acclaim for its themes of racial violence and police brutality. Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times called the film "assertive and ebullient... alive as a movie can be". [13] Jaya Saxena of GQ describes Blue's journey as "a story with literally epic stakes". [14]

The film has an approval rating of 100% based on 27 critic reviews on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. [15]

Accolades

For Babylon, Franco Rosso won the 1981 Evening Standard British Film Awards Most Promising Filmmaker award.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aswad</span> British reggae group

Aswad are a British reggae group, noted for adding strong R&B and soul influences to the reggae sound. They have been performing since the mid-1970s, having released a total of 21 albums. Their UK hit singles include the number one "Don't Turn Around" (1988) and "Shine" (1994). "Aswad" is Arabic for "black". They are three-time Grammy Award nominees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jah Shaka</span> Musical artist

Jah Shaka, also known as the Zulu Warrior, was a Jamaican reggae/dub sound system operator who operated a South East London-based, roots reggae Jamaican sound system since the early 1970s. His name is an amalgamation of the Rastafarian term for God and that of the Zulu king Shaka Zulu.

Steel Pulse are a roots reggae band from the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. They originally formed at Handsworth Wood Boys School, and were composed of David Hinds, Basil Gabbidon, and Ronald McQueen (bass); along with Basil's brother Colin briefly on drums and Mykaell Riley. Steel Pulse were the first non-Jamaican act to win the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. Collectively the band has won one Grammy award with nine nominations.

Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, such as documentary films, classic and rarely seen films from earlier periods in the history of cinema, and world cinema. In addition to theatrical distribution, Kino Lorber releases films in the home entertainment market and has its own streaming services for its digital library.

In Jamaican popular culture, a sound system is a group of disc jockeys, engineers and MCs playing ska, rocksteady or reggae music. The sound system is an important part of Jamaican culture and history.

People from the Caribbean have made significant contributions to British Black music for many generations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Bovell</span> Barbadian-British reggae musician (born 1953)

Dennis Bovell is a Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer, based in England. He was a member of a progressive rock group called Stonehenge, who later changed name and became the British reggae band Matumbi, and released dub-reggae records under his own name as well as the pseudonym Blackbeard. He is most widely known for his decades-spanning collaborations with Linton Kwesi Johnson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brinsley Forde</span> English singer and actor (born 1953)

Brinsley Forde MBE is a British singer and actor of Guyanese parentage who is best known as the founder member of the reggae band Aswad and as a child actor in the children's television series Here Come the Double Deckers! (1970–71).

<i>Bass Culture</i> 1980 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

Bass Culture is an album by the Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, released in 1980 on the Island Records label. It was produced by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Dennis Bovell. Bovell, Lloyd "Jah Bunny" Donaldson and Webster Johnson were members of Matumbi.

A sound clash is a musical competition where crew members from opposing sound systems pit their skills against each other. Sound clashes take place in a variety of venues, both indoors and outdoors, and primarily feature reggae and dancehall music. The object is to beat or "kill" their competitors.

Trevor Laird is a British actor.

Sir Horace Shango Ové was a Trinidadian-born British filmmaker, photographer, painter and writer based in London, England. One of the leading black independent filmmakers to emerge in Britain in the post-war period, Ové was the first black British filmmaker to direct a feature-length film, Pressure (1976). In its retrospective documentary 100 Years of Cinema, the British Film Institute (BFI) declared: "Horace Ové is undoubtedly a pioneer in Black British history and his work provides a perspective on the Black experience in Britain."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sound of da Police</span> 1993 single by KRS-One

"Sound of da Police" is a song by American rapper KRS-One. Recorded at D&D Studios in New York City with production handled by Showbiz, it was released in December 1993 as the second and final single from KRS-One's debut solo studio album Return of the Boom Bap. It peaked at number 89 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Lovers rock is a style of reggae music noted for its romantic sound and content. While love songs had been an important part of reggae since the late 1960s, the style was given a greater focus and a name in London in the mid-1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mangrove Nine</span> Group of British Black activists

The Mangrove Nine were a group of British Black activists tried for inciting a riot at a 1970 protest against the police targeting of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, West London. Their trial lasted 55 days and involved various challenges by the Nine to the legitimacy of the British judicial process. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.

Martin Stellman is a British screenwriter and director best known for creating and writing The Interpreter (2005), starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and co-writing with Franc Roddam the 1979 British cult classic Quadrophenia.

Franco Rosso was an Italian-born film producer and director based in England. He is known for making films about Black British culture, and in particular for the 1980 cult film Babylon, about Black Jamaican youth in south London, which was backed by the National Film Finance Corporation.

<i>Brain Damage</i> (album) 1981 studio album by Dennis Bovell

Brain Damage is the third studio album by Barbadian-British reggae musician Dennis Bovell, released in 1981 by Fontana Records. His first solo album under his own name, following two dub albums released as Blackbeard, it was Bovell's first recording at his South London-based Studio 80. Having begun to feel that reggae had not progressed as much as he would have liked, he conceived Brain Damage as an attempt to fuse the genre with numerous rhythmic styles from Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean to highlight the genre's flexibility. The musician intended not to explore the international rhythms in a standard way but to take them to what he perceived as musical extremes. The direction was also inspired by the wide array of people in his audience.

T-Bone Wilson is a Guyanese-British actor, dramatist and poet.

<i>More Time</i> (Linton Kwesi Johnson album) 1998 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

More Time is an album by the Jamaican-British musician Linton Kwesi Johnson. It was released in 1998 through Johnson's LKJ Records. "Liesense fi Kill", about police brutality, was released as a single. Johnson supported the album with an international tour. The lyrics to many songs were reproduced in Johnson's book of poetry Mi Revalueshanary Fren.

References

  1. Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 336
  2. Paul Newland (2010). "We Know Where We're Going, We Know Where We're From: Babylon". In Paul Newland (ed.). Don't Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect Books. pp. 93–104. ISBN   978-1-84150-389-9.
  3. Miguel Cullen, "30 years on: Franco Rosso on why Babylon's burning", The Independent , 11 November 2010.
  4. Ann Ogidi, "Babylon (1980)", BFI Screenonline.
  5. Kieron Tyler, "Dawn of the dread", The Guardian , 4 October 2008.
  6. Chris Salewicz, "Franco Rosso and Brinsley Ford speak to the NME", NME , via Babylon.
  7. "Babylon {the Original Soundtrack)". Discogs . Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  8. Vivien Goldman, Time Out (1980)
  9. Kay, Jeremy (18 January 2019). "Cult British reggae film 'Babylon' to get first ever US release (exclusive)". Screen. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  10. "Kino Lorber Sets Aug. 20 Home Release Date for Reggae Film 'Babylon' – Media Play News". 15 August 2019. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  11. Morris, Wesley (7 March 2019). "'Babylon' Review: A Clear View of Black Londoners When Few Films Saw Them". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  12. Hsu, Hua (7 March 2019). "What "Babylon" Captured About Racism and Reggae". The New Yorker. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  13. "Review: 'Babylon,' a legendary look at South London's reggae scene, finally gets a U.S. release". Los Angeles Times. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  14. Saxena, Jaya (7 February 2019). "Franco Rosso's 'Babylon' Is Finally Getting a Proper U.S. Release". GQ. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  15. Babylon (2019) , retrieved 17 June 2020