Justin Hurwitz: Babylonian Bombast, Cine-Jazz and Anti-Music - The Wire

"A Black saxophonist is being filmed for a jazz musical, backed by other Black musicians on a sound stage. Before the cameras roll, he is told his skin is too light compared to his compatriots. He must apply burnt cork to his face to darken his skin. Otherwise the movie studio will shut the production down, because a seemingly interracial film won't play in Southern states due to their segregation laws."

"This small incident in Damien Chazelle's Babylon (2022) serves as a microcosm for jazz music's inhabitation of Hollywood cinema. For music purists, jazz can never live on the film soundtrack, due to jazz's authorial, collective and expressive modes of production being antithetical to the factory line compartmentalisation of cinema's discrete creative departments. For those open to the multimedial aberrations that occur in cinema's chaotic assemblages, 'cine-jazz' is both a gaudy meltdown of the form's legacies and a fascinating fabulation of the same."

"Sidney swallows his pride in what is Babylon 's most discomfiting moment, donning black make-up and performing his solo for the camera. Visually, it signifies how Hollywood trades in caricatures; some will find the scene exploitative and offensive, despite its liberal revisionism. But listen to the music being played: Hurwitz has composed a weird, thumping, monotonal dirge. Shaded with atonal colouring"

Set in Hollywood, 1932, a Black saxophonist is forced to darken his skin with burnt cork to avoid the film being shut down because segregation laws prevent seemingly interracial films playing in Southern states. The scene exposes Hollywood's reliance on racial caricature and the industry's willingness to alter performers' appearances. The film score by Justin Hurwitz embraces 'cine-jazz', attempting to portray rambunctious late 1920s jazz while confronting cinema's taming of live music during the transition to recorded sound. The saxophonist's performance is accompanied by an atonal, monotonal dirge that underscores the scene's discomfiting visual compromises.

Read at The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music