Writer – Director’s Statement by Julius Galacki
Sometimes it takes adults a very long time to become adults.
I wanted to write an ensemble piece where the main characters are at core, good people, likable people, but they do selfish or stupid things that hurt each other. Then they try to make it better and sometimes make it worse anyway.
Because I personally can find life to be quite painful, my coping mechanism has always been to find humor in life’s absurdities. Therefore, “…Babylon” reflects that and the drama is always leavened, not so much by jokes but rather by a certain rhythm and wit.
The subtle character driven structure of the script owes much to how it organically evolved from my work with a core group of actors over a year and half period and I owe all of these actors a debt of gratitude.
I believe that most, if not all of humanity’s problems can be distilled down to self-deception, whether it be a false belief that owning an excess of things (greed) will lead to happiness, or as the characters in “…Babylon” if I fulfill my romantic desire then all of my other problems will get taken care of.
Visually, I would reinforce this idea of the hidden nature of people inherent the script with chiaroscuro. An example of which can be seen in the Renaissance paintings of Caravaggio or Georges la Tour, where in the interiors are rich and saturated but the shadows are strong and black. Classic filmnoir also shows this well. This visual motif would evolve as the characters eventually mature and more light will fill the scenes.
The tone and style of the whole obviously has a debt to films like “The Big Chill” but also coming of age films are another a major reference point. A good comparative would be “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
Furthermore, in both of these films, music is a major factor – likewise there are a number of songs that I would use the similar purposes, in addition to engaging my young, Grammy Award winning composer.
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