Brad Pitt praises Damien Chazelle for 'Babylon' opulence: 'It's not CG'

Damien Chazelle's "Babylone" is clearly the Oscar-winning director's most ambitious film to date. Its sprawling story of Old Hollywood debauchery boasts a three-hour runtime, a seemingly endless cast of characters, and a top-notch cast featuring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.

The project was a massive cinematic undertaking, but the cast of Chazelle thinks they knew how to seize the opportunity. In a new interview with ScreenRant, Brad Pitt had nothing but praise for Chazelle and his visual talents as a filmmaker.

"First of all, it's Damien Chazelle," Pitt said when asked why he was interested in doing the film. "When he came up with 'Whiplash,' it was something new and fresh, and he had a kinetic energy that I had never seen before. And, you know, he's three out of three. Now he is four for four in my mind."

Pitt went on to explain that the film's over-the-top opulence was only possible because of Chazelle's attention to detail and passion for Hollywood history.

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"But this one was different in the sense that there's always something new that I find with new directors, and everyone has their own language and style," he said. “And what Damien gets so much…I mean, you look at this photo (a 'Babylon' poster) – it's real. It's not CG. It's all happening at once, and somehow he's able to capture it all. And this thing moves at a pace that, again, is something that I haven't been a part of. It's like keeping up with the times, really."

Chazelle has previously spoken about the film's epic scale while attending the Toronto International Film Festival, stressing that he had to mix historical accuracy with his own fictional storytelling instincts during the casting process.< /p>

"'Babylon' was by far the biggest cast, the most roles I've ever juggled," he said. “The casting process took a long time. It is a mostly fictional film where the characters are fictional, but inspired by composites of real people. In writing them, I was drawing inspiration from a lot of these real-life sources, but pretty soon you get to the casting stage and you're just looking for people to surprise you with. That was the guiding principle, tearing down all the preconceptions of that time, those people, and finding actors who would convey that spirit."

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