MOVIE REVIEW : ‘BABYLON’ DARES A LOT AND WINS A LITTLE

“Good Morning, Babylon,” the Taviani brothers’ first English-language film (at the Beverly Center Cineplex), is a dazzling backdrop for a great movie but lacks enough going on in the foreground to make it as involving as it should be.

The film has the sweep and grandeur of such Taviani landmarks as “Padre, Padrone” and “The Night of the Shooting Stars” but little of their abundant vitality.

Operatic in style, it is a visual tour de force that culminates in a moment of strong emotional impact. Yet at that very moment one realizes how little there has been to know of--or to care about--the Tavianis’ two heroes as they approach the moment of truth in their long odyssey from Tuscany to Hollywood and back.

“Good Morning, Babylon” has been inspired by two actual occurrences. First, D. W. Griffith, after seeing Italian director Giovanni Pastrone’s pioneering film spectacle “Cabiria” (1913), decided to incorporate a contemporary melodrama of injustice he was then shooting into “Intolerance” (1916), interleaving it with three other stories set in different periods of history to create a complex film fugue protesting man’s inhumanity to man. Second, Italian artisans who worked on the Tower of Jewels, the glittering centerpiece of San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, which also impressed Griffith, were later hired by him to help create the famous, monumental Babylon set for “Intolerance.”

Screenwriter Lloyd Fonvielle had the idea that a film could be made about two wholly fictional brothers, Italian immigrants, who worked on the set of “Intolerance,” an idea that was subsequently developed by the Tavianis into a script with the help of Tonino Guerra, a distinguished veteran of numerous major Italian pictures.

Their film is nothing if not ambitious. It is a celebration of the birth of a new art form, the cinema, that in the Tavianis’ view has its roots in the frescoes of ancient cathedrals. It is an affirmation that art has the power to transcend death and destruction.

But the more ideas and striking set pieces a film has, the more important it becomes to flesh them out if it is to be neither an abstraction nor merely a series of glorious tableaux. Unfortunately, the plain truth is that, as characters, the Tavianis’ two artisan brothers, Nicola (Vincent Spano) and Andrea (Joaquim De Almeida), are vapid, as are their girlfriends, two pretty extras, Edna (Greta Scacchi) and Mabel (Desiree Becker)--named, no doubt, in homage to the Misses Purviance and Normand.

They are a spectacularly good-looking quartet, and they have sweet, tender and passionate natures. But they have no real individuality, and their dialogue has the colorlessness and stiltedness of translated speech. There’s none of the tartness or breezy, slangy earthiness of actual Hollywood pioneers. It’s not the actors’ fault, but that of the language barrier, a familiar villain in such multinational enterprises. Indeed, the Tavianis, whose English is rudimentary, have backed away from the intimate and revealing scenes that have previously provided balance to their epic sagas. As a result, “Good Morning, Babylon” has the feel of a very long prologue capped by an epilogue, with no real story in between.

The film comes fully alive only when Charles Dance’s D. W. Griffith is on screen. Probably only Lillian Gish could tell us how accurate Dance’s accent and portrayal are, but he has something of Griffith’s hawklike profile and, more important, he seems real, a proud but witty visionary. He has a wonderful speech at the brothers’ bridal banquet, held in front of the Babylon set, when he defends the movies as a legitimate art form to their stern visiting father (Omero Antonutti), a great Tuscan artisan from whom his youngest sons have inherited their “hands of gold.”

That Babylon set, for which the brothers have sculpted eight sitting elephants, has been re-created, along with the intersection of Sunset and Hollywood, site of Griffith’s studio, by art director Gianni Sbarra in the countryside near Pisa. In this respect, “Good Morning, Babylon” is a dream of early Hollywood and movie-making.

There’s a lovely Grecian ballet, featuring Scacchi and Becker; a charming scene when the brothers catch fireflies to present to the girls aboard a Red Car; a wondrous moment when the brothers, who have been kept in menial jobs by Griffith’s jealous, xenophobic production manager (David Brandon) complete a giant elephant of papier-mache to show Griffith what they can do. Scene after scene attests to the irresistible magic of the movies in their era of self-discovery. At the same time an uncomfortable self-consciousness mars the film’s aura of innocence, epitomized by Edna’s struggle to express her feelings about the greatness of movie-making. But the truth is that the Ednas of that day didn’t really know that what they were doing was anything special at all, or that anyone would ever consider their efforts to be of lasting importance.

Nicola Piovani’s rightly romantic, insistent score is as rich as cinematographer Giuseppe Lanci’s radiant images. “Good Morning, Babylon” (rated PG-13 for some nudity and lovemaking) is more a film to cherish for all that it so daringly and grandly attempts than for what it finally accomplishes. Ironically, it is as likely to become an admired film maudit as “Intolerance” itself has always been.

‘GOOD MORNING, BABYLON’ A Vestron Pictures release of an Edward R. Pressman Film Corp. and RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana presentation. Executive producer Edward R. Pressman. Producer Giuliani G. De Negri. Directors Vittorio & Paolo Taviani. Story and screenplay the Tavianis in association with Tonino Guerra. Based on an idea by Lloyd Fonvielle. Camera Giuseppe Lanci. Music Nicola Piovani. Art director Gianni Sbarra. Costumes Lina Nerli Taviani. Associate producers Lloyd Fonvielle, Caldecott Chubb, Milena Canonero. French co-producer Marin Karmitz. Choreographer Gino Landi. Film editor Roberto Perpignani. With Vincent Spano, Joaquim De Almeida, Greta Scacchi, Desiree Becker, Omero Antonutti, Charles Dance, Berangere Bonvoisin, David Brandon, Brian Freilino, Margarita Lozano, Massimo Venturiello, Andrea Prodan.

Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG-13 (parents are strongly cautioned; some material may be inappropriate for children under 13).