YARDVID PRESENTS title : Babylon 1980 source : DVD PAL disk type : DVD-5 language : English subtitles : None genre : Reggae/Dancehall label : British Film Institute cat-nr : n/a format : DVDR imdb Rating : 4.6/10 (21 votes) imdb weblink : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080406/ website : http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/475379/ http://www.uncarved.org/dub/babylon/index.html ripped by : YARDVID SQUAD audio : PCM Stereo video : Not Encoded, Bitrate 4547kbs avg frame Rate : 25.00fps aspect ratio : 4:3 FULL FRAME resolution : 720x576 disksize : 89 X 50mb archives : yv-babylon-dvdr.* runtime : 94 min R E L E A S E I N F O D E S C R I P T I O N A young Rastafarian toaster (rapper) with Reggae Sound System Ital Lion, hopes to rise above the trials of his daily life and succeed at a Sound System competition. London circa 1980. Margaret Thatcher is newly installed in 10 Downing Street, causing fits of gloom in the theatre, film and television world. Punk rock is making a noisy exit from the music scene, to be succeeded by the easier-on-the-ear mod and ska revival. Then along comes Babylon (1980 d. Franco Rosso). Notwithstanding the X certificate, & the questionable use of subtitles, Babylon was an instant classic, akin to that other legendary reggae music film, The Harder They Come (Jamaica, d. Perry Henzell, 1972). Babylon is a potent mix of music and social commentary, flawlessly photographed by the celebrated Chris Menges (Local Hero, 1983; The Killing Fields, 1984; The Mission, 1986) and with an extraordinary 'starry' cast headed by actor-musician Brinsley Forde (Brinsley Dan) as 'Blue', the alienated young man at the heart of the story. British born of Guyanese parents, Forde was a successful child actor (The Magnificent Six and , ITV, 1968-71 and The Double Deckers, BBC, 1970-71), later joining British reggae group Aswad. Screenwriter Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia, d. Franc Roddam, 1979) and director Franco Rosso (Dread, Beat An'Blood, tx. BBC, 7/6/79) have crafted a superb, truthful film that stands up more than twenty years later. Set predominantly in South London, it presents a portrait of the young black community in London different from the tabloid stereotype. These black people are not muggers, rapists or chronic thieves. They are ordinary young black guys at the sharp end of inner city survival with dreams and fears of ordinary young people in general. Except of course that just like the subletted garage where they house their equipment and play their tunes, their lives are hemmed in by the predictability of poverty, disillusion and the randomness of violence that can erupt at any time. The final scene, in which police raid the dancehall while Blue and the sound system defiantly plays on, is both frightening and euphoric. F U L L S Y N O P S I S WARNING: screenonline full synopses contain 'spoilers' which give away key plot points. Don't read on if you don't want to know the ending! South London, 1980. Reggae sound system Ital Lion win through to the finals of a sound clash. Their competitors will be the long established outfit of Jah Shaka. Ital Lion crew include the toaster (rapper) David 'Blue', roadie and driver Beefy, electrical wizard Spark, ladies man 'Lover', leader of the crew Dreadhead, hustler and fixer Errol and Blue's friend, Ronnie, a white guy who accompanies the crew to their dances. Blue lives with his mother and school dodging younger brother Carlton on an estate in South London. This morning, having failed to persuade his brother to go to school, he arrives late at the garage where his colleague and good friend Ronnie is too stoned to work. Alan, the boss, is unsympathetic to Blue's complaints of overwork and sacks him, amidst a volley of racist insults. Dreadhead visits a Jamaican entrepreneur called Fat Larry in pursuit of an exclusive import record with which he hopes Ital Lion can beat Jah Shaka. Fat Larry sells him a tune called Warrior Charge. Meanwhile Beefy is humiliated by Jah Shaka's crew and in retaliation he smashes the rear lights of their van. Beefy and Spark break into a secondary school and steal a tannoy system. Back at a lock-up garage where the crew store their equipment, Spark fixes the tannoy to their sound system. They put on Warrior Charge and dance around to the captivating beat. Suddenly a furious banging makes its way through the noise. Ronnie is sent to investigate. An irate female neighbour wants them to turn the music down, but when Ronnie winds her up she unleashes a volley of racist abuse at them all. Lover gets engaged to his girlfriend and at the engagement party, Blue is distressed to find his girlfriend dancing with someone else. Everybody finds a partner to dance with, even Ronnie. Later that night, as Ital Lion return to the lock-up to offload their equipment, three racist white guys on a balcony throw bottles at them. Ronnie and Blue restrain Beefy who wants to go after them. They eventually calm him down. Blue wanders the streets alone. A car full of young white men begins to tail him. Blue realises the danger and begins to run. The men leap out of the car and give chase. It seems that Blue runs all night. In the early morning, Blue looks exhausted as he walks through railway arches. He stumbles into the path of a car that looks similar to the one that was chasing him the night before. However, these are policemen. The police catch Blue, beat him up and arrest him. Blue's mother puts up the bail for her son, much to the disgust of her live-in boyfriend. Blue goes to the house of his girlfriend, Elaine, but she is not there. Wandering the streets, Blue witnesses an unpleasant mugging, is rejected by his girlfriend and drops in at a Rastafarian gathering. He goes to the Ital Lion lock-up, to find that the place has been deliberately trashed, the sound system destroyed and racist graffiti daubed on the walls. When the rest of the crew arrive, the gloom deepens and tempers rise. Ronnie is attacked by Beefy and Blue stabs the man he believes responsible for ruining their sound system. Meanwhile Dreadhead locates replacement sound equipment. At the sound clash, the crowd is on edge because of some earlier violence involving Beefy. Jah Shaka finishes his set, Ital Lion step up to the stage. Since Blue has not arrived, Lover takes over the controls and begins to toast. He doesn't play for long because Blue makes an appearance. Blue begins a heartfelt rap about life. Outside, scores of police pile out of vans and up the stairs of the concert hall to hammer on the doors that are barricaded against them. Blue defiantly plays on. Eventually, the police break through the door. T H E C A S T BLUE - BRINSLEY FORDE RONNIE - KARL HOWMAN BEEFY - TREVOR LAIRD SPARK - BRIAN BOVELL LOVER - VICTOR ROMERO EVANS ERROL - DAVID N. HAYNES DREADHEAD - ARCHIE POOL WESLEY - T. BONE WILSON BRINSELY FORDE plays BLUE Like Blue - the character he portrays in Babylon -Brinsley is a Londoner. Like Blue' he spends much of his time playing reggae and wears the natty locks of a Rasta. But there the obvious similarity ends because Brinsley (26) already has a successful dual career as an actor and as lead vocalist and guitarist with Aswad, a reggae band whose work on stage and on disc has gained wide respect in the U.K. The name Aswad, incidentally, was carefully chosen. It means black' in Amharic, the ancient language of Ethiopia. Born in North London of immigrant parents, Brinsley went to local schools in Willesden which he didnt enjoy very much, until, at the age of 13, he "wandered into acting. I went to evening classes and eventually got professional parts out of school. Anything was great away from school". His work at that time included parts in The Magnificent 6 1/2, a film for the Childrens Film Foundation, and Please Sir. He was one of the leads in the TV serial. Double Deckers along with Peter Firth, and had a role in the feature film Leo the Last. From acting he progressed into playing music. Leaving school, he took a variety of jobs while he pursued his careers. "There was no point in going to a regular drama school because there was only about one part I could have played - Othello and thats about it". Instead his jobs ranged from a spell at Grunwicks, the Willesden factory which hit the headlines over its prolonged strike, driving for a paper-mill factory and a day and a half at a plastic mould factory. "They sacked me on the second day. I didn't fancy spending the rest of my life with plastic moulds". Musically, he started writing his own reggae songs around this time. "I was frustrated playing reggae from Jamaica which had little relevance to my own life, here in Britain. There were four or, five of us who felt the same way at the same time and thats how Aswad came into being". Their first album was released in 1975. Dissatisfied with the distribution and promotion, they formed their own record company "Grove Music". "The trouble", says Brinsley, "was that no-one knew quite how to place us. British reggae was entirely new, so how to promote it was a key question. For a while they tried to align us with the Punks, but that wasnt what were about at all". As it was they went on tour with Eddie and the Hotrods. "Touring Scotland in a minibus was not one of my most comfortable experiences, but we were getting the exposure we needed. And most of the audience we played to were predominantly white. Until then our brand of reggae had been confined to our own clubs and sound-systems". Nowadays British reggae has been recognised by the music press and Aswad figure high on the list of any reggae programme. Brinsley lives in Ladbroke Grove an area with which he feels a strong bond: "Its great down there. There is a true community spirit". KARL HOWMAN plays Ronnie For KARL HOWMAN Babylon was an entirely new experience. Already established as one of Englands brighter young acting talents, he had never before encountered anything like the Babylon' situation. He went into the film knowing precious little about West Indians living in London, Rastafan, sound-systems, or reggae for that matter; he came out of it enthused about each and every one of them. Born in 1953, Karl grew up in Lewisham, and came into the theatre by way of the Picardy Boys School and the National Youth Theatre. "I was lucky. I played the lead in the N.Y.T. production of Zigga Zagga, David Puttnam saw me and gave me a role in his companys film Thatll be the Day. He also had a leading role in Stardust for the same company. Other credits include leading TV roles in series like The Sweeney, Porridge, Van de Valk and Armchair Theatre On the stage he starred in Inch and Teeth and Smiles which started at the Royal Court and transferred to Wyndhams in the West End. Filmwise he has recently starred in Fox for Euston Films, and S.O.S. Titanic. TREVOR LAIRD plays Beefy Born in Islington in 1957, TREVOR LAIRD decided to become an actor after doing three years of an apprenticeship in electronics. He was trained at the Anna Scher Theatre in Islington. His TV work includes Playthings with Stephen Frears, Waterloo Sunset, Victims of Apartheid and Vanishing Army He is one of the founder members of the Black Theatre Co-operative and played the part of Zippy in their production of Welcome Home Jacko. Films include Quadrophenia , The Last Good Friday and now Babylon SOUND SYSTEMS JAH SHAKA MIGHTY OBSERVER ROOTSMAN HI Fl AS ITAL LION Special music recorded and produced for the movie by Denis Bovell in association with Morcut Records ITAL LION Dubs by ASWAD "WARRIOR CHARGE" "HEY JAH CHILDREN" Other music "DELIVER ME FROM MY ENEMIES" Yabba U [sic] "BABYLON" John [sic] Clark played by JAH SHAKA "WHA PN BAP N" I ROY "YOU DID" Cassandra LBC Theme Jeff Wayne Music "CAN'T GIVE IT UP" Janet Kay "TURN ME LOOSE" Michael Profit [sic] T H E F I L M I N G FRANCO ROSSO and MARTIN STELLMAN wrote the original draft of Babylon for the BBC Play for Today series. It was never used. They decided to turn it into a feature film and waited five years for the cameras to turn. That they did, finally, was due to their own persistence and the perception of Mamoun Hassan of the N.F.F.C. [National Film Finance Corporation] and GAVRIK LOSEY, the film's producer. As Franca Rosso explains it: "This was not an easy subject to raise film finance on. It falls into none of the obvious commercial categories and producers are notoriously myopic when it comes to evaluating the unusual. Mamoun gave us tremendous support as well as the necessary finance and then Gavrik came in and turned it into a reality". Martin Stellman adds "Even then it wasnt easy. We were working on a shoestring budget. I live in a bedsit in North London. Until a couple of weeks before filming we were using that as our headquarters. Much of the casting was done there. Id look around my room and all the papers scattered everywhere and think this is ridiculous Babylon was, in fact, the only film financed by the N.F.F.C. last year. When Gavrik Losey came into the project he raised further finance from the Chrysalis Group of Companies and from Lee Studios. "I went to Chrysalis, told them we were making a reggae film, and offered them a deal for the record. At that stage they didn't want to commit themselves to the record but amazingly they offered us 30,000 towards production simply because the guy I approached believed so strongly in the film". Babylon was filmed entirely on locations in South London and the West End over six weeks. The prod. headquarters were above a rambling and draughty church in Deptford. The film set was totally closed to visitors (including journalists) because of the films sensitive subject matter and the fact that shooting was taking place in an area of London where there is racial tension. The cast of actors was carefully chosen, with the help of casting director Sheila Trezise, by Franca Rosso and Martin Stellman, who already had many contacts within the black community. "This is the first time I have actually seen black actors acting", says Gavrik. "All too often they are there on screen as a kind of symbol. In Babylon they carry the film". Aside from the regular actors there were many extras. The vast majority were West Indians living around the Dectford, Lewisham, Peckham and Croydon area. "At first the extras union said we should only use their members but when they read the script they realised that was ridiculous. There just arent that many black members of the union". More or less the only direction the extras needed was act natural. All of them were already familiar with sound system competitions and with reggae, the louder the better. G R E E T I N G S Big Props Goes Out to all these fine movie / music groups TWCiSO Replica DEiTY TUN DzN DVL TcS DcN BooZerS FLiX Chakra Centropy TCF MaGE HELLBOUND BURGER FoA Solution AMRCMPG JUST FKKDVDR XXLISO KiSS iLLUSiON B2R MUSiX UTBDVD kHzViD CaChic H0T AEROHOLiCS FoA Keeping The Scene Alive and Prosperous!!! G R O U P I N F O YARDVID is the movie section of YARD mp3. we are more than dedicated to lifting up carribean style video in the community! Providing you the finest in Cultural based movies and music videos. 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Babylon folgt der Geschichte von David, einem Arbeiterklasse-Musiker und schwarzen Mann im Südosten Londons. Tagsüber arbeitet er als Mechaniker, nachts ist David Mic-Controller in einem lokalen Tanz... weiter...
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