In 1926, silent film superstar Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) stumbles out of his trailer tent dressed as a Crusades-era king, somewhere in the barren hills outside L.A., where his studio has set up multiple makeshift productions all happening simultaneously. After a day spent drinking copiously, Conrad can barely stand under his own power, and requires a crewman to half-carry him to the "set," perched on top of a hill as a staged bloody war waged between two armies cast via the soup lines, it appears rages on below him in the background.