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La La Land
Premiered at the Venice Film Festival August 31,2016
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Mia has a dream to become an actress, but fails every audition she tries. She runs into a pianist, Sebastian, a few times and after hearing his piano duet she wants to get to know him even though he finds her annoying at first. They spend some quality time with each other and get to know one another. Sebastian is in love with jazz and has a dream to open up his own club where everyone can listen to the kind of music he’s into. Afterwords, Mia and Sebastian develop a romantic relationship. 
Blaine: “La La Land” gives me the feeling of those old classic musicals because of the style and sound of it. Damien Chazelle was interested in finding a way to take the tradition of the Hollywood style musicals which he described as the artificial genre and combine it with reality like how to express what it feels like to live life everyday. As Damien was writing the script for “La La Land", his old college roommate, Justin Hurwitz, was writing the songs for it and the theme was to make “La La Land" like the musicals that inspired them when they were in college. It took Damien six years to bring his passionate project to life. Damien proved himself of what he is capable of and how talented he is by making his first feature, “Whiplash” and because of it’s success, Damien was able to make “La La Land”. Damien Chazelle used to be in a band a long with his composer Justin Hurwitz and Damien really understands music a lot. Like for example there’s a scene in “La La Land” where Sebastian is explaining the beauty of jazz to Mia. Damien did the same thing with the characters in “Whiplash” talking about what music is and what it takes to make it sound good. If there’s one way of awaiting for a traffic jam to move forward it is singing and dancing on a highway. The whole shot of that opening scene is one take and that’s what Damien wanted without cutting to another shot. They shut down a highway for three days. One was for rehearsal and the other two were for shooting. Emma Stone was doing a play called “Cabaret” and Damien saw it and knew she was the right person to play Mia. Emma hadn’t read the script, but Damien describe the idea to her. Some of the stuff Emma asked was “How does all this happen?” So Damien played some of the music for her and talked to her about the visual look of it. Emma Stone is one the most gifted actresses alive. I’ve herd her sing before in another movie of her's, but she didn’t sing as much like she does in “La La Land”. The first time I herd her sing I was like “Wow!” This is the third movie Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have done together after “Crazy Stupid Love” and “Gangster Squad”. They make a great team. Piano is something Ryan Gosling has always wanted to do, but never had the time to learn how to until “La La Land” and he was very grateful for it. Ryan had spent three months learning how to play piano. 
I didn’t expect “La La Land” to be a comedy as well. One of my favorite scenes in “La La Land” is when Mia runs into Sebastian for the third time at a party, he’s playing in a band singing ‘80s music and Mia recommends they play “I Ran” by A Flock Of Seagulls. And while they are playing that song, she is making these funny looks on her face while dancing to the song. Another hilarious scene is when Sebastian picks up Mia, they kiss and he starts to drive off while they are still kissing and not keeping his eyes on where he is going and he doesn’t realizes he is turning into a one way lane. There are two great overhead shots in the film when Mia is with her friends and they spin around in their colorful dresses on the street. The other overhead shot is when Mia and Sebastian are dancing around the pendulum. There’s a silhouette of them dancing through the stars in space. Mia and Sebastian slowly go in to kiss while “Rebel Without A Cause” is on the screen and what I like about that shot is the blue outline. There’s another great outline at the end of the movie of the trumpet player. A lot of times when Ryan Gosling is playing the piano, a light hits on him while everything else around him is dark. Editing was done by Tom Cross, the same editor of Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash”. Here’s some examples of the editing. At the beginning when Sebastian is explaining the beauty of jazz to Mia it cuts to a closeup of a each instrument that is playing in just nine seconds. Another great example is when it cuts to Mia doing a different audition and there’s a different color in background from yellow to red to green. It’s nice that in the end Mia and Sebastian accomplish their dreams, but it’s disappointing that they are not together and Mia is with another man at the end. When she walked into the house and kissing that man, I thought she was shooting a movie, but sadly it wasn’t. I ask myself “What could have gone wrong to end that relationship?” I was happy to see an alternate version of Sebastian and Mia together forever at the end. Watching Mia and Sebastian look at each other from a distance and emotionally smiling reminded me of something out of an old classic movie where they smile at each other saying goodbye. Then it ends with an old fashioned "THE END”. My rating on “La La Land” is five out of fives stars. Editing example Music by Justin Hurwitz La La Land Cinematography Shots on Page 2 |