Best Pictures #33: 2016 (89th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee, La La Land

by A.J.

Best Pictures #33: 2016 (89^th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
La La Land

La La Land is one of best reviewed, most lauded, and most loved movies of 2016. It has already won several awards and is very likely to win more. It received 14 Oscar nominations, tying the record set by All About Eve (1950), though All About Eve’s 14 nominations was done with fewer categories, which seems slightly more impressive. La La Land is the front runner to take home the Best Picture Oscar. Let’s get one thing straight: I like La La Land. I might even really like it, but I did not love it, at least not the way everyone else did. 

The plot is simple enough: Struggling jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) meets and falls for aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone). Together they sing and dance through some of the loveliest scenes of Los Angeles on film. This is a side of L.A. not often seen movies. The center of American filmmaking is most often the setting of action and crime movies or it is meant to be a nonintrusive background. In La La Land, Los Angeles is stylized and romanticized. It is a city of purple sunsets, cool, blue nights, and hills and canyons and highways for song and dance numbers. I would not say that Los Angeles is a character because sets aren’t characters, but it is at the forefront of La La Land.

It’s no surprise that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have good chemistry; this is their third movie together after all. Each does a fine job in their respective roles. They sing and dance well enough, though they sing and dance like nonprofessionals that have been taught specific, not too challenging choreography. Each has a signature song: Sebastian has the melancholy “City of Stars” and Mia’s “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” serves as the film’s climax. Both songs have been nominated for the Original Song Oscar.

La La Land takes place in a daydream world and writer-director Damien Chazelle seeks to transport the audience to this wonderful musical world. He succeeds, to a point. La La Land is meant to be a loving, enthusiastic tribute to the musicals of the 1950’s and 40’s. The misstep it makes is this: instead of taking inspiration from the great musicals of the past to create a new, fresh take, it simply lifts from and imitates those films instead. Action and science fiction are the genres most often criticized for being derivative, but musicals can be derivative too. There are numerous visual references to other musicals (enough for a side by side video comparison). Some are indirect: the bold, bright color pallet of costumes and sets is reminiscent of the musicals of Jacques Demy. Others are more direct: Gosling jumps up on a lamppost just like Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. Unfortunately, since I’ve already seen most of the movies La La Land references (Jacques Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherourg, Young Girls of Rochefort; Fred Astaire musicals: Shall We Dance, The Band Wagon, Funny Face; and, most of all, Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, and every other Gene Kelly musical), subtly and not so subtly, it comes off less as a tribute and more as a hollow imitation.

There’s a lot to like in La La Land. It’s a nice story about aspiring performers falling in love and trying to achieve their dreams. From the pink and purple sunsets to Stone’s bright, yellow dress, La La Land is filled with bold and vibrant solid colors that cannot help but catch the eye. The songs are pleasant and enjoyable, even if you don’t like jazz (and I don’t). Some of the musicals numbers are very visually appealing—I’m thinking of Sebastian and Mia’s dance at the observatory specifically—but others never open up to be as grand as I was expecting. The opening number plays like generic tableau of what someone that hasn’t seen a musical thinks a musical is like. I suppose I just can’t help but be reminded of the classic musicals with undeniably better performers and songs and wonder why I’m not just watching one of those again. I didn’t get the feeling of unabashed joy and love and wonder that I get whenever I watch Truffaut’s Day For Night, Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain, or even Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (all about performers in the entertainment business). But still, I enjoyed this movie.

Nominees: Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt, producers

Director: Damien Chazelle

Screenplay: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend

Production Companies: Black Label Media, TIK Films Limited, Impostor Pictures, Gilbert Films, Marc Platt Productions

Distributor: Summit Entertainment

Release Date: December 9^th, 2016

Total Nominations: 14, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Director-Damien Chazelle, Screenplay-Damien Chazelle, Actor-Ryan Gosling, Actress-Emma Stone, Cinematography-Linus Sandgren, Editing-Tom Cross, Costume Design-Mary Zophres, Production Design- David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco (set decoration), Sound Editing- Ai Ling Lee, Mildred Iatrou, Sound Mixing- Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee, Steven Morrow, Original Score-Justin Hurwitz, Original Song-Audition (The Fools Who Dream): music by Justin Hurwitz, lyrics by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Original Song-City of Stars: music by Justin Hurwitz, lyrics by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul