If Damien Chazelle showed us that he could blow us all away with Hitchcockian suspense in Whiplash and his screenplay for Grand Piano, than La La Land, his ambitious sophomore effort has Chazelle playing Hitchcock, Woody Allen, and Stanley Donen at the same time. That’s a lot of plates in the air and it’s thrilling to watch Chazelle work his directorial ass off keeping them up there. The fact that he doesn’t break one plate is what solidifies the trick and boy is La La Land one of the best of the year. The best way to deconstruct what Chazelle has achieved here is to break down the individual styles that he’s expertly borrowing from and building onto. Early Tarantino (ie subpar direction to some lengths) this is not. This is sprint of glory. La La La follows the story of two people Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) as their story of love plays out. Stone and Gosling are both sumptuous with Gosling turning in his second perfect performance of the year (The Nice Guys being the other one) and Stone bringing something I haven’t seen very much in her work, a Romantic use of her expression. Let me explain. Stone is a great facial actress with her expressions selling a lot of her personality, but many films that lack the hyper energy of La La Land don’t let her use this EXTREMELY vital artistic weapon that she has. Here in La La Land as the story and songs expand into such hyper energy, Stone is allowed to cut loose and the results make for some of the best performing of the year. Okay, now onto that aforementioned deconstruction. See, Chazelle makes La La Land by keeping it interesting. We as an audience can go watch a cute musical or couple movie anywhere else (this reminded me of 500 Days of Summer), so what makes us to effectively care specifically about this one is not about what Chazelle throws up on screen but just how he does it. That’s where the key to La La Land is. He’s very much playing Hitchcock as he allows scenes to play out with emotional time bombs to explode from under the table. The ending (which I will not spoil) is his crowning achievement of this as he allows the emotional bomb of the story to explode in ways that are both joyous, but also destructive. It’s a blast. His work compares to Allen’s in that Chazelle’s showbiz dialogue plays like any wonderful Woody film. La La Land actually plays much like Allen’s excellent Café Society in the way it efficiently jumps across years of love and heartbreak. The film also looks very much like one of Allen’s works using the one shots that match many classical comedian directors like Allen, Billy WIlder, and while not funny, Hitchcock too. This shooting style is often known as the Spielberg oner, but I don’t think that the intention of this is the same. Spielberg doesn’t want you to see these shots, but Chazelle wants you to get lifted by them. This brings us to Donen. The whole point of Donen’s style seemed to be the concept of the suspense of the dance, and that’s what’s going on here too. Chazelle allows his camera to do cathartic pushins and chilling pulls as the dances extend in a flurry of color that is almost unseen today. This, Jackie, and The Neon Demon might be the best looking movies of the year, as La La Land attempts to capture the beauty of old technicolor epic musicals. The music is intimate and energetic capturing the ever so Romantic views of the dreamers in Hollywood. Composer Justin Hurwitz and lyricists Benj Pacek, and Justin Paul all create unique musical compositions from energetic tap to melancholic piano that blend wonderfully into Chazelle’s creation. The fact that La La Land reward the dreamers of music and Hollywood and tells us that all our might come true makes it all the more entertaining and rewarding. In the end La La Land is about the little dreams that come true and the others that don’t presented in the most energetic and enthusiastic way they possibly could be. “Here’s to the ones that Dream, foolish as they may seem” (1), including that one now great director who may have dreamed of being Hitchcock, Allen, and Donen. La La Land gets a 10 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |