Context –
La La Land was directed by Damien Chazelle in 2016 after the previous success of his film Whiplash released in 2014. Similarly to Whiplash the story is orientated around jazz culture. The film is different from many other contemporary films in that its musical elements links back to the golden age of Hollywood. The film’s style combines both artistic elements with the common tropes of a romance. However, it’s still a heterosexual romance following the trend of the Hollywood output. The film had a large budget of $30 million and stars two fairly large stars as the lead roles. It also uses the idea of the ‘American dream’ shown by the protagonists aspirations, which is a mainstream theme.
The six main entertainment conglomerates are:
- CBS
- Disney
- GE
- News-Corp
- Viacom
- GE
- Time Warner
These 6 conglomerates are a product of the mergers of around 50 different companies which are now vertically and horizontally integrated as they own production companies, distribution companies and cinemas. They also own record companies, publishing houses and TV stations. This allows them to have control over all aspects of production.
In the box office, the films with the highest budgets and that gross the most money are funded by one of these six conglomerates.
La La Land was produced by Summit (an extension of Lionsgate) which acted as the distributer for the UK and US. Arguably, the film could be considered not part of mainstream media due to it being a ‘passion project’ of the filmmaker and owing nothing to the conglomerate.
Chazelle and Hurwitz (composer) wrote both the script and score for La La Land before the production of Whiplash in 2014. Whiplash was a huge success for an indie film that only cost 3.3 million to produce and had the niche topic of jazz drumming.
La La Land was pitched to Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz who are two indie film producers from New York. Berger is said to have described it as “essentially impossible in the mould of Hollywood financing,” meaning that it would have been a risk for mainstream production. This is because the musical genre didn’t have an established audience at the time.
The screenplay and score was picked up by Lionsgate and the production was given just 42 days to film in LA. Lionsgate gave Chazelle the freedom to make the film as he desired.
Social, cultural and political context –
La La land was released at a time where Americans were looking for escapism which the musical genres fulfilled. Musicals are often full of colour and use songs in order to distract the viewers from reality. The majority of musicals reached their popularity in the 1940s when audience watched these films in order to escape the reality of the war.
La La Land uses nostalgic elements by looking back at the prominence of jazz in its score which resembles the ‘golden age of Hollywood’ and European cinema in the 1960s. In an article released in 2017 by Geoff Nelson’s, 52% of Americans think that life was better in the 50s showing the prominence of nostalgia within our society. This can be shown in political agendas with Trump’s “make America great again,” and Farage’s “We want our country back.”
Another reason why the film’s release was timed well is because viewers were trying to escape from the reality of Trump’s new presidential reign. On a review of the film, Patterson (Guardian writer) titled it “Why this magical musical will transport you from Trump world.”
La La Land took inspiration from a range of other films. This is shown as the Academy Award winner ‘Artist’ (Hazenavicus, 2011) has links to the silent era of film in its themes. Academy Award winner Birdman (Inarritu, 2014) uses jazz drumming as its score and has links to La La such as the use of long takes. Gravity (Cuarón, 2013) also utilises long takes which is shown in La La Land. This is notable as in the 1930s the average shot length was twelve seconds compared to present day where the average is 2.5 seconds.
The film links back to the 50s and 60s as it uses 2:55:1 CinemaScope ratio which was popular between 1953 and 1967. This is emphasised as the ‘boxy, black and white Summit logo’ is shown first before the screen physically widens to show the CinemaScope logo. This adds to the nostalgia of the film. The musical numbers also aim to pay tribute to musicals from the golden age of Hollywood by designing them to look like they’re single takes.
Aesthetics –
An essential part of La La Land’s aesthetic is the combination of old and new. This is shown as Chazelle said that “I wanted to see what would happen if I pasted these MGM musicals onto a modern landscape with modern characters going through a life where the dreams don’t always match up the old movies.”
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) was an inspiration for the aesthetic of La La Land as well as classics such as Top Hat (Sandrich, 1935) and Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen (1952).
Art can also be shown to influence the aesthetic through the pastel colours and the soft lighting with the street lamps. Chazelle describes his process to achieve this aesthetic in the New York Times:
“Use real LA, do thinks in-camera without digital effects, but try to find those moments where real life looks as fake as possible.”
In the final scene where the viewer is shown what their relationship could’ve been like it has a very different aesthetic which is very expressionist and breaks from the realism by using imaginative imagery, techniques and theatrical sets. It takes clear inspiration from films such as ‘An American in Paris’ (Minelli, 1951).
Sound helps to contribute towards the aesthetic in La La Land. Chazelle has a clear idea of how La La Land should sound and references Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973) and Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1997) to sound editors in order to capture the sounds of the bustling city.
Representations –
Hollywood is known for not representing diverse social groups as much as independent films. This is present in La La Land as there is a lack of diversity of the crew and filmmakers behind the camera which therefore creates a lack of diversity in the overall product.
Age –
Both characters are a similar age which is relevant as they’re both going through a similar crisis in life surrounding their career. Both characters are split between their career aspirations and their relationships which is significant because of their age. This is shown when Mia says “you change your dreams and then you grow up.”
This idea of growing is present throughout the film and links to the representation of their age as they’re at a stage in their life where they have to face reality and accept that their dreams are simply aspirations. This is clear as Sebastian considers giving up his dreams to play keyboard for The Messengers and claims that Mia wanted him to “be in a band and have a steady job.”
The film originally casted Emma Watson and Miles Teller but then instead chose Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as they’re slightly older showing that these aren’t new aspirations but ones they’ve been striving towards for a large section of their life.
Gender –
Gender is represented poorly throughout the film with critics pointing out that Mia is a passive character who’s decisions are motivated by Sebastian. This is clear as Sebastian comes to find Mia at the coffee shop, persuades her to put on the one woman shown and attends the audition which results in the launch of her career. Mia is also presented as an audience member at Sebastian’s performance showing her as passive but Sebastian didn’t attend Mia’s performance.
However, it’s clear that Mia leads the narrative and has a more central role than Sebastian as the audience follows Mia for the first couple of scenes before Sebastian is properly introduced and it’s Mia that is the most successful at the end. Additionally, it could be argued that the audience is made to sympathise more with Mia throughout the film due to Sebastian’s mistakes. This is evident from the start with Sebastian’s introduction as he’s impolite by beeping his horn and pushes her out the way in the bar.
Sebastian’s masculinity is a clear theme throughout the film which ties in with his insecurities. This is present at the start of the film with the ‘stand off’ between him and his employer before realising that he’s been fired and needs the job. At this point it’s clear that the sense of masculinity, which was present within Sebastian’s personality, dissipates as he realises the situation is out of his control and he then begs for his job back.
This emasculation is shown later in the film as he states “he doesn’t tell me what to,” in regards to the singer telling him to return to the stage in which he replies “I know I let him,” showing Sebastian’s attempts at trying to present himself as being masculine despite his clear lack of authority. This is later shown as he plays for The Messengers instead of pursuing his aspirations so that he can make money in order to present himself as the ‘masculine provider.’
Ethnicity –
There is a clear under-representation of the African-American and Hispanic community throughout the film. This is because the film relies of nostalgia and looking back at the past and because of this there’s a lack of ethnic roles in order to fit with the theme. Samuel Earl in 2017 said “Forget about the future, they say, the past is now the place to be – but not everyone is invited,” showing the lack of diversity throughout La La Land. He also stated “To turn back the clock, others must be turned out.”
In the opening sequence there are many different minorities represented but in terms of main characters this can shown to be limited. LA is an extremely diverse city and for the most part this is not demonstrated throughout the film. Most of the ethnic roles are ‘peripheral characters.’
The one major role from a black actor is Keith who is played by John Legend. His role can be critiqued as he’s shown to have sold out his roots of jazz music (a genre of music with black origins) to become a successful pop musician and it’s instead left to a white musician (Sebastian) to save the pure roots of jazz.
However, these roots can be shown as there are many black performances and black people dancing in the crowd which is a successful representation of their jazz origins however, the camera and lighting is shown to still favour the protagonists, Mia and Sebastian in these scenes.
Spectatorship –
It’s often been questioned whether film audiences are homogenous or have identical responses to the narrative as they are individual spectators. Active spectator theory shows that spectators interact with their personal ideologies.
The ‘magic bullet theory’ and the ‘hypodermic needle model’ is an important concept in regards to La La Land due to the climate in which it was made; ‘In a modern world facing numerous conflicts and injustices.’ Because of this, people watch films for a sense of escapism from reality.
This idea of the audience having a unified response has been questioned since these theories arose, however, it’s still clear that the audience often have a particular response which is dictated by the director. This is shown from the score, close-ups and editing used in La La Land in order to create a certain response from the audience.
Decisions on the narrative are essential in order have an impact on the viewer. This can be done by using binary oppositions in order to encourage the audience to become invested and take the side of the protagonist. Using character tropes and archetypes are an effect way of doing this.
It’s important that the filmmaker ensures that the audience is lost in the narrative of the story and isn’t reminded that they’re watching a film. It can be argued that the audience of La La Land never fully immerses the viewer as they’re constantly reminded that they’re watching a film as it’s too “referential and self-consciously cinematic to transport its audience out of their seats into another specific place.” (Anna Leszkiewicz, in the New Statesman).
The references to art and classical films may encourage the audience to focus on this instead of being ’emotionally involved in the narrative.’
Films are made with the intention of showing them in cinemas. this used to be the inly way films were shown but this has changed due technological advancements. The immersive experience of cinema and IMAX varies dramatically to watching a film on a lap top or tablet. In these situations spectators may often pause films and therefore interuppt the narrative showing the context in which spectators view the film effects how they perceive it.
Demographic factors have a large impact on how the viewer spectates the film. This can depend on factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic background and sexuality.
Films with larger budgets try to appeal to as many people as possible to maximise profits. To achieve this, large amounts of audience research is done in pre-production in order to make sure the film appeals to the maximum number of people. This can be in forms such as surveys, focus groups and test screening. Test screening allows for films to be re-edited to fit with the viewers expectations. For this to be most effective, the people invited are from diverse social groups so that the filmmakers can see who it’s going to appeal to most and where to target their marketing campaigns for advertising. This therefore means that the viewer demographic has an important role in determining these responses as a spectator. This could be because people find it easier to relate to people similar to themselves.
Films are often produced for mass consumption which have high budgets and therefore need large audience in order to generate profit.
Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model explains why people may interpret films differently as they’re questioning what the filmmaker is trying to impress on them. He argued that there are 3 possible ways of decoding.
Dominant reading: spectators interpret the meaning of the film as the filmmaker intended. They passively accept what the film shows them.
Negotiated meaning: viewers agree on some of the messages in the film but question others.
Oppositional reading: the spectator rejects the films messages although they do understand them.
Hall’s model works easier with other forms of media as films are sometimes too complex and many interpretations are offered by the filmmaker.
The preferred reading of La La Land is an exploration of love between the characters with themes of the American dream and the conflict between these ideas. The audience is impressed by the artistic elements used in the film.
The negotiated reading is that the viewer is impressed by the characters striving towards their dreams but unimpressed by their unbalanced and problematic relationship.
An oppositional reading could be that the viewer sees Sebastian’s obsession with jazz self-indulgent and regressive.
Large block busters often have a clear preferred readings with close ended narratives and characters with unambiguous motivation.
Ideology –
It may be assumed that a mainstream Hollywood film such as La La Land would present dominant ideologies from a contemporary American society dominated by middle class white men with minority and female characters playing secondary roles. Heterosexual relationships will dominate the films narrative with a focus of fulfilment of employment, relationships and the family unit.
It can be argued that La La Land does this due to the focus on their relationship and the American dream. Their aspirations can be shown as ambiguous throughout the film although their main goals are clear. The equality of opportunity is a clear ideology shown throughout the film which is not representative of reality.
There’s a clear feminist interpretation of La La Land due to Sebastian playing a pivotal role in Mia’s life as he helps her achieve success by overcoming fear, doubt and insecurities. He also doesn’t attend her show despite her being at his shows, supporting him. This plays into the concept of men being the characters that actively drive the narrative and women being passive.
However, another feminist approach is to view Mia at the centre of the narrative due to techniques employed by Chazelle. In the first couple of scenes the spectator follows Mia rather than Sebastian. By the time Sebastian is re-introduced the audience has been told about Mia’s ambitions and has sympathised with her due to her failed auditions.
Anna Leszkiewutz views Mia as the central role as she says that we mostly see Sebastian perform when Mia is watching and when he does perform the focus is still on Mia and we see her reactions to the music. After the audience has caught up with Sebastian’s narrative both Mia and Sebastian look at each other at the same time, subverting Mulvey’s notion on the male gaze as both gazes are equal.
The most fantastical scenes in the film are all Mia’s auditions and performances. The audience is also shown Mia writing and auditioning without Sebastian showing her independence. Both the opening and closing of the film has a focus on Mia.
Mia achieves her ambitions of the ‘American Dream’ as she becomes a successful actress, is in a loving relationship and has a family. Although Sebastian achieves his ambitions he’s portrayed as lonely as Mia and her new partner leave the jazz club together.
James Porcher's Film Studies Blog 