Three months are in and we’re already talking about Musicals. Who doesn’t love a good Musical? Singing in the Rain, The Sound of Music, The Greatest Showman, and so many other films are considered classics in the genre. Back in the dawn of the twentieth century, there were bucket loads of Musicals, and not all of them were Disney based.
Nowadays there’s less of them. Disney still works their magic with updates to classic animated Musical hits like Beauty and the Beast and with new hits such as Frozen, but other studios have stayed clear of the genre. Luckily, filmmaker Damien Chazelle never forgot his love of Musicals and created an ode to the genre with the film La La Land. This film encapsulates everything a Musical should be and that’s why I’m going to go through three of my favourite shots in the film.
This shot has become so iconic now, even though the film is only a few years old, but the colours, the simplicity, the choreography, and the acting all stand out as nearly perfect. The backdrop of Los Angeles in the background gives it that classic look that Damien Chazelle recognised from early classic Musicals set in the City of Angels.
The colour purple is a common colour throughout the film, a colour of unique vibrancy and highlights the fantasy side of the city. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have perfect chemistry as a couple who are falling in love and love is all that this scene represents.
Going back to what I said previously, the colour purple is used a lot in the film and it works in a lot of settings. Whether it is joy, sadness or melancholy. This sequence in the film is where Ryan Gosling’s character, Sebastian, plays City of Stars for the first time for Emma Stone’s Mia. The scene is subtle, nothing too loud but instead braces the tenderness of the love between them. The cinematography throughout the film highlights a lot of symmetry which is also shown here, showing a clear balance of light and darkness.
The scene in the film where they dance in the observatory is truly mesmerizing and has that instantly recognisable score which captivates us from start to finish. The scene has very little special effects and instead goes old school with large set pieces created for the dance sequence. It’s towards the end of the sequence where Mia and Sebastian dance along to the music with a starry background reflected into the water beneath their feet, giving the illusion that they are literally dancing with the stars of Hollywood.
The film La La Land is absolutely beautiful from start to finish and it was really hard thinking of the shots to use in today’s blog, but if you love Musicals and you have for some strange reason not seen this film yet then I have some advice to you. Go see it and fall in love with it, much like Mia and Sebastian.
Thank you for coming along and reading, but not singing, to my blog today. I’ll be back again next month with another blog in the Shot-by-Shot series.
Thanks for reading today's blog!
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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