La La Land
Short description
La La Land follows Mia, an aspiring actress who works as a barista between auditions, and Sebastian, a jazz pianist who earns a living playing in bars and clubs around Los Angeles. The two meet and become a couple, each encouraging the other's ambitions even as their careers begin to pull them in different directions. As opportunities arrive for both, the choices they make put pressure on the relationship they have built.
Damien Chazelle wrote and directed the film, his third directorial feature after the two Whiplash entries of 2013 and 2014, with Gary Gilbert, Marc Platt and Jordan Horowitz producing. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as Sebastian and Mia, with John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, Finn Wittrock and Callie Hernandez among the supporting cast. The production carried a budget of 30 million USD.
Released in December 2016, the film became a major commercial success, earning 522 million USD worldwide, a strong return on its modest budget. It holds an 8/10 rating on IMDb from 755,000 votes and a 7.9/10 on TMDB from 18,502 votes. A film critics' rating of 8.7/10 from 469 reviews is higher than both audience scores, indicating that critics responded to the film more warmly than viewers did.
What's left behind the scenes
- To inspire the cast and crew and set a specific tone during the film's creation, they were shown several films: "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), "The Circus" (1935), "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964), "Swing Time" (1936), "The Vagabond Bus" (1953), "The Girls of Rochefort" (1967), and even "8½" (1963), which served as inspiration for the opening musical number in Traffic.
- Emma Stone was cast in the role partly due to her work in the 2014 Broadway musical "Cabaret".
- The project features two Oscar winners, J.K. Simmons and John Legend, as well as two Oscar nominees, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
- Rumor has it that the original lead candidate, Miles Teller, ultimately did not make the cut due to his performance in the critically panned reboot of "Fantastic Four" (2015).
- The film's title has a double meaning. La La Land is not only a nickname for Los Angeles, where the events unfold, but also an idiomatic expression meaning "escaping from harsh reality into a land of dreams and fantasies," which conveys the film’s main theme.
- Filming took place over eight weeks during the summer of 2015.
- In preparation for their roles, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone took ballroom dancing and tap lessons.
- The film was shot in CinemaScope (a widescreen anamorphic cinematic system) to create the atmosphere of Hollywood's Golden Age musicals.
- At the 33rd minute, Ryan Gosling recreates a scene featuring Gene Kelly from the 1952 film "Singin' in the Rain".
- According to costume designer Mary Zophres, her favorite piece of clothing was the white dress worn by Emma Stone towards the end of the film.
- According to composer Justin Hurwitz, all the piano parts in the film were initially recorded by pianist Randy Kerber during pre-production. After that, Ryan Gosling took piano lessons for two hours a day, six days a week, memorizing the music. By the time filming began, Gosling could play all the parts shown in the film without using a double or special effects.
- The opening musical number, Traffic, was filmed over three weekends on a real freeway in Los Angeles. Multiple cameras were used to create the impression that the scene was shot in a single take.
- This is the third joint film starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. The actors previously appeared together in "Crazy, Stupid, Love." (2011) and "Gangster Squad" (2013).
- At one stage of the project's development, Miles Teller, who had worked with Damien Chazelle on his previous project, "Whiplash" (2013), and Emma Watson were slated to star.
- The scene of the audition, where the casting director interrupts Mia during a very focused and emotional performance to answer the phone, was based on a real-life audition experience of Ryan Gosling.
- Screenwriter and director Damien Chazelle conceived the idea for the film back in 2010, but no studio was willing to invest in a musical based on the original concept.
- This is the second joint film featuring Finn Wittrock and Ryan Gosling. The actors also appeared together in "The Big Short" (2015).
- The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2016.
- Prior to this film, J.K. Simmons and director Damien Chazelle had already collaborated on the short film "Whiplash" (2012) and its feature-length remake "Whiplash" (2013).
- Regarding Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the director said that they reminded him of a classic Hollywood couple more than anyone else in modern cinema.
- Emma Watson turned down the role of Mia due to her commitment to filming "Beauty and the Beast" (2017), and Ryan Gosling refused the role of the Beast in that film in order to appear in this one. Coincidentally, both films are musicals.
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