![]() ![]() But Sebastian-who has just been fired for straying from the approved holiday song list-brusquely shoulders past her on his way out the door. Following a soulless party in “one of those big glass houses” in the hills (though one enlivened by another spontaneous musical number), Mia stumbles upon Sebastian playing piano in a restaurant and is entranced. Nor is this the last time the duo will meet-uncute. As he pulls around her, she gives him the finger. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), stuck behind her in his Buick convertible-this being Los Angeles, cars define character-honks angrily. A distracted Mia (Emma Stone) is still stopped in her Prius, practicing lines for an audition. The music stops, the spontaneous revelers return to their cars, and traffic begins to move. The musical number continues expanding until dozens of commuters are on the roofs and hoods of their cars, singing, dancing, performing flips and skateboard tricks, and celebrating, en masse, “Another Day of Sun.”Īnd then it’s over, as quickly as it began. ![]() She is followed by another driver, and another. A woman in a battered Chevy begins singing to herself and steps out of her vehicle. Yet merge they do, thanks to Chazelle’s cinematic magic. Intentionally or not, it’s a perfect dramatization of the much-derided opening line of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero: “People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.” Cars are crammed motionless, bumper to bumper, with each occupant listening to his or her own music. Song and color are evident from the very first scene, which opens with a traffic jam on the L.A. Demy memorably described Umbrellas as “a film in color and song,” and one would be hard pressed to find a phrase better suited to La La Land. ![]() Of the many inspirations for La La Land-Chazelle clearly knows his An American in Paris and his Annie Hall, too-none echo so loudly as Jacques Demy’s 1964 masterpiece, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg ( The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), as well as its lesser sibling, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. ![]()
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