La La Land: Form Equals Function

[spb_text_block title="PODCAST - La La Land: Form = Function" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] La La Land: Form = Function By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="La La Land" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] La La Land: Form Equals Function They say if you want to get along with your friends, there are two things you should avoid discussing: politics, and La La Land.   But if you want to have an interesting discussion about what the future of storytelling is going to look like, these are exactly the things you want to talk about. So, after breaking the first rule last week with a political podcast, I’m going to break the second one this week by talking about La La Land. It’s hard to remember a movie as polarizing as La La Land for both audiences and critics. And what’s interesting is that the split didn’t happen just along “I love Musicals” or “I hate Musicals” lines. La La Land is tied with All About Eve and Titanic for the most Oscar Nominations in history. More than Gone With The Wind. More than Casablanca. More than The Godfather. More than Citizen Kane. Compared to film musicals to which it pays homage, it has 2 more nominations than My Fair Lady, 6 more than An American in Paris, 9 more than The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 11 more than Funny Face and Sweet Charity, and 12 more than Singin’ in the Rain, which the American Film Institute considers the greatest musical ever made. Yet despite its tremendous crossover appeal among audiences and critics on both sides of the “I Love Musicals” and “I hate Musicals” lines, La La Land seems to have an equal ability to inspire rage in its audiences. Critic Kyle Smith of the NY Post recently wrote an article entitled Academy Embarrasses Itself With 14 La La Land Nominations. Jazz artists have turned up their noses at Ryan Gosling’s character, Sebastian’s, conservative notions of what Jazz should be. Others have dismissed the idea of a jazz movie devoid of politics, and starring a white guy as the standard bearer of Jazz tradition, as anywhere from trifling to downright troubling, especially considering the involvement of many of Jazz’s most famous artists, such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, in the civil rights movement. Audiences have complained about everything from the arc the relationship of Emma Stone’s and Ryan Gosling’s characters, to the quality of the score and their ability to sing and dance it. And some people just downright hated it. Which all goes to show that if you want to do something great, you’re going to have to piss some people off. That’s not to say that I actually liked La La Land. Personally, though I was deeply moved by the ending, I didn’t really enjoy the journey that got me there. I found its homages to great musicals more derivative than nostalgic. I found Mia’s uncompromising tear down of Sebastian for “not pursuing his dreams” in the midst of his first step toward artistic success, petty, unnecessary, and downright un-true to her character (especially considering where she was in her own artistic career). It made me not care so much if they ended up together. I struggled with the unbalanced feeling the movie gave me, as it abandoned the musical structure it established in the first act in favor of a more traditional dramatic format later on. And, spoiler ahead… In our modern world of affordable travel and long distance relationships, I still can’t for the life of me figure out what made it necessary for these two to undergo their final break up at the point they did, other than an aversion to Skype and Expedia. As Sebastian watches a live jazz performance with Mia, he explains to her: “It’s conflict, it’s compromise, and it’s very, very exciting.”