Having been fond of musicals during his time as a drummer, Chazelle first conceptualized the film alongside Justin Hurwitz while attending Harvard University together. After moving to Los Angeles in 2010, Chazelle penned the script but did not find a studio willing to finance the production without changes to his design. After the success of his film Whiplash (2014), the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment. Miles Teller and Emma Watson were originally in talks to star, but after both dropped out, Gosling and Stone were cast. Filming took place in Los Angeles between August and September 2015, with the film's score composed by Hurwitz, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the dance choreography by Mandy Moore.
La La Land premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2016, and was released theatrically in the United States on December 9, by Lionsgate. The film emerged as a major commercial success, grossing $472million worldwide on a budget of $30million, and received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for Chazelle's direction and screenplay, the performances of Gosling and Stone, the score, musical numbers, cinematography, visualstyle, costumes and production design. It went on to receive numerous accolades, including winning a record seven awards at the 74th Golden Globe Awards and received eleven nominations at the 70th British Academy Film Awards, winning five, including Best Film. The film also received a record-tying fourteen nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, winning in six categories including Best Director and Best Actress (Stone). In the former category, Chazelle became the youngest winner at age 32. It has since been regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s and the 21st century, and as one of the best musical and romantic films of all time.[a]As of February2023[update], a stage musical adaptation is in the works.[14]
Plot
While stuck in Los Angeles traffic, Sebastian "Seb" Wilder has a moment of road rage directed at aspiring actress Mia Dolan. After a hard day at work, Mia's next audition goes awry because the casting director takes a phone call during an emotional scene. That night, her roommates take her to a lavish party in the Hollywood Hills, promising her that someone in the crowd could jump-start her career. After her car is towed, she walks home in disappointment.
During a gig at a restaurant, Seb slips into jazz improvisation despite the owner's warning to only play traditional Christmas pieces. Mia hears him playing as she passes by. Moved, she enters the restaurant and observes Seb being fired for disobedience. Mia attempts to compliment him as he storms out, but he brushes by her. Months later, she runs into Seb at a party where he plays in a 1980s pop cover band. Mia makes Seb play "I Ran" for her. After the gig, they walk to their cars and–despite an obvious chemistry–lament wasting a lovely night on each other.
Seb arrives at Mia's workplace, and she shows him around the Warner Bros. backlot, where she works as a barista, while expressing her passion for acting. He takes her to a jazz club, describing his passion for jazz and his desire to open his own club. Seb invites Mia to a screening of Rebel Without a Cause and she accepts, forgetting a date with her boyfriend. Bored with the latter date, she rushes to the theater and finds Seb as the film begins. When the screening is interrupted by a projector malfunction, Seb and Mia spend the rest of the evening together with a romantic visit to the Griffith Observatory.
After more failed auditions, Mia decides, with Seb's encouragement, to write a one-woman play. Seb begins to perform regularly at a jazz club, and the two of them eventually move in together. A former bandmate of Seb invites him to be the keyboardist in a new jazz fusion band, which will give him a steady income. Although dismayed by the band's pop style, Seb signs on after hearing Mia trying to convince her mother that he is working on his career. The band finds success, but Mia knows their music is not the type of music Seb wants to perform.
During the band's first tour, Seb and Mia argue: she accuses him of abandoning his dreams, while he claims that she liked him more when he was unsuccessful because it made her feel better about herself. Two weeks later, Seb misses Mia's play because of a photoshoot he had forgotten about. The play fails, very few people attend, and Mia overhears dismissive comments about her performance. Unable to forgive him for missing her play and their previous argument, Mia returns to her hometown of Boulder City, Nevada.
Seb receives a phone call from a prominent casting director who attended Mia's play, inviting her to audition for an upcoming film. Knowing that this could be her big break, he drives in a hurry to Boulder City. He finds her house since he remembered that she lived across the street from the library, the library where she fell in love with acting. Seb persuades her to attend, and she reluctantly agrees to go.
The next morning, Seb picks her up, and Mia greets him with a coffee. During the audition, Mia is asked to tell a story. In response, she talks about how her aunt, a one-time stage actress who eventually died from alcoholism, inspired her to chase her dreams. Confident the audition was a success, Seb encourages Mia to devote herself to acting. The two then recognize that they will always love each other despite what may come for their relationship.
Five years later, Mia is a famous actress and married to a different man, with whom she has a daughter. She is living a happy life. That night, the couple stumble upon a jazz bar. Recognizing the logo she had once designed, Mia realizes that Seb has opened his own jazz club. Seb notices Mia in the crowd and begins to play their love theme on the piano. The two imagine their happy life together had their relationship thrived along with their careers, then acknowledge each other with a silent exchange of smiles and go their separate ways.
Cast
Ryan Gosling as Sebastian "Seb" Wilder, a musician who wants to own his own jazz club
Emma Stone as Amelia "Mia" Dolan, an actress whose aunt inspired her to follow her dreams
John Legend as Keith, Seb's friend and musician who invites him to join his band
J. K. Simmons as Bill, the manager of the restaurant where Seb worked and from where he is fired
As a drummer, Chazelle has a predilection for musical films.[15] He wrote the screenplay for La La Land in 2010, when the film industry seemed out of reach for him.[16] His idea was "to take the old musical but ground it in real life where things don't always exactly work out,"[15] and to salute creative people who move to Los Angeles to chase their dreams.[17] He conceived the film when he was a student at Harvard University with his classmate Justin Hurwitz. The two explored the concept in their senior thesis through a low-budget musical about a Boston jazz musician, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench.[18][19] Chazelle was moved by the tradition of 1920s "city symphony" films, such as Manhatta (1921) and Man with a Movie Camera (1929), that paid tribute to cities.[20] After graduating, both moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and continued writing the script, but made a few modifications, such as altering the location to Los Angeles instead of Boston.[18]
Rather than trying to match L.A. to the charms of Paris or San Francisco, he focused on the qualities that make the city distinctive: the traffic, the sprawl, and the skylines.[20] The style and tone of the film were inspired by Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, especially the latter, which was more dance and jazz-oriented.[21] The film also makes visual allusions to Hollywood classics such as Broadway Melody of 1940,Singin' in the Rain,The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris.[22] About An American in Paris, Chazelle commented: "That's a movie that we just pillaged. It's an awesome example of how daring some of those old musicals really were."[23] It shares some character development and themes with Chazelle's previous musical work, Whiplash; Chazelle said:
"They're both about the struggle of being an artist and reconciling your dreams with the need to be human. La La Land is just much less angry about it."[24]
He said that both films reflect his own experiences as a filmmaker working his way up the Hollywood ladder.[17]La La Land in particular is inspired by his experience of moving from the East Coast with preconceived notions of what L.A. would be like, "that it was all just strip malls and freeways".[20]
Chazelle was unable to produce the film for years as no studio was willing to finance an original contemporary musical with no familiar songs. It is also a jazz musical, which The Hollywood Reporter called an "extinct genre". He believed that since he and Hurwitz were unknown at that time, it might have made financiers dubious about the project's potential.[25][18] Gosling's character Sebastian holds a view of the jazz of the past being superior. According to an article by Anthony Carew, Chazelle wrote this character trait as a reflection of "[his] own relationship with the past and with jazz, too".[26] Chazelle found producers through friends who introduced him to Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz. With the two producers on board, the script went to Focus Features at a budget of around $1 million. The studio demanded alterations: the male lead was asked to be changed from a jazz pianist to a rock musician, the complicated opening number had to be altered, and the story's bittersweet ending needed to be dropped. Chazelle scrapped the project and moved on.[18]
Chazelle later wrote Whiplash, which was an easier concept to sell and a less risky investment.[27] After Whiplash was well received by critics upon its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in January, Chazelle continued his efforts to bring La La Land to the big screen.[18] A year later, when Whiplash earned five Oscar nominations at the 87th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and grossed nearly $50 million worldwide off a $3.3 million production budget, Chazelle and his project began to attract attention from studios.[25]
Five years after Chazelle wrote the script,[28]Summit Entertainment and Black Label Media, along with producer Marc Platt, agreed to invest in La La Land and distribute it. They had been impressed by the critical and commercial success of Whiplash.[17] Lionsgate's Patrick Wachsberger, who previously had worked on the Step Up franchise, pushed Chazelle to increase the film's budget since he felt high-quality musicals could not be made cheaply.[29]
Casting
Miles Teller and Emma Watson were originally slated to star in the leading roles. Watson dropped out to honor her commitments to Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast remake (2017), while Teller exited via long contract negotiations.[16] Coincidentally, Gosling turned down the Beast role in Beauty and the Beast in favor of La La Land.[30] Chazelle subsequently decided to make his characters somewhat older, with experience in struggling to make their dreams, rather than younger newcomers just arriving in Los Angeles.[18]
Emma Stone plays Mia, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles.[25] Stone has loved musicals since she saw Les Misérables when she was eight years old. She said "bursting into song has always been a real dream of mine", and her favorite film is the 1931 Charlie Chaplin romantic comedy City Lights.[25][15] She studied pom dancing as a child, with a year of ballet.[25] She moved to Hollywood with her mother at age fifteen to pursue a career, and struggled constantly to get an audition during her first year. When she did, she often was turned away after singing or saying just one line.[31] Stone drew from her own experiences for her character of Mia, and some were added into the film.[24]
Ryan Gosling learned tap dancing and piano for his role.
She met Chazelle in 2014 while she was making her Broadway debut in Cabaret. Chazelle and Hurwitz saw her perform on a night when the actress had a cold.[25][32] She met with Chazelle at Brooklyn Diner in New York City, where the director outlined his vision for the planned film.[33] Stone gained confidence from performing in Cabaret to handle the demands of the film.[33] In preparation for her role, Stone watched some of the musical movies that inspired Chazelle, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers collaborations.[28] Stone accepted the offer because Chazelle was so passionate about the project.[33]
Ryan Gosling plays Sebastian, a jazz pianist.[25] Like Stone, Gosling drew from his own experiences as an aspiring artist. One incident was used for Mia. Gosling was performing a crying scene in an audition and the casting director took a phone call during it, talking about her lunch plans while he was emoting.[25][31][34] Chazelle met with Gosling when he was about to begin filming for The Big Short.[18]
The film was choreographed by Mandy Moore. Rehearsals took place at a production office in Atwater Village, Los Angeles over the span of three to four months, beginning in May 2015. Gosling practiced piano in one room, Stone worked with Moore in another, and costume designer Mary Zophres had her own corner of the complex.[25][18] Gosling, with no previous experience, had to learn how to play the piano; no hand models were used.[42] Moore emphasized working on emotion rather than technique, which Stone said was key when they filmed the "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for the parked car).[25] To help his cast and crew get their creative mode flowing, Chazelle held screenings on the soundstages every Friday night of classical films that had inspired him for the film, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Singin' in the Rain, Top Hat, and Boogie Nights.[18]
Filming
From the beginning, Chazelle wanted the film's musical numbers to be filmed "head to toe" and performed in a single take, like those of the 1930s works of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.[33] He also wanted the film to emulate the widescreen, CinemaScope look of 1950s musicals such as It's Always Fair Weather. Consequently, the movie was shot on celluloid 4-perf Super 35mm film (not digitally) with Panavision anamorphic lenses in CinemaScope's 2.55:1 aspect ratio, but not in true CinemaScope as that technology is no longer available.[43][44][45][46]
The opening pre-credits sequence was the first to be shot,[18] and was filmed on a closed-off portion of two carpool direct connector ramps of the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, connecting the I-105 Carpool Lane to the I-110 Express Lanes, leading to Downtown Los Angeles. It was filmed in a span of two days, and required more than 100 dancers.[17][51] For this particular scene, Chazelle wanted to give a sense of how vast the city is.[20] The scene was originally planned for a stretch of ground-level highway, until Chazelle decided to shoot it in the 105–110 interchange, which arcs 100 feet (30m) in the air. Production designer David Wasco said, "I thought somebody was going to fall off and get killed." Not every portion of the highway was blocked.[18] Chazelle compared the scene to the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (1939).[18]
The Angels Flight (pictured), which was shut down for about four years, including at the time of the filming, was re-opened for a single day exclusively for the film to shoot a scene.
Chazelle scouted for "old L.A." locations that were in ruins, or were perhaps razed. One such example was the use of the Angels Flight trolley, built in 1901. The funicular had been closed in 2013 after a derailment. Attempts were made to repair and re-open the railway, but to no avail. However, the production team was able to secure permission to use it for a day. Chazelle and his crew then arranged to have it run for shooting (it was re-opened to the public in 2017).[20] Mia works at a coffee shop on the Warner Bros. studio lot; Chazelle considered studio lots to be "monuments" of Hollywood. Production designer Wasco created numerous fake old film posters. Chazelle occasionally created names for them, deciding to use the title of his first feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009) for one poster, which reimagines it as a 1930s musical.[20]
The now-iconic[52] six-minute-long "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for the parked car) had to be completed during the brief "magic hour" moment at sunset. It took eight takes and two days to shoot it.[25] When Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone finally nailed it, "everybody just exploded," Stone said.[33] Since Gosling and Stone were not primarily dancers, the two made a number of mistakes, especially during long uninterrupted single-take musical numbers. However, Chazelle was very sympathetic towards them, understanding their lack of experience and not minding their errors.[28] While shooting Sebastian and Mia's first dance together, Stone stumbled over the back of a bench, but picked right up and kept on going with the scene.[28] In 2024, Gosling reflected on the filming of this scene, wishing he can re-film it to correct the positioning of his hand in the famous still frame from the sequence that was used throughout the film's marketing, saying that "It just killed the energy that way ... It was all leading to what? A lazy ... I call it La La Hand."[53]
Chazelle said that the romantic dinner that Sebastian prepared for Mia was "one of the scenes that I think I wrote and rewrote and rewrote more than any other in the script".[54] Gosling and Stone also helped create the dialogue of the scene to get it to be one of the more realistic scenes in a film filled with fantasy and fantastical elements.[54]
Chazelle spent nearly a year editing the film with editor Tom Cross, as the two were primarily concerned with getting the tone right.[18]
The songs and score for La La Land were composed and orchestrated by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's Harvard University classmate, who also worked on his two prior films.[25] The lyrics were written by Pasek and Paul,[33] except for "Start a Fire", which was written by John Legend, Hurwitz, Marius de Vries and Angelique Cinelu.[55] A soundtrack album was released on December 9, 2016, by Interscope Records, featuring selections from Hurwitz's score and songs performed by the cast.[55]
La La Land was originally set for a July 15, 2016, release;[62] however, in March 2016, it was announced the film would be given a limited release starting December 2, 2016, before expanding on December 16, 2016.[63] Chazelle stated that the change was because he felt that the release date was not right for the context of the film, and because he wanted to have a slow rollout beginning with the early fall film festivals.[24] The limited release was later moved back a week to December 9, 2016, with the wide release still being planned for December 16, 2016.[64] Lionsgate opened the film in five locations on December 9, 2016, and expanded it to about 200 theaters on December 16, 2016, before going nationwide on December 25, 2016. The film went fully wide on January 6, 2017,[50] with a release into select IMAX theaters a week later.[65]
La La Land was released in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2017.[66] The film was released in the Netherlands on December 22, 2016, and in Australia on December 26, with the rest of the territories planned for a release from mid-January 2017.[67]
La La Land grossed $151.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $320.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $472 million, against a production budget of $30 million.[69]Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $68.25 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film, making it one of the top 20 most profitable releases of 2016.[70] This is Ryan Gosling's second highest-grossing film, as it was displaced by Barbie in 2023.[71]
La La Land began its theatrical release with a limited release in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York City on December 9. It made $881,107 in its opening weekend, giving the film a per-theater average of $176,221, the best average of the year.[72][73][74] In its second week of limited release, the film expanded to 200 theaters and grossed $4.1 million, finishing seventh at the box-office. It was an increase of 366% from the previous week and good for a per-theater of $20,510.[75] The following week, the film had its wide expansion to 734 theaters, grossing $5.8 million for the weekend (including $4 million on Christmas Day and $9.2 million over the four days), and finishing eighth at the box-office.[76] On January 6, 2017, the weekend of the Golden Globes, the film expanded to 1,515 theaters and grossed $10 million over the weekend, finishing fifth at the box-office.[77] In its sixth week of release, the film grossed $14.5 million (a total of $16.9 million over the four-day weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day), finishing second at the box-office behind Hidden Figures.[78] After receiving its 14 Oscar nominations, the film expanded to 3,136 theaters on January 27, 2017 (an increase of 1,271 from the week before) and grossed $12.1 million (up 43% from its previous week's $8.4 million).[79] During the weekend of February 24–26 (the weekend of the Academy Awards) the film grossed $4.6 million, exactly the same amount it grossed the previous weekend.[80] The next week, following its six Oscar wins, the film grossed $3 million.[81]
La La Land received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards Chazelle's direction and screenplay, cinematography, music, the performances of Gosling and Stone and their chemistry.[82][83][84][85] The review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 91% based on 470 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "La La Land breathes new life into a bygone genre with thrillingly assured direction, powerful performances, and an irresistible excess of heart."[86] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[87] It was the third- and sixth-highest scoring film released in 2016 on each respective site.[88][89] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale,[90] while PostTrak reported audiences gave an 81% overall positive score and a 93% "definite recommend".[78]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave La La Land four stars out of four, describing it as "a hot miracle" and complimenting its musical numbers, particularly the opening scene. He went on to name it his favorite movie of the year.[91]Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune similarly lauded the opening sequence, in addition to highlighting Stone's performance, stating "she's reason enough to see La La Land." Despite being less enthusiastic about Gosling's dancing and the film's middle section, Phillips nevertheless gave the film four out of four stars, declaring it "the year's most seriously pleasurable entertainment".[92]A.O. Scott of The New York Times praised the film, stating that it "succeeds both as a fizzy fantasy and a hard-headed fable, a romantic comedy and a showbiz melodrama, a work of sublime artifice and touching authenticity".[93]Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded the film five out of five stars, describing it as "a sun-drenched musical masterpiece."[94] Tom Charity of Sight & Sound stated, "Chazelle has crafted that rare thing, a genuinely romantic comedy, and as well, a rhapsody in blue, red, yellow and green."[95] Writing for The Boston Globe, Ty Burr summarized the effectiveness of the film to relate to audiences stating: "...the movie traffics in the bittersweet happiness of treasuring things that are vanishing, like the unrealized future imagined in the climactic dance number, or those inky, star-filled dance floors that go on forever in old movies, or Hollywood musicals themselves. Or jazz: Sebastian has an early moment at a nightclub where he passionately sticks up for the music he loves. 'It's dying on the vine,' he says. 'And the world says 'Let it die. It had its time.' Well, not on my watch.' In that scene, he speaks for the director. By the end of La La Land, he's speaking for all of us."[96]
La La Land's competition for awards and critical attention with the African-American film Moonlight shortly after the election of Donald Trump sharpened the attention on questions of racial sensitivity and unexamined white privilege in the characters of film. While accolades from audiences and critics grew, the film received backlash for what some considered a disproportional amount of praise.[97]Saturday Night Live lampooned the fervor over the film with a sketch about a man arrested for thinking it was "decent... but also boring."[98] The film was criticized by some for its treatment of race and jazz. Kelly Lawler of USA Today noted that Gosling's character has been referred to as a "white savior" by some critics, for "his quest (and eventual success) to save the traditionally black musical genre from extinction, seemingly the only person who can accomplish such a goal."[99] The sentiment was also expressed by Ruby Lott-Lavigna of Wired,[100] Anna Silman of New York,[101] and Ira Madison III of MTV News.[102]Rex Reed of the New York Observer also took aim at the film's intention to emulate the MGM musical classics, writing that "the old-fashioned screenplay, by the ambitious writer-director Damien Chazelle, reeks of mothballs", and that "the movie sags badly in the middle, like a worn-out mattress that needs new springs".[103] The South China Morning Post remarked that aside from its racial treatment of jazz, much of the public criticism was towards the film being "a little dull", the two leads' singing and dancing being considered unexceptional, and the lack of nuance in Stone's character, with Gosling's occasionally seen as insufferable.[98]
Since its release, La La Land continues to receive acclaim. It is regarded as a modern classic and one of the best films of all time due to its captivating performances, attention to detail, and its assent to previous movie musicals such as Singin' in the Rain.[104] In 2019, CBC Radio included it on its list of "the greatest romantic movies of all time." In 2021, Helena Trauger of The Beacon called it the best film of the 2010s, stating that it is "one of the most creative and well-executed films that every person should attempt to watch at least once." In 2022, Time Out ranked it number 79 on its list of the "100 Best Films of the 21st Century," writing that it "has a signature all of its own, stopping traffic in the first glorious sequence."[105]
MovieWeb ranked the film number 2 on its list of the "Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century So Far," in 2022 as well. In 2023, it ranked it number 3 on its list of the "15 Greatest Movies About Jazz" and number 1 on its list of the "Best Modern Movies Shot on Film."[106] It also ranked number 2 on Teen Vogue's list of "The 45 Best Dance Movies of All Time."[107] The film ranked number 15 on Collider's list of the "30 Best Musicals of All Time," with Jeremy Urquhart writing, "It works as a modern update/homage to classic Hollywood musicals that were popular in the 1950s without ever feeling derivative or mocking, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the lead roles both give great performances that are up there with the best of their respective careers."
It also ranked number 8 on Parade's list of the "67 Best Movie Musicals of All Time," with Samuel R. Murrian writing that the film is "many things, thusly its own creation: deftly blending a modern showbiz melodrama, a giddy throwback, a striking love story." Screen Rant also ranked it at number 10 on its list "The 35 Best Musicals of All Time" and number 1 on its list of "The 12 Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century," while IndieWire ranked it at number 12 on its list of "The 60 Best Movie Musicals of All Time." Wilson Chapman, curation editor for IndieWire, wrote that La La Land's story has just the right harmony of romance and melancholy, and that pieces such as "Another Day of Sun" and "A Lovely Night" are catchy and rememberable. He remarked that the Oscar-winning "City of Stars," as well as others of Hurwitz's scores, are "some of the finest written for any movie this century."[b] In 2024, Looper ranked it number 11 on its list of the "51 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," calling the film "a deeply affecting feature thanks to a pair of great performances from Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Any movie like La La Land that gets toes tapping and tears flowing with such grace is worth remembering."[109]
During the Oscars ceremony, presenter Faye Dunaway incorrectly announced that La La Land had won Best Picture, reading from the card Warren Beatty opened, which was actually a duplicate of the Best Actress card for Emma Stone.[125] After the cast and crew of La La Land took the stage, it took the show's producers more than two minutes (during which nearly three speeches were made) to fix the mistake. The actual winner was Moonlight.[126]
German television prank
In March 2017, La La Land was at the center of a prank involving Goldene Kamera, an annual German film and television award. German comedians Joko Winterscheidt and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf arranged for a Ryan Gosling impersonator to be awarded the "Best International Film" prize for La La Land.[127][128][129] Following the event, a speaker for television broadcaster ZDF asked for the trophy to be given back, stating that La La Land had won the prize and that the trophy would be given to the real Ryan Gosling.[130] The incident, which became known as "GoslingGate", sparked criticism of the event's concept. Media critics argued that the "Best International Film" award had only been created in an effort to get Ryan Gosling on the show, with no regards for the film's quality. The incident played a major role in the cancellation of the Goldene Kamera in 2019.[131][132] In 2018, Winterscheidt and Heufer-Umlauf were awarded the Grimme Award for their media criticism.[133]
Stage adaptations
Broadway musical
On February 7, 2023, it was announced that the film would be adapted into a Broadway musical by Platt and Lionsgate. Hurwitz, Pasek & Paul will return to write additional songs for the show. Bartlett Sher will direct from a book by Ayad Akhtar and Matthew Decker.[134]
So Long Boulder City
A theatrical spin-off, So Long Boulder City, was also created in 2017 by comedians Jimmy Fowlie and Jordan Black. The show was a full-length parody of Mia Dolan's one-woman show from the movie, and featured Fowlie in drag as Mia.[135]So Long Boulder City debuted in Los Angeles before enjoying a run at the SubCulture Off-Broadway theater in New York City.[136]
Ryan Thomas Gosling is a Canadian actor. Prominent in both independent films and major studio features, his films have grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Gosling has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for three Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Emily Jean "Emma" Stone is an American actress and producer. Her accolades include two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2017, she was the world's highest-paid actress and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Justin Paul is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing songs for films such as La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017), and the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, all of which he co-wrote with his songwriting partner, Benj Pasek. With Pasek, Paul became the 20th/21st person to win the EGOT, an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.
Samantha Jo "Mandy" Moore is an American choreographer, dancer, producer, and dance instructor. She is known for her work on the United States reality television series So You Think You Can Dance, having appeared on the show every year since the third season, and Dancing with the Stars. She choreographed the 2016 film La La Land and has also worked on commercials and various musical productions such as Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour. She has created dance numbers for the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards, and Grammy Awards ceremonies. She has been nominated seven times for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography, winning in 2017 for her work on Dancing with the Stars, in 2018 for her work on So You Think You Can Dance, and in 2020 for Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist.
Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. Initially known for working on various mumblecore films, she has since expanded from acting in and co-writing independent films to directing major studio films. Gerwig was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2018.
Peter L. Wittrock Jr., known professionally as Finn Wittrock, is an American actor who began his career in guest roles on several television shows. He made his film debut in 2004, in Halloweentown High before returning to films in the 2010 film Twelve. After studying theater at The Juilliard School, he was a regular in the soap opera All My Children from 2009 to 2011, while performing in several theatrical productions. In 2011, he performed in playwright Tony Kushner's Off-Broadway play The Illusion and made his Broadway debut in 2012 as Happy Loman in the revival of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, directed by Mike Nichols.
Mary Zophres is an American costume designer. In a career spanning over three decades, she is recognized for her prolific work across independent films and blockbusters. She has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design four times.
First Man is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Damien Chazelle from a screenplay by Josh Singer, based on the 2005 book by James R. Hansen. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, alongside Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, and Ciarán Hinds, and follows the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969.
Whiplash is a 2014 American psychological drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, and Melissa Benoist. It focuses on an ambitious music student and aspiring jazz drummer (Teller), who is pushed to his limit by his abusive instructor (Simmons) at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory in New York City.
Damien Sayre Chazelle is a French-American filmmaker. He directed the psychological drama Whiplash (2014), the musical romance La La Land (2016), the biographical drama First Man (2018), and the period black comedy Babylon (2022).
The 15th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were announced on December 5, 2016.
Justin Hurwitz is an American film composer and a television writer. He is best known for his longtime collaboration with director Damien Chazelle, scoring each of his films: Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009), Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2016), First Man (2018), and Babylon (2022).
Linus SandgrenFSF, ASC is a Swedish cinematographer, known for his collaborations with directors Damien Chazelle, David O. Russell, Gus Van Sant, and the duo of Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. He is known for his use of unique and unconventional formats, shooting Van Sant's Promised Land in 4-perf Super 35mm 1.3x anamorphic for a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and Chazelle’s First Man on a variety of different formats: Super 16mm, 35mm Techniscope, Super 35 3-perf, and IMAX 70mm film.
La La Land: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2016 film La La Land. The soundtrack album was released through Interscope Records on December 9, 2016. The album has peaked at number 2 on the US Billboard 200 and number 1 on the UK Albums Chart. At the 89th Academy Awards, the film won the Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for "City of Stars".
"City of Stars" is a song performed by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in the film La La Land (2016). The music of the song was composed by Justin Hurwitz while the lyrics were provided by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The song won numerous awards, including the award for Best Original Song at both the 74th Golden Globe Awards and 89th Academy Awards.
"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" is a song composed by Justin Hurwitz with lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for the musical film La La Land (2016). Sung by American actress Emma Stone in her role as Mia, the emotional ballad forms the film's climax. "Audition" sees Mia describing what it means to be someone who seeks a career in the arts; it has overall themes about dreamers and the importance of actors.
Babylon is a 2022 American epic historical black comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It features an ensemble cast that includes Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li. It chronicles the rise and fall of multiple characters during Hollywood's transition from silent to sound films in the late 1920s.
Babylon (Music from the Motion Picture) is the score album to the 2022 film of the same name directed by Damien Chazelle. The original music composed by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's frequent collaborator, which is set for release on December 9, 2022 by Interscope Records, two weeks ahead of the film's release on December 23, features 48 tracks running over an hour. Two of the tracks "Call Me Manny" and "Voodoo Mama" were released on November 11.
1 2 Lealos, Shawn S.; Bajgrowicz, Brooke (October 13, 2023) [February 3, 2020]. "The 35 Best Musicals of All Time". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on December 12, 2024. Retrieved December 12, 2024. 10: La La Land (2016)
↑ Lückerath, Thomas (September 5, 2019). "Miese Quote, mieser Ruf: Aus für Goldene Kamera"[Bad ratings, bad reputation: The end for Goldene Kamera]. dwdl.de (in German). Archived from the original on February 13, 2020. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
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