In this section, I will argue that La La Land meets and engages with enough of Rick Altman’s criteria for an American film musical to be considered a proper one. Altman outlines two different sets of criteria: the semantics and the syntax. The semantics covers the basics of essentially any musical: format, length, characters, acting, and sound. The syntax, however, is far more specific. It details the specifics the narrative and technical structures of the film must meet in order to be considered a film musical. La La Land meets most the semantic criteria with ease. With a runtime of 128 minutes, it is a feature length film. The narrative of the film focuses on the development and achievements of a heterosexual romantic couple, Mia and …show more content…
It is not until Sebastian specifically encourages her to write her one-woman show that Mia makes an active effort to change her career path, and when that fails she goes right back to accepting her alternative career. Sebastian, on the other hand, does try and actively change his situation. He encourages Mia twice to make strides in her career. He is shown rehearsing and playing in various bands; when he does finally accept a job, it is one within his realm of interest, to an extent. Sebastian is constantly vocal within the film about what he sees as wrongdoing, in terms of his chosen path and Mia’s. The film easily meets another two of Altman’s criteria: the narrative/number and image/sound criteria. Altman states that there must be a continuity between the realism and rhythm, and the dialogue and the diegetic sound. In the narrative, there are smooth transitions between song and dialogue, the film does not make harsh cuts and transitions between the characters spoken and sung interactions; characters move from speaking to singing within sentences. A majority of the songs are simply extensions of the conversations the characters are holding. For the image/sound criterium, the hierarchy of image over sound must be reversed …show more content…
Mia’s success finally comes in the form of an unscripted audition. Her triumphant audition, shown through the song “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”, is in response to the prompt “just tell us a story, you’re a storyteller (1:37:10).” At long last, she gets to finish a scene, which she creates on the spot, in which she tells the story of her aunt’s spontaneous leap into the Seine. The film jumps to winter five years later, and Mia is revealed to be a very successful actress. One can assume that all the other auditioning actresses were given the same prompt, but it was Mia’s ability to construct a cohesive narrative under these constraints that set her apart. Even the filming of this scene reflects this focus on spontaneity; the final audition scene was performed live on set by Emma Stone. She had a backing piano track in her ear, but she was the one who controlled tempo, timing, emotion. Emma Stone’s natural talent was allowed to shine in this scene, and many critics picked up on this; the audition scene is one many highlighted as the backing for Stone’s later Oscar win for this role. During the scene, the background fades to black and the camera pushes in on Stone, she is the only object in the shot, up against a black background we can see every emotion;
Ken Kesey incorporates figurative language into his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, to illustrate the struggle to overcome the comfort of inaction, that ultimately results in the great benefit of standing up for one’s self. When McMurphy decides to stand up to Nurse Ratched, there is “no fog” (130). Kesey’s metaphor of the fog represents the haze of inaction that hovers over the patients of the ward. With the oppressive Nurse Ratched in charge, the patients are not able to stand up for themselves and are forced to be “sly” to avoid her vicious punishments (166). When the patients avoid confrontation with the Nurse, they are guaranteed safety by hiding in the fog, complaisant with their standing. The fog obscures the patient’s view of the ward and the farther they slip into it, the farther away they drift from reality.
Dazed and Confused is a film that follows a plethora of characters on the last day of school before summer vacation. Although lacking in tangible plot, it makes a bold attempt to encompass and present the zeitgeist of the 1970s. In my opinion it is as if Dazed and Confused was produced in hopes of making those viewers who lived through the 1970s feel a sense of nostalgia. The film’s trajectory, harnessing of zeitgeist, and soundtrack are all very similar to George Lucas’s American Graffiti—a film that also successfully rooted in nostalgia. Dazed and Confused was released in 1993 and, like American Graffiti, was able to look over its shoulder to determine what music stood the test of time. The film attempts to epitomize what it meant for someone to grow up in the 1970s. Its success depends on its ability to recreate the spirit present in that era. In this paper I will talk about how the use of the popular soundtrack functions with the overall narrative, show ways in which characters actually interact with the music, how the soundtrack functions in a specific scene, explain my personal relationship to the soundtrack, and touch briefly on how the meaning of the film has changed over the course of time.
when Sebastian went to Mia’s workplace and he took her out. on their way, Sebastian started to ask questions about her and the things she likes; he asked her about who she is currently seeing and she tells him how long they have been dating for. they talk about their professions, Sebastian tells her how much he loves jazz music and how his dream is to own a jazz club. he tells her about a place that was formerly a jazz club but turned to a samba tapas place now. She also tells him how she fell in love with acting and how she and her cousin will always reenact scenes from movies in her room. she also tells him that she should have been a lawyer but she left school to pursue her dream as an actress. She then tells him she hates jazz and he gets so disturbed at that statement and decides to take her to a jazz club to explain the interesting fact about jazz
Not to mention, the ending was satisfying, due to the careers Sebastian and Mia successfully made inroads into, with Sebastian opening a jazz music club of his own and being successful early on, and with Mia having finally become an actress in a filming industry based in Paris, following years of auditioning. However, their career success stories came at a price: their love for each other was not allowed to
Mia and Sebastian are the central characters of La La Land, and are at the root of its justification of it being one of the greatest films of all time. Both characters are flawed in their own distinct, but equally human ways. The chemistry between them comes very naturally, and is authentic to what two real people would experience with
The hit musical "Singin' in the Rain" may possibly be one of if not the greatest musicals of all time. With it's tale of the film world of the mid 1920's and its creative underlining love story between Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), it provokes the interest of someone who would not generally be attracted to a musical. It is a classic masterpiece that set the standards that musical films of today will be judged by. It is a classic performance by the great Gene Kelly and displays outstanding performances by Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor. As well as starring in this brilliant movie, Gene Kelly teams up with Stanley Donen to make their mark in film history.
The mood set in every song was picture-perfect, such as ‘A lovely night’, in which Sebastian and Mia dance under the moonlight, teasing each other and perfectly complimenting each other’s steps and the picturesque city view set the theme to really a lovely night. The lighting in every scene, especially in Mia’s auditioning scenes were flawless, which coordinated with Emma Stone’s stunning acting, making every scene real and full of emotions. Even though the pace of this movie was slow, it didn’t break its depth because the actions felt very genuine. However, as the movie progresses, complications start to rise between their romance, which obviously frustrates the
By making it a point to cast minority groups and those who are racially "other", Miranda actually resists changing the way we see race as a society, as visual culture is sensory and therefore, "seeing" race is making race. The main concern of this paper is how does this musical specifically reflect who we are as an American society, something that scholar Raymond Knapp serves to answer in a broader sense in The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, written almost ten years before the premiere of Hamilton. In his thematic approach, questioning what do musicals do within a culture, he questions whether a musical reflects "Whose America?" or "Who is
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein were both writers and producers in the theatre, but, their collaborative venture in the 1940’s introduced a new era of musical theatre. First, they wrote the first musical in which every element: music, lyrics, narrative, and even dance contributed to telling the story, each part blending and woven into the whole. Their new idea was a huge sensation with audiences, and brought with it, new recordings of shows with albums and records to follow and revival productions around the world. The duo changed the fate of musical theatre practically overnight, but, it couldn’t have been done without the projects, big or small, that got them there, their
Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. West Side Story is a classic American musical based on the classic story "Romeo and Juliet". The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. However, we should inspect how the musical film through its music, its dances, its romantic melodrama, and its exoticism of cultural differences distracts from the racism in it. How does it attract, interpellate, and position ideologically the perceiving spectator — whose social construction of reality and racial differences belong to the U.S.A. — by spatially dividing
When I first watched Chicago at the movie theater, I was not fully satisfied. I wanted more, so I went back to get some and watched it six more times with different friends and family members! Last summer during a visit to my native Mexico City, I had the opportunity to watch drag queens perform several numbers from the movie-musical. They did an amazing job, without surpassing the outstanding performances of the actors in the film. Last year, I visited NYC for the first time and indulged in the rows of the Ambassador theatre experiencing Chicago, the Broadway musical, and because I had seen the movie many times before, I knew all the songs and dances by heart. I loved it, but it was actually the movie that influenced me to become a “Chicago fan.” The movie is based on the 1996 Chicago revival of the original musical version of 1975. It was thrilling knowing that the making of the musical into a mainstream production would increase its accessibility and widen its distribution into all the corners of the world; now there is no excuse for people not to experience Chicago, and though not everyone can go to Broadway to see it, just about anyone can indulge themselves in this dazzling movie in the comfort of their homes. In addition to a fantasy world of singing, dancing and Vaudeville, the film also provides a narrative that is explicitly presented through Roxie’s point of view, creating a counter human side to Roxie’s fantasy world so that the audience can easily identify and engage. Chicago is a must see film for anyone who likes to spoil themselves with an outstanding award-winning musical composed of a catchy plot, truly superb acting, commendable direction, and a clever soundtrack.
Rumi’s own restrain of herself, the idol she wanted to be, has lead to mental collapse. The film blends the psyche and reality to the point where audiences are left unsure of what occurred. Rumi does not accept her failure as an idol yet presents herself as a stable individual until she reaches her breaking point. Mima’s film role parallels Rumi’s reality. In this sense, she is (gets to be?) Mima. Rumi and Mima are acting out each other’s realities. Instead of coming to terms with her life, Rumi forms an unhealthy obsession to cope. She adopts Mima’s life, seeking to purge whoever does not fit into her illusion of an innocent pop idol, eventually attempting to remove the source of her fantasy. Rumi appears normal until her room is revealed, this is where she can become, or imitate, the person she desires regardless of if her methods are
The genre i have studied is musicals. A musical is a film which has musical performances from the actors to express their feelings. The films from this genre that i studied are 'Singin' In The Rain' (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952), 'Grease' (Randall Kleiser, 1978) and 'Hairspray'(Adam Shankman, 2007). I studied two characteristics of the musical genre (Breaking Into Song And Dance and The Grande Finale) that are shown in the films studied. The identifying characteristics of 'Breaking Into Song And Dance' and 'The Grande Finale" are always seen in musicals. These characteristics are expected to be in a musical by the audience and ultimately make a musical what we predict it to be, a film that expresses characters feelings through song while
As an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.
When Lisa is finding the ring in the room, the camera tilts down and Stella finds that “Miss. Lonely heart” wants to kill herself. But luckily, she stops by the beautiful music outside and reaches to window to hear. The music here is the significant part of plot. Miss. Lonely stops by the music from the song writer and in the following story, she falls love with him and has a happy ending. In this sequence, the director does not employ a traditional sound with fast beats to support the dramatic scenes. The skillful and creative use of sound produces a strong and dramatic contrast here.