So we had to not only tell two movies in one movie, but also pepper it with songs and musical numbers.
#MIA READING SEBASTIAN HER POEM LA LA LAND MOVIE#
It’s kind of a romantic comedy model, where you’re bringing your two leads together during the course of the story and you climax with a moment of great romance between them.īut then on the flip side, we were also telling a story more along the lines of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which begins with the boy and girl together at the height of their romance, and proceeds to split them apart.Įach of those stories normally takes a full movie to tell, and we knew we needed to tell both of those stories equally. We were sort of using an MGM musical as a model, a Funny Face or Singing in the Rain or something which is essentially the story of how a boy gets a girl or a girl gets a boy. So it meant that they took up a lot of space. The music itself would be telling a lot of story, that we then didn’t have to tell through other means.īut it was very important to me that this movie be one where we really built up to the musical numbers, and then luxuriated in them and let them really be pure cinema for a while, before returning to dialogue or another form of more literal narration. There were areas where the music would carry a lot of weight for us. Justin Hurwitz, in the recording studio for La La Land Did you find the musical numbers helped the writing process by conveying emotion where words might not have been as effective? So we were sending material back and forth, and it was already this very collaborative dialogue. I’d then play them on a loop while writing scenes. I had a very close working relationship with Justin, so as soon as I was writing scenes, he was writing melodies and sending me piano demos. So I guess that by the time I actually started writing La La Land, in the beginning of 2011, I certainly was very familiar with the genre and what it took to write a musical on the page. Since then, I’d written a bunch of musical scripts that for various reasons – either I didn’t like it or no one liked it – just wound up in drawers. I had done a musical in college, where I worked with Justin Hurwitz, the composer of this as well. How did you find the process of writing a musical?
#MIA READING SEBASTIAN HER POEM LA LA LAND SKIN#
So I think I felt very much in the skin of Mia and Sebastian – especially Mia, I’d say. I’d just moved to LA a few years earlier, and certainly didn’t have anything to show for it at that point. The idea of being in LA, trying to make movies, trying to make your dream come true…it was very much what I was going through.Īnd what I’m still going through, I guess! But it was very much where I was at when I was writing the script. I’d say it was less literally autobiographical than Whiplash, where in many cases I was just writing almost word for word sequences or scenes that had happened to me.īut here it was still very much close to home, and I would say it was emotionally and indirectly autobiographical. Was La La Land also autobiographical in some ways? And everyone can feel it.Ĭreative Screenwriting spoke with Chazelle about the success of La La Land, his love of the musical genre, and how creatively rewarding it has been for him to write those often difficult scenes.ĭamien Chazelle with Ryan Gosling on set of La La Land We last spoke to you for Whiplash, when you discussed the autobiographical nature of the story. He writes what’s personal, and his emotion makes it first onto the page and then to the screen. Because as Chazelle proved with Whiplash, he writes what he knows. With jazz, no less.īut it was gamble that paid off. Quite another to write a musical, and yet another to write an original musical. And it wasn’t until the success of Damien’s film Whiplash in 2014 that investors felt confident in handing them the reigns to what was very difficult project.Īnd it was still a gamble.
This year’s biggest cinematic success story was actually written some years ago. La La Land was also initially turned down by financiers when it was pitched by an unknown screenwriter named Damien Chazelle and his composer, Justin Hurwitz. And it appeals to everyone’s love of a bittersweet love story. It’s struck a nostalgic chord with moviegoers everywhere, harking back back to the glory days of old Hollywood, and the classic musicals that shaped our love of cinema.
It has garnered 12 Critics’ Choice Awards nominations, a record-breaking number of Golden Globe wins, and a historic 14 Oscar nominations, among countless other accolades.
0 kommentar(er)
