While navigating their careers in Los Angeles, a pianist and an actress fall in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future.
Writer/Director: Damien Chazelle
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, John Legend
Jillian Meyers ... assistant choreographer
Mandy Moore ... choreographer
Michael Riccio ... assistant choreographer
33 songs in the Soundtracks, 17 Music by Justin Hurwitz. The disc has a songs-only option, and that lasts 49min.
I'll lead with the bottom line: I'm still unhappy with this film, for the same reasons as when I saw it in theatre during its initial release: I don't like that so much of the music and the scenes remind me of Michel Legrand and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and I don't see any onscreen credit (or even c.track/featurette mentions) for that. I'm also deeply disappointed that our leads are not really triple-threat talents. They do a serviceable job with the singing and dancing, but if you're going to make an homage or modern reworking of old-school musicals, then throw musical-ready pros at it. (Yeah, yeah, you need name players to attract audience. How about Anna Kendrick & Zac Efron? Too young and happy?) (Apparently RG really learned to play piano for this, and none of the hands on keys are dubbed. JL was impressed, and I am too.)
To me, the opening number, Another Day of Sun, is an homage/ripoff of Michel Legrand's Le Pont Transbordeur, the opening number of YGR, which is not yet listed on the Connections page, so I should expect YGR not to be named in any extra features.
C.track (dir. and composer JH), ~33min (well past the opening number), DC mentions YGR (naming Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand) as "the most perfect example of a rhyming call-and-response approach to a song suite, using fragments of melodies that blossom into a full score medley" (I'm almost quoting his words.) NO mention of YGR's opening scene that is so close to LLL's opener. After consuming the bd extras, I imagine the creators don't think of their opener as at all like YGR's. YGR has a bunch of carnies singing/dancing/taking a stretch while their convoy is ferried across a river. LLL has strangers (they're called dreamers by the creative folks, as in show-biz wannabes) breaking out in song/dance in a traffic jam. But it's the same style of dance, and music that sounds very much like ML composed it, as does the music in at least a third of the film (mostly the 1st 3rd). YGR and Umbrellas of Cherbourg ('64) are both highlighted as among many inspirations in a featurette (film titles displayed onscreen).
When the leads dance in the air, I'm reminded of The Belle of New York ('52), but c.track cites Sleeping Beauty (1959) and something else. OK. BNY really is mostly F.Astaire dancing solo in the air, and V.Ellen only joins him toward/at the end of the film.
Per c.track, at 1h 9min, the scene in her aptmt is bathed in green light and she wears a purple dress, and DC sas that was taken from Vertigo ('58), where it's used to create a verrrrry different mood. Also their duet was sung quietly like(?) Bob Hope delivered like an unnamed low key duet; I believe DC's talking about BH & Shirley Ross in Thanks for the Memory ('38), which _is_ a charming scene (or perhaps this scene from the same film); LLL's is ok.
Interesting that LLL was conceived/written before Whiplash ('14), which was made to help get LLL off the ground (per featurette). LLL was 6 yrs in the making.
DC mentions a lot of my favorite films and directors in the extras. I hope he gives us more musicals, but goes fuller tilt when casting the principals: more Fred & Ginger, not Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn.
Rated 8.0 (423,457)
Summit & more, dir. Chazelle; 6
