{"id":89515,"date":"2017-02-14T21:12:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T02:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=89515"},"modified":"2017-02-14T21:12:52","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T02:12:52","slug":"la-la-land-the-curiously-divisive-oscar-front-runner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/14\/la-la-land-the-curiously-divisive-oscar-front-runner\/","title":{"rendered":"‘La La Land’: The curiously divisive Oscar front runner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cLa<\/a>
\u201cLa La Land,\u201d romantic and sincere, might seem an unlikely lightning rod. (Photo: La La Land\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2013These are divisive times. Agreement is hard to come by. Passions on both sides are inflamed. And \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d is providing some of the most trenchant satire on the matter.<\/p>\n

We are speaking, of course, about \u201cLa La Land.\u201d No film \u00a0\u2013 not Mel Gibson’s bloody Christian war tale \u201cHacksaw Ridge,\u201d not Paul Verhoeven’s rape drama \u201cElle\u201d \u00a0\u2013 has sparked the kind of opinion clash that Damien Chazelle’s toe-tapping musical about showbiz dreamers has.<\/p>\n

It’s not just another day of sun, as the movie’s opening number goes. It’s another day of think pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa La Land,\u201d romantic and sincere, might seem an unlikely lightning rod. But that’s the life of the front-runner, which \u201cLa La Land\u201d most definitely is. It’s made more than $300 million at the box office, globally (remarkable for a $30 million movie). It matched the record of 14 Academy Awards nominations. It set a new Golden Globes mark with seven wins. And most recently, it triumphed at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards.<\/p>\n

One of the curious aspects of today’s Oscar season is that the movies that somehow managed to get made and released in franchise-crazy Hollywood and that then somehow rise to the Oscars, aren’t celebrated so much as the Academy Awards nears. Reaching this zenith often means getting torn apart for imperfections, blind spots and \u00a0\u2013 horror of horrors \u00a0\u2013 sub-Astaire dancing.<\/p>\n

The backlash was inevitable for \u201cLa La Land.\u201d It’s just a matter now of whether \u00a0\u2013 as most expect \u00a0\u2013 the tide will turn back in time for the February 26 Oscars. So to help you decide what side you’re on in this most crucial of battles, here’s a rundown of the case against \u201cLa La Land.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TOO DERIVATIVE<\/p>\n

Some critics have said that \u201cLa La Land,\u201d for all its charms, is a pale impression of the earlier musicals it was inspired by. There are the classic Hollywood backlot musicals like Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in Vincent Minelli’s \u201cThe Band Wagon\u201d (1953) and, of course, \u201cSingin’ in the Rain\u201d with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Or there’s the on-the-street French musicals of Jacques Demy, like \u201cThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg\u201d and \u201cThe Young Girls of Rochefort,\u201d which inspired the opening freeway scene of \u201cLa La Land.\u201d These were the real-deal originals, they say.<\/p>\n

Counter: This is one that probably even Chazelle wouldn’t much quibble with. He’s spoken often and with reverence for these and other musicals. \u201cLa La Land\u201d is undoubtedly deeply animated by nostalgia, but its characters \u00a0\u2013 and the movie, itself \u00a0\u2013 hinges on finding a contemporary experience with some connection to the classical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE DANCING<\/p>\n

For others, the song-and-dance skills of Gosling and, to a lesser extent, Stone, aren’t up to the standards of Kelly, Reynolds or Astaire. The pair trained with choreographer Mandy Moore and Gosling learned to play his piano parts without any previous experience on the keys. They may be quick studies, but they aren’t the equals of the musical greats.<\/p>\n

Counter: Well, who is? That’s a high bar to meet. And part of the appeal of \u201cLa La Land\u201d is that its characters, even as they soar, are more down to earth. Besides, the considerable gifts of Stone and Gosling are more than just footwork. They’re a heck of a lot funnier than Astaire, for starters. But it’s probably a good thing that the movie’s two nominated songs will be performed by co-star John Legend, not Gosling or Stone, at the Oscars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TOO WHITE<\/p>\n

In the \u201cSNL\u201d sketch, Aziz Ansari is grilled by police detectives for his crime of not being head-over-heels about \u201cLa La Land.\u201d \u201cI liked the movie. I just didn’t love it,\u201d he protests. \u201cIt’s a whole movie about jazz and there’s no black people in it.\u201d Others have gone further in analyzing the film’s racial undercurrents. MTV’s Ira Madison called the movie \u201ca white-saviour film in tap shoes ,\u201d criticizing it for making Gosling’s character, Seb, the defender of true jazz, and Legend’s bandleader character the sell-out. For an African American-created art form, this is backward.<\/p>\n

Counter: This one is hard to shake. It could be argued that \u201cLa La Land\u201d is almost totally focused on its two leads. (This is why many believe it was passed over for the Screen Actors Guild top honour, best ensemble.) There are no significant parts beyond Gosling and Stone, and that limitedness may be to the film’s detriment, dramatically and culturally. It’s a glaring deficiency this year, too, because after two straight years of \u201cOscarsSoWhite\u201d backlash, inclusion is the theme of this year’s Academy Awards. Six African-American actors are nominated and several best-picture contenders \u00a0\u2013 \u201cMoonlight,\u201d \u201cFences\u201d and \u201cHidden Pictures\u201d \u00a0\u2013 make for a stark contrast with \u201cLa La Land.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ITS JAZZ IS OFF<\/p>\n

Others have taken issue with not just the racial undertones of the movie’s jazz, but of its portrait of the music. Jazz has been a specialty for Chazelle, a passionate aficionado who grew up playing drums and whose previous film, \u201cWhiplash,\u201d was about a jazz drummer. But some critics say the film’s view of jazz is cliched, that its terms \u00a0\u2013 of jazz \u201cpurity,\u201d of relevance \u00a0\u2013 are out of sync with the more dynamic modern landscape of jazz.<\/p>\n

Counter: Some of this may be confusing the perspective of Seb \u00a0\u2013 whose self-seriousness is often meant to be a joke \u00a0\u2013 for that of the movie. But it’s also possible that we all have bigger things to worry about than the authenticity of the jazz in \u201cLa La Land.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013These are divisive times. Agreement is hard to come by. Passions on both sides are inflamed. And \u201cSaturday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":89516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[13087,740],"class_list":["post-89515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-la-la-land","tag-oscars","mauthors-jake-coyle","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}