Exposition
Musical films are not as common as they were in the 1930s and 1960s. Although we still see a few of them every year or two, most of these handful of musical films are cliche in a way, unable to regain the innocence and romp of their heyday. “LALALAND” can stand out，because it returns to the basics of the traditional Hollywood film format and French director Jacques Demy (Jacques Demy)musical film techniques, to tell a popularized love story. The costumes, songs and choreography all create a nostalgic tone, making people nostalgic for the old days of musical films. But it remains modern so as not to alienate contemporary audiences. The spirit of exploration of the muscial film extends to the story, and like the silent film format of The Artist (2011), LALALAND uses the sub-genres of cabaret (including: traditional MGM musical, Warner musicals) to mirror each other in passages that have a legacy and bring out the evolution of the genre, with a historical undercurrent of They also serve the theme of love. They also serve the theme of love, both inside and outside.
The color and lightening
Five parts of the film can be divided into winter, spring, summer, autumn and winter. Color design is used by the director to depict emotions and careers of the characters, and throughout the film, color design corresponds to the five stages of the hero and heroine: meeting, falling in love, breaking up, dull and looking back, which corresponds to the five seasons mentioned in the film.
Blue and melancholy is full of Mia’s life, and the sudden appearance of red signals a hint of vitality in the gloom.
Winter, depressed, pale and lifeless，so as both of the characters.At the beginning of the movie, when Mia goes to a job interview, she wears all blue, and even her surroundings are all blue.
Red and pink will surround Mia in her home, which is the only warm color. Our homes are places where we can express our ideals. Mia’s suppressed passion is implied by the coldness outside the house and the heat inside the house.
Her roomates came up with a lot colours . What made the director choose to give Mia blue over other colors? Winter is symbolized by blue, which corresponds to the mood of the director. By using color to catch the audience’s attention, it is the simplest and most direct way to let us experience the characters’ emotions. In order to figure out what state each character is in, all you have to do is look at the colors of their costumes and the scenery.
Mia’s blue dress is out of place alongside the flowers and wine at the party, suggesting she has no desire to stay here; after the party, her car is towed away, and Los Angeles at night presents a cold-toned picture under the blue streetlights, suggesting the feeling of frustration and despair that she is feeling at this moment.
However, the change also occurs in this moment, as the audience experienced a long period of blue following the sudden appearance of two blinding reds. When you drag a tired body walking on the road after work, you see rows of blue light rooms on the side of the road, so you feel no vitality, but then you see a red room, the room where you can cook a free sumptuous dinner, what will it feel like? The red right now for you to have a strong visual impact, as if it was a stimulant.
In the use of blue and red colors, the characters’ lives and inner emotions are revealed, creating emotional conflict and mobilizing the audience, laying a deep trap for the next plot to be revealed.
Tribute
The movie is said to be a tribute to all the classic genres of Hollywood, not just the musical movies. These can not be considered the focus of the film, but only the director’s private goods. Those in the film industry, and film lovers like you and me, will be thrilled to see it. As the film’s “homage” is merely the cherry on top, it is not the point. It will be those classic films from the classic bridge into the narrative, or the details of that smile, that LALALAND did a good job at, it was not tied up by homage, affecting the narrative of the film. It did not affect the overall premise of the film, thus giving fans more surprises.
I’ve divided the film’s tributes into three categories
There are two such films, Casablanca (translated as North African Spy in the mainland version) and Rebel Without a Cause.
The cafe where Mia works is across the street from the window where Bergman and Bogart were filmed in Casablanca. The reunion scene at the end of the film coincides with the reunion at the end of Casablanca.
Mia and Seb went to see the “academic research” film”Rebel Without a Cause”, then the film burned, and the two drove to the movie’s most famous location, Griffith observatory, even the drive-in shots are the same. It was also the last time each of them saw the other before reuniting following the final audition.Furthermore, the red jackets that Seb wears at a pool party and that Mia wears during her audition both take inspiration from James Dean’s most famous outfit in Rebel Without a Cause.
The dance in the Griffith observatory is inspired by the classic Disney animated film “Sleeping Beauty“
The overhead shot to pick up the roof of the car together is a tribute to “Fame”.
Mia and Seb’s warm-up dance on the Griffith Park bench is from “Shall We Dance”. It is worth noting that the location of the park bench clearly corresponds to the director’s first effort ”Guy and Madeleine on a Park Bench“, which in turn is the name of the characters in “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, respectively.
The lighting in two scenes (the chorus of “City of Stars” and a dinner fight) is inspired by Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo”. Similarly, the scene where Scotty arrives at Judy’s hotel room with the psychedelic green neon light seeping through the gauzy curtains is also a classic. The lighting setup for “LALALAND” was the same, and the purple dress Mia wore in the scene with Seb was identical to what Kim Novak wore in the same scene.