The Truth of La La Land.
Fuck your Hollywood ending, this is Reality. (Filmed in Cinemascope, of course.)
This is a response piece to “La La Land’s Inevitable Oscars Win is a Disaster for Hollywood — and For Us” by David Cox in today’s Guardian.
I have only won a smattering of things in my life. This is not because I believe myself to be unlucky, it is quite definitely because I can’t be bothered to enter things. So, it really did come as a surprise when I won tickets to go to the Northern Irish premiere of La La Land, because I have no recollection of trying to win them in the first place.
It was cold and dark as I unsuccessfully skipped over puddles to the shitty cinema down the road from my office. My shoes were (read: are) falling apart and my toes got wet. I arrived shivering, saw my friend, and we went in.
As soon as the movie started with a loud, glitzy number, I realised I needed to make a decision. I could either sit and hate every second of this lushly filmed, incredibly chipper musical about life in L.A, with my wet toes and tired body, or I could suspend disbelief, for an hour and a half, and let myself be swept away in the story. I opted for the latter.
Sure, I liked it. But I watched it again, a couple of weeks later at a friend’s house, a bit wine-drunk and wept. And guys, I mean it when I say I wept. I was inconsolable.
“Cat!” my friend laughed at me. “Jesus, come on! How can you be this upset? It’s just cause you are Emma Stone though. Like, especially in this movie. Mia is you.”
We’ll come back to this. But spoiler alert: I’m not Mia. We’re all Mia.
In today’s article, David Cox trounces La La Land. Just cherry-picking, he calls it boorish, insensitive, guilty of both whitesplaining and mansplaining, feeble, dull, flat, humourless, bloodless and unengaging. Yikes.
Now… let’s get this straight. I completely understand what Cox is saying. There is definitely a lot to criticise with La La Land — to say it is referential is an understatement. From the lamppost swinging to the cinemascope film, of course it reads as a huge nod to all those who went before them*. At best, this is a love letter to Hollywood, at worst, it’s an indulgent inside joke.
He accuses it of lacking heart, charm and sensitivity. And you know what? When Cox describes the characters of Mia and Sebastian as prisoners of ambition, and narcissistic, he’s not entirely wrong. He sees this movie’s failures in the “confusing” counterfactual ending**, and the principal characters inability to find their answers in each other, or in Love.
NOW COME ON, COX.
Are you annoyed the pretty movie didn’t deliver you the “Driving Off Into The Sunset” ending? Yes, La La Land doffs its cap to loads of classic romances which have gone before them. And yes, maybe to some, it stinks to see just such a Hollywood movie deliver a “mediocre” ending.
But whilst this might not deliver the “all that glitters is gold” ending, the ending is exactly why this movie transcends the usual romantic movie trajectory. From the fancy dresses, to the upbeat musical numbers, La La Land can feel like a flighty, slip-of a movie. Sure, it seems to reach towards a bygone time… but that’s just it! It isn’t a bygone time. This is now.
(Cox also berates the “lack of technique” and “reedy voices”. Sorry to sound snotty, but the smacking of lips, giggles and breathy notes were widely reported and discussed by both the director and composer as intentional.)
Why though? Because La La Land is an examination of the flawed human condition. The presentation of a perfect landscape, with a perfect score, is ripe for the perfect ending, with perfect looking people and their perfectly successful lives.
Except… wait.
We don’t get it. And you know why? Because, even in a perfect cinemascope world, humans are not perfect. The ending of La La Land is the main vehicle for the element of Truth that the rest of the movie (intentionally) ignores.
So, when I thought I had to ignore my wet toes to lose myself in the movie — well, turns out I didn’t. La La Land knows that you don’t always get the magical happy ending.
David Cox says unhappily that in La La Land, love is sacrificed for self. Is this such a bad thing? In a world where our movie-diet is chockfull of saccharine “Love Wins!” endings, maybe it is no bad thing to examine the reality (and bittersweet happiness therein) of Love that cannot be.
Not all loves come to pass. Some loves you’ll never see again, some you’ll ache for and some you’ll cross the street to avoid. But that’s truth. David Cox is angry that our protagonists have to chose between love and art. Maybe your life will force you to chose between career and love. And let’s be really honest here guys, that’s a nice selection to have to choose from. Some of us, hell, most of us won’t be that lucky. I appreciate you should be careful what you wish for, but I wouldn’t be hating my life if I even had such options.
That, by the way, is why we’re all Mia and Sebastian. Who doesn’t believe that somewhere deep inside, they have a little bird trying to sing? That their voice, if only they could find it, could express something unique and important? Who wouldn’t fight for this, if only they had half a chance? That’s why I cried, because I realised that even in our victories, life is fucking hard. Our successes will always be tinged with something else. There will always be a road not taken, and thus, there will always be a regret. La La Land just showcased this.
FOOTNOTES
*But isn’t that the point?
**Come on. The “counter-factual” ending, I thought, was superb. Sure, it’s a hack to evoke emotion, but it succinctly captured that feeling of “what if?” for the audience. Maybe it’s a bit lazy, but it made it easier for the audience to understand the look between Mia and Sebastian at the end. While we have it explained out to us as plebby audience members, Sebastian and Mia don’t have this montage shown to them. They feel it. If you’ve felt that ache of loss, you understand that you don’t need a montage to look at another person like that. You will never need anything but the absence to make you feel like that — something that never could be, that will hurt in its emptiness.
