Symbolism of Colour in La La Land
I was not going to write this, but there is nothing I can concentrate on, I just have to get rid of these thoughts in my head.
Among all the videos and articles about La La Land on the internet, I couldn’t find any that would talk about colour in the film. I mean, there are some: about Emma Stone’s dresses and how canary yellow will be trendy in 2017, but this is not what I’m going to talk about. What I was interested in is how the prevailing color of the scene/shot works to express the emotional state of the characters. And this is what I want to share with you, people of the internet, because it just won’t go away from my mind.
I am not pretending to be an expert of any kind: I know very little about filming and even less — about psychology of colour (I mean, the real one, not “red is love, black is depression”). I also admit this may just be too obvious for everyone on the internet, and this is the reason why nobody talks about it. And the last thing — this “analysis” is in no way exhaustive, these are just a few glimpses on what is going on — to my mind — in the movie.
This was a very long introduction… Just one more thing: there will be some spoilers.
Blue.
The first colour that is begging to be noticed in the film is blue. In the very beginning of the story, Mia, Emma Stone’s character, leaves a blue flat wearing a blue dress and merges into a colourful company of her friends and then — partying people. It works well with what is narrated by the camera: Mia feels uncomfortable and lonely in this big comany.
Throughout the whole film, blue colour surrounds Mia, but this is not to think it expresses some sort of sadness; I would better say this is something — a state of mind in general — she strives to escape from, but ever fails.
So, when she leaves the party, the surrounding city-scape is all blue, except…
Red.
She walks by a reastaurant and hears the music that clearly draws her attention. The wall she stands next to is blue, but here we get the first meaningful introduction of red (meaning, it was there even before, at the party, but here it becomes a part of the story, impossible to neglect).
The idea is beautiful: in this shot, we have a frame within a frame that — theoretically — has to accentuate what is inside the frame. But there is nothing in it. What this shot frames is not an image of any kind, but the melody itself.
Anyway, my point is — the frame is red, and this is the moment when blue and red are juxtaposed for the first time. Mia enters the restaurant, and her face catches surrounding red lights; you can feel the warmth she feels, especially after a cold blue street she was walking a moment ago. Unlike overly saturated red in the party scene, this one seems pleasant and comfortable. And this is what Mia comes to strive for during the next hour.
Red and blue are juxtaposed and played upon in many different ways in the course of the story. She tries red on, sometimes literally, but fails to accept it completely. She wears a red jacket to one of the auditions, but takes it off crossly after she fails.
Even in the flat, in which they live together with Sebastian, Ryan Gosling’s character, red and blue are always present in different proportions, but there is never a balance between them.
Till some moment I thought blue and red were representative of two main characters, and Sebastian superinduced red as a portrayal of his personality, and Mia, trying to accept red into her life, was letting in feelings towards Sebastian. But then this happened:
Yellow.
At some point in the movie, their flat becames green. “What?” I thought, “Where did this come from?”
I expected some composite colour to appear, when Mia finally comes to terms with herself, and, yes, green is a composite colour, but it does not consist of blue and red. So, I started looking for yellow. And guess what?
Sebastian wears beige and brown suits; the restaurant he works in, when Mia first sees him playing, also looks yellow-brown-ish. It’s more difficult to identify yellow in the story, but, I suppose, it only means that Sebastian is somewhat steadier and more comfortable with himself than Mia, who is looking for her identity between extremes.
Mia wears green dress, when she makes an important decision to leave her boyfriend at the reastaurant and meet Sebastian instead. The moments of their togetherness have green background, generated by her all-covering blue and his yellow glow (by the way, yes, while red and blue usually spread on everything in the scene, and Mia’s mood is prevailing in the story, Sebastian is depicted in the centre of the lit spot, there is often a soffit pointed at him):
And the important thing is — while Mia is uncomfortable with herself (read, her colour), Sebastian accepts her blue without doubt. In the very end of the film, the restaurant is not only called the way she suggested, but fully decorated in blue, as if Sebastian tried to keep the memory of her by capturing her colour.
Winter.
I have a feeling, I can talk about this movie for hours. The seasons of the year, the mix of old-fashioned musicals and modern settings, the adorable moment, when Mia changes her shoes before dancing… But what impressed me the most is a very simple thing — colour.
P.S.: Although usually blue colour stands for negative emotions and red — for positive, I don’t think it’s the case here. I’d better call them different states of mind, rather than the opposition between good and bad. Surely, there is a moment, when it seems so: Mia is at Sebastian’s first concert with the band, and the dominant colour of the scene switches from red to blue as her anticipation to hear Sebastian playing jazz gives way to dosappointment. But you can read it differently: if red is the colour of her dreams that hasn’t yet come true, of something she only wants to achieve, she, hoping for Sebastian to get what he wants, also paints him in red. And, of course, it becomes her personal failure of dreams, when she realizes he does what he has to, but not what he dreams about.
P.P.S.: I thank Internet for providing pictures.
