Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have already made three films together, the best of which is probably La La Land from 2016. The musical by Babylon director Damien Chazelle impressed with elaborate dance scenes for which even busy streets were shut down.
Perfectionist Chazelle wanted his film to emulate the great Hollywood role models of the 40s and 50s and he spared no effort to achieve this. Even in a small but memorable scene, he went out of his way to create the best possible atmosphere.
Why the La La Land scene was such a challenge
This is the scene in which Seb (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) walk to their cars together after a party and start singing. Cameraman Linus Sandgren explained the background to the Hollywood Reporter in 2017 (via Sensacine):
This scene was meant to be a very romantic post-party moment. And we wanted to take the real place and make it more dreamlike – with blue light and the magic hour with green street lights.
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La La Land
Chazelle explained to the New York Times:
Because my cameraman and I wanted to make the sky look like this, with this otherworldly Technicolor glow, we had to shoot it at magic hour, which is basically about half an hour. We only had time for five shots and had to hurry between them.
While many of Chazelle’s great musical role models were filmed in the studio, where you can manipulate the light as you wish, the young director did so depending on a narrow time window. The so-called Golden or Magic Hour is the time shortly after sunrise or before sunset when the light appears redder and softer. This is how the scene with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling was shot
Chazelle and his team chose Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where classics like Back to the Future and… Because They Don’t Know What They’re Doing have already been realized. Gas lanterns and a bench were provided and other details of the scene were changed. Then the challenge came: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and the team had to implement the scene planned with complex dance and camera movements before the light disappeared. And that for a continuous six-minute take, i.e. without cutting. They filmed on two consecutive September evenings in 2015, starting at 7:20 p.m.
The first take on the second day was the one where everything went perfectly and which you can see in the film today:
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The effort was obviously worth it. La La Land established Damien Chazelle in Hollywood after his breakthrough with Whiplash, Emma Stone won an Oscar for Best Actress and the musical has appeared on various best lists in recent years.
This is how you can watch La La Land
If you want to catch up on La La Land, you can currently do so on three different streaming providers. The musical is part of the Amazon channel Arthaus, JoynPlus and Paramount+.
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s other two films are Crazy, Stupid, Love. (streams on Netflix and Prime Video) and Gangster Squad (available to purchase and rent).
Gosling can currently be seen as Ken in Barbie, but German cinema audiences will have to wait a while until Emma Stone’s next film. Poor Things is the name of the work that starts in February.
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