La La Land

How this film uses it

Each season of the film has its own primary color. The costumes, the light and the mise-en-scène, meaning everything placed in the frame, shift with the temperature of the relationship. Mia's yellow dress goes well past wardrobe. It carries the film's emotions, and the colors follow the arc of the relationship before the dialogue does.

Where to see it

The 'A Lovely Night' dance on the hilltop overlook. The colors are at their most saturated here, with Mia's yellow dress set against a purple and blue dusk sky. The scene celebrates the romance and already looks back on it with sadness.

How this film uses it

Justin Hurwitz's score holds the film's emotions together. Themes introduced in the early musical numbers come back as instrumental echoes in later scenes of loss and separation. I feel like the score works as a second narrator. It follows the emotional path of the relationship alongside what you see.

Where to see it

The returns of 'Mia & Sebastian's Theme'. The melody from the early romance comes back at the film's close. The score turns the theme from a love song into a farewell.

How this film uses it

The epilogue shows the life Sebastian and Mia might have had if they had chosen each other over their careers. The film presents this what-if as a fully imagined alternative. You get several minutes of a possible life. It makes the actual ending more devastating, because you see exactly what was lost.

Where to see it

The epilogue fantasy sequence. The alternate life is shown in complete, loving detail. Because of that, the losses of the actual ending become specific.

How this film uses it

The triangle here is Mia, Sebastian and their careers. The third corner is ambition itself, and there is no rival. The shape is exact. The more completely each of them gets what they dreamed of, the less space is left for the other. The romance and the dreams can't live together, and the film traces exactly how.

Where to see it

The argument over dinner at their apartment. The triangle comes out into the open. Sebastian's touring career and Mia's writing now sit in the space between them that the other person used to fill.

How this film uses it

The film opens on a freeway where strangers break into song. It closes at Sebastian's jazz club, where Mia and her husband stop for a drink. The circle measures a distance. The opening is naive and full of possibility, since anyone might dance with anyone. By the close, the 2 of them know precisely what was chosen and what was lost.

Where to see it

The final glance between Mia and Sebastian. The circle closes with both of them having got what they dreamed of. In the same moment, both understand what getting it cost.