La La Land

In this Oxford Guide to Film Musicals, author Hannah Lewis gives readers fascinating new insights into the development, style, and reception of the 2016 film musical La La Land. Directed by Damien Chazelle with music by Justin Hurwitz, the film tells the story of a romance between an aspiring actress and jazz pianist as the two pursue their dreams in Los Angeles. It uses a vintage form to tell a modern story and its blend of nostalgia and realism made it an instant classic even as it prompted a range of critical and audience responses. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with director Damien Chazelle, composer Justin Hurwitz, choreographer Mandy Moore, and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the book explores La La Land’s aesthetic approach to the film musical genre, particularly its engagement with and subversion of the classic Hollywood musical’s stylistic and narrative expectations.

Lewis offers readers ways of listening to the film’s depiction of jazz, focusing especially on how race and genre intersect in its narrative. She also reveals new insights into the film’s reception, showing how the critical response from its premiere to its place at the Academy Awards reflected broader cultural expectations and understandings of the film musical and its continued appeal for twenty-first century audiences. By exploring the range of stylistic and cultural debates that La La Land prompted, this book gives readers new ways of thinking about the film musical genre’s enduring and evolving place in contemporary American culture.

Hannah Lewis is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a musicologist who specializes in music for film and visual media, American popular music traditions, musical theater, early twentieth-century French music, and American avant-garde and experimental music. She is the author of French Musical Culture and the Coming of Sound Cinema and co-editor (with Jim Buhler) of Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack.