Failed Oscar Campaigns: "La La Land" (2016)

Scene from La La Land

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

The Movie

La La Land (2016)

Directed By: Damien Chazelle

Written By: Damien Chazelle

Starring:  Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music

Running Time: 128 minutes

Summary: While waiting for their big breaks, two proper L.A. dreamers, a suavely- charming, soft-spoken jazz pianist and a brilliant, vivacious playwright, attempt to reconcile aspirations and relationship in a magical old-school romance.

The Movie

If one were to judge the Oscar season by one movie at the end of 2016, it would have to be La La Land. The film had become a critical success, earning 92% on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, which lead it to appear on many end of the year "best of" lists. People would sing the songs with some even making prom proposal videos inspired by the film - including one such boy who asked out Emma Stone. It was a film that many claimed ushered in an old style of cinema, which focused on huge lavish productions not unlike MGM musicals with a romantic nostalgia akin to Jacques Demy movies. Director Damien Chazelle, who was on his third movie about jazz at that point, was beginning to be considered a prodigy since he now created two highly acclaimed movies (the other being Whiplash), both of which would go on to have Best Picture nominations.

The argument as to how much was a fluke would be discussed in the aftermath of its popularity. At the time of release, it was a golden child of awards season, with many labeling it the front runner to beat, and who was largely untested. For those that loved the film, it was the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers-esque chemistry of leads Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone who lived the life of dreamers set to a catchy soundtrack on a gorgeous Southern California backdrop. It was a love letter to a town that created dreams while also attempting to deconstruct the ambition to live inside that sheen. Still, it was a film that not only set out to explore ambition, but the conflicting nature of nostalgia and individuality. It was full of heady subject matter for a romantic comedy. For a musical, it was effectively intricate for a 21st century sensibility.

Something to consider when addressing La La Land is that it was one of the few original musicals of the 21st century to connect with general audiences. While films like Les Miserables (released four years before La La Land) proved that there was still an audience for the genre, it had largely been buried underneath more conventional and accessible genres. In some ways, La La Land got by on the novelty of being a good musical. Even then, it was a film overflowing with passion both from fans and detractors. On one side, it was a glorious piece of escapism. On the other, it was self-indulgent and prolonged the redundant fact that Hollywood was great. The answer lies somewhere in the middle, but the only thing as shocking as its success is how it managed to lose Best Picture and keep the mystery as to whether another musical would ever win the top category open indefinitely.

The Campaign

Chazelle was coming off of the surprise hit Whiplash when he decided to make a musical that paid homage to the glory days of cinema. In those ways, the first trailers for the film were often elusive and captured the ambiance and beauty of the film to come, focusing on mood more than plot. Each new trailer featured different songs, beginning with "City of Stars" and later "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)." The film was set to open in July but was later pushed to December, where it would open in limited release and expand. It's a method that films like Silver Linings Playbook used to full advantage, and which La La Land did was well. Following unanimous praise from the Venice International Film Festival, it opened in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York on December 9, earning $881,107 on opening weekend. It would be the best per-theater average of the year, beating previous holder Moonlight. By the time it was released, the buzz was at its peak. It was a special movie not to be missed. One of the year's best.

The film became a must see and ended up topping a lot of end of the year "best of" lists for critics who admired its mix of whimsical songs and somber heart. The film would be so successful that it would go on to earn $445.2 million worldwide as well as a brief run in IMAX theaters, suggesting that it was best seen on the biggest, loudest screens possible. The Golden Globes helped to boost its reputation, as it won all seven of its nominations and solidified it as the film to beat. However, the tide was already starting to turn by this night. Whereas winners like Mahershala Ali gave politically charged speeches related to the hostile social climate, Stone ended her speech on the mantra that was essentially part of the film's marketing. This movie is for dreamers. It's not a terrible sentiment, but it stood out in a night where even Cecil B. DeMille recipient Meryl Streep would get criticized for voicing her opinion about the future president. Stone was seen as oblivious, an ironic move since La La Land was arguably a film that could benefit from escaping the hostile reality.

A variety of themes played into the film's backlash. Part of it came, without prompt, from the previous year's Oscars So White controversy that made the upcoming year extremely intimidating to films centered around white characters. It was also a film so obsessed with Hollywood mythology that it couldn't help but seem redundant when compared to Best Picture winners of recent years like The Artist, Argo, and Birdman. Mark Harris once claimed that "For decades, the Academy gave Best Picture to films about all kinds of things. Then they stopped." For an industry that wanted to be inclusive, it also had to deal with giving out awards to movies that weren't about movies. Through no fault of its own, the movie's backlash came almost as much from audiences seeing it a second time and claiming that it didn't hold up. Other popular attacks included beliefs that Gosling couldn't dance, Stone's character had no depth, and the overall premise seemed a bit shallow. 

Despite the lengthy criticisms, the biggest attack was that "La La Land is racist." On its surface, this would be a confusing statement. However, many justified their opinions by suggesting that Gosling played a jazz snob that stole culture from a style of music associated closely with black culture. Even the choice to cast John Legend as a pseudo-villain whose version of jazz was corny 80's pop didn't help matters. In some ways, it was seen as appropriating the medium, suggesting that there was no sensitivity to the matter. Add in the general belief that the characters were shallow, and it gives off the impression that these characters are negative representations of jazz fans and "white washed" history to their benefit. While other people argue against this theory, it was a hard topic to ignore on social media, which thrived on tearing down a once loved movie that was still riding high. 

While there were those few who liked the movie (Christopher Nolan included), there was no preparation for the backlash, which seemed to be almost traditional every awards season. It couldn't just be a fun movie with romance and songs. It was now the pariah that had the added issue of being "oppressive" to other movies that would destroy the Oscars So White mentality. It was seen as oppressing Moonlight and its earnest depiction of black gay lifestyles when in fact both films had little animosity towards each other for most of the awards season. What started as a musical that would bring back the genre ended up servicing as a reason to laugh at song and dance numbers by people who weren't seen as giving great performances, but would get nominated for every last award anyways. The film may have its defenders, but it's hard to match its once shining star as a beacon of hope for cinema, in large part because of what happened on Oscar Sunday.

The Payoff

The initial promise was great, actually. The film earned 14 nominations that included Best Picture; tying with Titanic and All About Eve for most nominations ever by a single film. From there, Chazelle's win for Best Director marked him as the youngest winner for the category at the age of 32. With six wins throughout the night, La La Land's stranglehold of victory seemed more than set by the time that the Best Picture category was announced by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in a 50th anniversary of Bonnie & Clyde special moment. It would be easy to write about what happened next, but the actual video does a more succinct job of explaining what actually happened:

For a moment, the predictable route of La La Land's clean victory over awards season was promised. It won Best Picture, like everyone thought. Then, much like everything else in that calendar year, the unexpected happened. Midway through speeches, it was announced that La La Land in fact hadn't won. It was Moonlight's trophy. That film had all sorts of specific honors to its win that went beyond simply being an underdog, including being the first all-black cast Best Picture winner in history, along with the first winner with a positive representation of gay culture. Many see it still as a major turning point for Oscars, leaving plenty of room to guess just how diverse 2017's Oscar season will be. There was a moment of irony in the speeches. As La La Land continued to focus on dreamers, Moonlight's Best Picture speech opened with a line ending with "To hell with dreams."

The win had major repercussions that would be continually dissected throughout the next few months. To summarize the key details, it was a case of reading the wrong card in part because the employee of Price Waterhouse Coopers was too busy on social media (of which he was told not to do) to notice which envelope he gave out. The company has since been fired from next year's ceremony. However, the impact on La La Land has become somewhat traumatizing from that moment as well. It's best represented in an Honest Trailer video where people would openly play the gaffe game of referring to La La Land when in fact they meant Moonlight. The meme has even made it into music, including Jay-Z's "Moonlight."

The 2017 Oscar nominations are a tough issue to parse, but the categories looked stacked against La La Land in general. Along with the thankless goal of trying to break the Oscars So White curse, each category was more diverse and featured non-white actors in every major field. Even if La La Land had John Legend in it, there was still an overwhelming sense that it as a film from another era, that couldn't stand a chance of winning because it would be more of the same. More white movies, more movies about movies, more of what made people dislike the Oscars - even if La La Land was arguably the closest that the category had to a crowd pleaser that year. It's a legacy that's still in formation, but may always be remembered as that film that lost to Moonlight in such bizarre fashion. At least Los Angeles now has La La Land Day, though even that's more evidence of how self-indulgent the film's praise could be.