"la la land" vs "moonlight"
"La La Land" (Summit)
Fran Lebowitz, New York-based author and renowned social commentator, argues "culture can never truly make up for the society it represents." I too am inclined to believe that our rigid, immovable ethnology cannot atone for large swaths of America's polarizing inequities — especially given our penchant to lionize transitory nights of self-prodigality in the form of the Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, Emmys, and Golden Globes.
Tonight, Damien Chazelle's "La La Land" and Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight" will face off for this year's coveted 'Best Picture' Oscar, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Actor Alan Arkin stated it best, when over a decade ago he won for Best Supporting Actor in a stunning upset over Eddie Murphy. "I don't believe in competition between artists," he said. "I believe it is a lot of stuff in order to generate business." In terms of pure box office numbers, he's right; "La La Land" has surpassed $370 million at the global box office, and "Moonlight" (made for an estimated $1.5 million), has more than decupled its financial investment.
Yet while "La La Land" plays like a straightforward musical (though not as heavy on the singing and dancing as one might expect), "Moonlight" strikes a more psychologically deft, surrealist tone in its woeful stage-to-screen triptych. These films couldn't be more dissimilar in substance, style, and social significance, yet remain inexorably linked because they also happen to be the year's best offerings.
If the 2016 election had gone another way, then perhaps "La La Land" would not be falling victim to such charges of under-self correction from Hollywood's liberal echo chamber. Chazelle's dreamy homage to "Singin' in the Rain" and other gilded-age 'tinsel town' musicals inhabits a somewhat lofty space between privilege and prestige — to which "Moonlight," sadly, cannot indulge. The ongoing backlash against "La La Land" is also hastened by what seems like a new, doggedly political reality of Trump's upsetting victory — we are now much more aware of gender, minority, and ethnic identity exclusion in the age of his malicious presidency, and are none too happy about it.
One obvious way to unscramble these films is to examine their contradictory endings. "La La Land" for instance, probes Seb and Mia's break-up through the lens of a rousing, nostalgic dance number. Illuminating the trials and tribulations of love, love lost, and the dreams that shake up and re-shape our connections to the world. "Moonlight" on the other hand, refuses to dole out a cheerfully-packaged conclusion for its woeful protagonist, Chiron. The fact that we don't know whether he's going to make love to or murder his former lover is what makes Jenkins' dreary cliffhanger so thoughtful and engaging. It is a sobering reminder that he, like so many men of color before him, may have come this far in life, but will never be allowed to escape the mental and physical obstacles that we, as safely segregated audience members, will thankfully never be exposed to thanks to our leisurely awards-show obsessed existence.