I was a big fan of Whiplash and interested in seeing this, Chazelle's next film. After Whiplash, I sensed and hoped that Chazelle might be the type of filmmaker I have been waiting for, a sophisticated cinephile with enough mainstream appeal to succeed in imposing and protecting his cinema within Hollywood. I was excited when I first discovered David Gordon Greeen, Andrew Bujalski, even Bennett Miller. But, in truth, Gordon Green and Bujalski never seemed to have the sensibility to fully crossover. They might get their chance to work within the system but it would be in the way the system wanted them to work and not the other way around. Miller, in a similar way to Kenneth Lonergan, will probably succeed in continuing to make smart cinema in Hollywood, but it will almost certainly be a cinema devoid of style and without any internal dialogue or link back to film's history. Meanwhile La La Land is truly bold cinema, a young auteur's willingness to go all in, cash in on his sophomore effort fully knowing that it really does not matter how daring he is because if he makes a film that connects he will be given additional chances. If not, he will be back to making small-scale indy work as he grovels for Hollywood to give him another shot. Chazelle gambles and emerges, in my eyes, as the most gifted new American filmmaker since the exciting new voices of the nineties, like James Gray and Tarantino. I made a similar, now obviously irresponsible claim in '99 when O'Russell, Payne and The Wachowski Brothers all had breakout years. But I have more trust this time around. After all, one of Chazelle's main subjects of La La Land is how to preserve something that is under great threat of fading away.
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