Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".
180-484: La La Land is a 2016 American musical romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle . It stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress who meet and fall in love while pursuing their dreams in Los Angeles . The supporting cast includes John Legend , Rosemarie DeWitt , Finn Wittrock , and J. K. Simmons . Having been fond of musicals during his time as
360-459: A "brutal scene", and a "shocking presentation" of a race in stolen automobiles. Although he admitted that there are moments of accuracy and truth in the film, he found these "excruciating", and discerned a "pictorial slickness" in the production's use of the CinemaScope process and its filming in the widescreen format, a slickness he declared was at odds with the realism of Ray's directing. Crowther
540-440: A 1972 interview that the character of Plato Crawford was intended to have been gay. Speaking to Boze Hadleigh , he said, "[It m]akes sense [that Plato was killed off]: he was, in a way, the first gay teenager in films. You watch it now, you know he had the hots for James Dean. You watch it now, and everyone knows about Jimmy['s bisexuality], so it's like he had the hots for Natalie [Wood] and me. Ergo, I had to be bumped off, out of
720-611: A Bollywood-style song-and-dance number during the film's end credits, Tallika (2022) was the first movie with Maximum Genres of Music Composed by Maharaja and registered as a World Record Holder in Music, Spain has a history and tradition of musical films that were made independent of Hollywood influence. The first films arise during the Second Spanish Republic of the 1930s and the advent of sound films . A few zarzuelas (Spanish operetta ) were even adapted as screenplays during
900-663: A Cause is a searing melodrama featuring keen insight into '50s juvenile attitude and James Dean's cool, iconic performance." Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 89 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Nicholas Ray were nominated for Academy Awards for their roles in Rebel Without a Cause , which grossed $ 7,197,000 (equivalent to $ 81.9 million in 2023) in domestic and overseas screenings, making it Warner Bros.' second-biggest box-office draw that year. The movie opened to mixed reviews when it
1080-503: A Leading Role (for Stone), Best Cinematography , and Best Film Music . Musical film The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if
1260-467: A Sixpence , The Happiest Millionaire , Star! , Darling Lili , Goodbye, Mr. Chips , Paint Your Wagon , Song of Norway , On a Clear Day You Can See Forever , 1776 , Man of La Mancha , Lost Horizon , and Mame . Collectively and individually these failures affected the financial viability of several major studios. In the 1970s, film culture and the changing demographics of filmgoers placed greater emphasis on gritty realism, while
1440-412: A budget of $ 30 million, and received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for Chazelle's direction and screenplay, the performances of Gosling and Stone, the score, musical numbers, cinematography, visual style, costumes and production design. It went on to receive numerous accolades , including winning a record seven awards at the 74th Golden Globe Awards and received eleven nominations at
1620-408: A budget of around $ 1 million. The studio demanded alterations: the male lead was asked to be changed from a jazz pianist to a rock musician, the complicated opening number had to be altered, and the story's bittersweet ending needed to be dropped. Chazelle scrapped the project and moved on. Chazelle later wrote Whiplash , which was an easier concept to sell and a less risky investment. After Whiplash
1800-430: A character who is interrogated over calling the film "overrated" because of its Oscar nominations, and a television commercial for the prescription Jardiance . The 2018 single " Love Scenario " by IKon drew heavy inspiration from the film's epilogue sequence. The 2021 Disney animated short film, Us Again , was also said to have been influenced by the film. In the closing of The Simpsons episode " Haw-Haw Land " it
1980-416: A coffee. During the audition, Mia is asked to tell a story. In response, she talks about how her aunt, a one-time stage actress who eventually died from alcoholism, inspired her to chase her dreams. Confident the audition was a success, Seb encourages Mia to devote herself to acting. The two then recognize that they will always love each other despite what may come for their relationship. Five years later, Mia
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#17328524974662160-422: A dangerous situation, but Frank advises him against confrontation of any kind. That night, during the chickie run, Buzz plunges to his death when the strap on his jacket sleeve becomes entangled with his door-latch lever, preventing him from exiting the car. As police approach, the gang flees, leaving Judy behind, but Jim persuades her to leave with him and Plato. Jim later confides to his parents his involvement in
2340-684: A drummer, Chazelle first conceptualized the film alongside Justin Hurwitz while attending Harvard University together. After moving to Los Angeles in 2010, Chazelle penned the script but did not find a studio willing to finance the production without changes to his design. After the success of his film Whiplash (2014), the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment . Miles Teller and Emma Watson were originally in talks to star, but after both dropped out, Gosling and Stone were cast. Filming took place in Los Angeles between August and September 2015, with
2520-474: A few dramas) included their own musical numbers. The Marx Brothers ' films included a musical number in nearly every film, allowing the Brothers to highlight their musical talents. Their final film, entitled Love Happy (1949), featured Vera-Ellen , considered to be the best dancer among her colleagues and professionals in the half century. Similarly, the vaudevillian comedian W. C. Fields joined forces with
2700-408: A few well-received films, but even their popularity waned by 1932. The public had quickly come to associate color with musicals and thus the decline in their popularity also resulted in a decline in color productions. The taste in musicals revived again in 1933 when director Busby Berkeley began to enhance the traditional dance number with ideas drawn from the drill precision he had experienced as
2880-686: A filmmaker working his way up the Hollywood ladder. La La Land in particular is inspired by his experience of moving from the East Coast with preconceived notions of what L.A. would be like, "that it was all just strip malls and freeways". Chazelle was unable to produce the film for years as no studio was willing to finance an original contemporary musical with no familiar songs. It is also a jazz musical, which The Hollywood Reporter called an "extinct genre". He believed that since he and Hurwitz were unknown at that time, it might have made financiers dubious about
3060-428: A jazz pianist. Like Stone, Gosling drew from his own experiences as an aspiring artist. One incident was used for Mia. Gosling was performing a crying scene in an audition and the casting director took a phone call during it, talking about her lunch plans while he was emoting. Chazelle met with Gosling when he was about to begin filming for The Big Short . Chazelle cast Gosling and Stone immediately after Summit bought
3240-558: A live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with the public and are exemplified by the films of Busby Berkeley , a choreographer known for his distinctive and elaborate set pieces featuring multiple showgirls. These lavish production numbers are typified by his choreographic work in 42nd Street , Gold Diggers of 1933 , Footlight Parade (all from 1933). During
3420-598: A month after Dean's death in a car crash on September 30, 1955. Over the years, the film has achieved landmark status for the performance of Dean, fresh from his Oscar-nominated role in East of Eden , in his most celebrated role. This was the only film of Dean's in which he received top billing. In 1990, Rebel Without a Cause was added to the Library of Congress 's National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant". In Los Angeles during
3600-526: A musical and India producing the most movies in the world (formed in 1913), the first Bollywood film to be a complete musical, Dev D (directed by Anurag Kashyap ), came in 2009. The second musical film to follow was Jagga Jasoos (directed by Anurag Basu ), in 2017. Bollywood musicals have their roots in the traditional musical theatre of India , such as classical Indian musical theatre , Sanskrit drama , and Parsi theatre . Early Bombay filmmakers combined these Indian musical theatre traditions with
3780-460: A nightclub where he passionately sticks up for the music he loves. 'It's dying on the vine,' he says. 'And the world says 'Let it die. It had its time.' Well, not on my watch.' In that scene, he speaks for the director. By the end of La La Land , he's speaking for all of us." La La Land' s competition for awards and critical attention with the African-American film Moonlight shortly after
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#17328524974663960-425: A one-woman play. Seb begins to perform regularly at a jazz club, and the two of them eventually move in together. A former bandmate of Seb invites him to be the keyboardist in a new jazz fusion band, which will give him a steady income. Although dismayed by the band's pop style, Seb signs on after hearing Mia trying to convince her mother that he is working on his career. The band finds success, but Mia knows their music
4140-413: A pair of great performances from Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Any movie like La La Land that gets toes tapping and tears flowing with such grace is worth remembering." Many elements of the film, including the visual style, use of colors, staging of the musical numbers and costume designs have been referenced numerous times in popular culture since its release. These include the entire opening segment of
4320-528: A party where he plays in a 1980s pop cover band. Mia makes Seb play "I Ran" for her. After the gig, they walk to their cars and lament wasting a lovely night together despite their clear chemistry. Seb arrives at Mia's workplace, and she shows him around the Warner Bros. backlot , where she works as a barista , while expressing her passion for acting. He takes her to a jazz club, describing his passion for jazz and his desire to open his own club. Seb invites Mia to
4500-462: A phone call from a prominent casting director who attended Mia's play, inviting her to audition for an upcoming film. Knowing that this could be her big break, he drives in a hurry to Boulder City. He finds her house since he remembered that she lived across the street from the library, the library where she fell in love with acting. Seb persuades her to attend, and she reluctantly agrees to go. The next morning, Seb picks her up, and Mia greets him with
4680-538: A production office in Atwater Village, Los Angeles over the span of three to four months, beginning in May 2015. Gosling practiced piano in one room, Stone worked with Moore in another, and costume designer Mary Zophres had her own corner of the complex. Gosling, with no previous experience, had to learn how to play the piano; no hand models were used. Moore emphasized working on emotion rather than technique, which Stone said
4860-699: A renaissance of the genre. The Guru and The 40-Year-Old Virgin also feature Indian-style song-and-dance sequences; the Bollywood musical Lagaan (2001) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ; two other Bollywood films Devdas (2002) and Rang De Basanti (2006) were nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language ; and Danny Boyle 's Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008) also features
5040-470: A rhapsody in blue, red, yellow and green." Writing for The Boston Globe , Ty Burr summarized the effectiveness of the film to relate to audiences stating: "...the movie traffics in the bittersweet happiness of treasuring things that are vanishing, like the unrealized future imagined in the climactic dance number, or those inky, star-filled dance floors that go on forever in old movies, or Hollywood musicals themselves. Or jazz: Sebastian has an early moment at
5220-490: A screening of Rebel Without a Cause and she accepts, forgetting a date with her boyfriend. Bored with the latter date, she rushes to the theater and finds Seb as the film begins. When the screening is interrupted by a projector malfunction, Seb and Mia spend the rest of the evening together with a romantic visit to the Griffith Observatory . After more failed auditions, Mia decides, with Seb's encouragement, to write
5400-519: A show-biz plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first "All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing" feature film, it was a hit and won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1929. There was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade (Paramount 1929) starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald , written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton . Warner Brothers produced
5580-508: A signature all of its own, stopping traffic in the first glorious sequence." MovieWeb ranked the film number 2 on its list of the "Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century So Far," in 2022 as well. In 2023, it ranked it number 3 on its list of the "15 Greatest Movies About Jazz" and number 1 on its list of the "Best Modern Movies Shot on Film." It also ranked number 2 on Teen Vogue ' s list of "The 45 Best Dance Movies of All Time." The film ranked number 15 on Collider ' s list of
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5760-425: A silent exchange of smiles and going their separate ways. As a drummer, Chazelle has a predilection for musical films . He wrote the screenplay for La La Land in 2010, when the film industry seemed out of reach for him. His idea was "to take the old musical but ground it in real life where things don't always exactly work out," and to salute creative people who move to Los Angeles to chase their dreams. He conceived
5940-409: A single take, like those of the 1930s works of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He also wanted the film to emulate the widescreen, CinemaScope look of 1950s musicals such as It's Always Fair Weather . Consequently, the movie was shot on celluloid 4-perf Super 35mm film (not digitally) with Panavision anamorphic lenses in CinemaScope's 2.55:1 aspect ratio, but not in true CinemaScope as that technology
6120-418: A soldier during World War I . In films such as 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Berkeley choreographed a number of films in his unique style. Berkeley's numbers typically begin on a stage but gradually transcend the limitations of theatrical space: his ingenious routines, involving human bodies forming patterns like a kaleidoscope, could never fit onto a real stage and the intended perspective
6300-525: A string of successes with live action fantasy adaptations of several of their animated features , Disney produced a live action version of Beauty and the Beast , the first of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical, and features new songs as well as new lyrics to both the Gaston number and the reprise of the title song. Bill Condon , who directed Dreamgirls , directed Beauty and
6480-489: A way to break away from their typecasting. For instance, the multi-talented James Cagney had originally risen to fame as a stage singer and dancer, but his repeated casting in "tough guy" roles and mob films gave him few chances to display these talents. Cagney's Oscar -winning role in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) allowed him to sing and dance, and he considered it to be one of his finest moments. Many comedies (and
6660-460: Is Dean, the gifted young actor who was killed last month. His rare talent and appealing personality even shine through this turgid melodrama." Bosley Crowther , writing in The New York Times , described Rebel Without a Cause as "violent, brutal and disturbing", and as an excessively graphic depiction of teenagers and their "weird ways". He referred to a "horrifying duel with switchblades",
6840-462: Is a famous actress and married to a different man, with whom she has a daughter. She is living a happy life. That night, the couple stumble upon a jazz bar. Recognizing the logo she had once designed, Mia realizes that Seb has opened his own jazz club. Seb notices Mia in the crowd and begins to play their love theme on the piano. The two imagine what might have been had their relationship thrived along with their careers before acknowledging each other with
7020-449: Is also the film debut of Dennis Hopper , albeit in a minor role. It was filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format. Focusing on emotionally confused suburban , middle-class teenagers , the film offers both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments. The film was an attempt to portray the moral decay of American youth, critique parental styles, and explore
7200-420: Is an idealized father for Plato". After a field trip to Griffith Observatory , Buzz provokes and challenges Jim to a knife fight; Jim bests Buzz by knocking his switchblade out of his hand, then throws his own blade away. To preserve his status as gang leader, Buzz suggests stealing some cars to have a " Chickie Run " at a seaside cliff. At home, Jim ambiguously asks his father about defending one's honor in
7380-432: Is considered the first African American A-list film star. Celebrated director Howard Hawks also ventured into the genre with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . In the 1960s, 1970s, and continuing up to today, the musical film became less of a bankable genre that could be relied upon for sure-fire hits. Audiences for them lessened and fewer musical films were produced as the genre became less mainstream and more specialized. In
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7560-466: Is no longer available. Chazelle wanted Los Angeles to be the primary setting for his film, commenting that "there is something very poetic about the city I think, about a city that is built by people with these unrealistic dreams and people who kind of just put it all on the line for that." Principal photography on the film officially began in the city on August 10, 2015, and filming took place in more than 60 locations both in and near Los Angeles, including
7740-581: Is not the type of music Seb wants to perform. During the band's first tour, Seb and Mia argue: she accuses him of abandoning his dreams, while he claims that she liked him more when he was unsuccessful because it made her feel better about herself. Two weeks later, Seb misses Mia's play because of a photoshoot he had forgotten about. The play fails, very few people attend, and Mia overhears dismissive comments about her performance. Unable to forgive him for missing her play and their previous argument, Mia returns to her hometown of Boulder City, Nevada . Seb receives
7920-547: Is stated that the episode was supposed to be a parody of Moonlight rather than La La Land (itself parodying the mistake at the 89th Academy Awards .) Emma Stone won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. La La Land received 11 nominations at the 70th British Academy Film Awards , more than any other film of 2016. The film won in the categories of Best Film , Best Director , Best Actress in
8100-474: Is viewing from straight above. Musical stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were among the most popular and highly respected personalities in Hollywood during the classical era; the Fred and Ginger pairing was particularly successful, resulting in a number of classic films such as Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Many dramatic actors gladly participated in musicals as
8280-511: The New York Observer also took aim at the film's intention to emulate the MGM musical classics, writing that "the old-fashioned screenplay, by the ambitious writer-director Damien Chazelle, reeks of mothballs", and that "the movie sags badly in the middle, like a worn-out mattress that needs new springs". The South China Morning Post remarked that aside from its racial treatment of jazz, much of
8460-421: The 70th British Academy Film Awards , winning five, including Best Film . The film also received a record-tying fourteen nominations at the 89th Academy Awards , winning in six categories including Best Director and Best Actress (Stone). In the former category, Chazelle became the youngest winner at age 32. It has since been regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s and the 21st century, and as one of
8640-527: The 74th Golden Globe Awards , featuring parodies of "Another Day of Sun," "City of Stars" and the planetarium sequence with host Jimmy Fallon , Nicole Kidman , Amy Adams , Sarah Paulson , Courtney B. Vance , Sterling K. Brown , Evan Rachel Wood , Rami Malek , and Kit Harington participating, an independently produced short film parody set in New York City titled NY NY Land , a skit on season 42 of Saturday Night Live where host Aziz Ansari plays
8820-564: The Academy Award for Best Original Song (1938), the film earned an ASCAP Film and Television Award (1989) for Bob Hope's signature song " Thanks for the Memory ". During the late 1940s and into the early 1950s, a production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer headed by Arthur Freed made the transition from old-fashioned musical films, whose formula had become repetitive, to something new. (However, they also produced technicolor remakes of such musicals as Show Boat , which had previously been filmed in
9000-883: The Angels Flight trolley in downtown, houses in the Hollywood Hills, the Colorado Street Bridge , the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena , the Warner Bros. studio lot , the Grand Central Market , Hermosa Beach 's Lighthouse Café , Griffith Observatory , Griffith Park , Chateau Marmont , the Watts Towers , and Long Beach , with many scenes shot in one take. It took 40 days to complete shooting, finishing in mid-September 2015. The opening pre-credits sequence
9180-654: The Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy in their respective years, while such films as The Phantom of the Opera , Hairspray , Mamma Mia! , Nine , Into the Woods , The Greatest Showman , Mary Poppins Returns , Rocketman , Cyrano , Tick, Tick... Boom! , Elvis , and The Color Purple were only nominated. Chicago was also the first musical since Oliver! to win Best Picture at
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#17328524974669360-570: The Hollywood Hills , promising her that someone in the crowd could jump-start her career. After her car is towed, she walks home in disappointment. During a gig at a restaurant, Seb slips into jazz improvisation despite the owner's warning to only play traditional Christmas pieces. Mia hears him playing as she passes by. Moved, she enters the restaurant and observes Seb being fired for disobedience. Mia attempts to compliment him as he storms out, but he brushes by her. Months later, she runs into Seb at
9540-643: The Sherman Brothers . Starting with 1989's The Little Mermaid , the Disney Renaissance gave new life to the musical film. Other successful animated musicals included Aladdin , The Hunchback of Notre Dame , and Pocahontas from Disney proper, The Nightmare Before Christmas from Disney division Touchstone Pictures, The Prince of Egypt from DreamWorks, Anastasia from Fox and Don Bluth, Eight Crazy Nights from Columbia, and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut from Paramount. Beauty and
9720-926: The Venice Film Festival 's opening night film on August 31, 2016. The film also screened at the Telluride Film Festival , the Toronto International Film Festival , beginning September 12, 2016, the BFI London Film Festival , the Middleburg Film Festival in late October 2016, the Virginia Film Festival , held at the University of Virginia on November 6, 2016, and the AFI Fest on November 15, 2016. La La Land
9900-425: The Warner Bros. studio lot ; Chazelle considered studio lots to be "monuments" of Hollywood. Production designer Wasco created numerous fake old film posters. Chazelle occasionally created names for them, deciding to use the title of his first feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009) for one poster, which reimagines it as a 1930s musical. The now-iconic six-minute-long "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for
10080-522: The differences and conflicts between generations , namely the Interbellum Generation and the Silent Generation . The title was adopted from psychologist Robert M. Lindner 's 1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath , although the film itself does not make any other references to Lindner's book. Warner Bros. released the film on October 27, 1955, nearly
10260-403: The "30 Best Musicals of All Time," with Jeremy Urquhart writing, "It works as a modern update/homage to classic Hollywood musicals that were popular in the 1950s without ever feeling derivative or mocking, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the lead roles both give great performances that are up there with the best of their respective careers." It also ranked number 8 on Parade ' s list of
10440-572: The "67 Best Movie Musicals of All Time," with Samuel R. Murrian writing that the film is "many things, thusly its own creation: deftly blending a modern showbiz melodrama, a giddy throwback, a striking love story." Screen Rant also ranked it at number 10 on its list "The 35 Best Musicals of All Time" and number 1 on its list of "The 12 Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century," while IndieWire ranked it at number 12 on its list of "The 60 Best Movie Musicals of All Time." Wilson Chapman, curation editor for IndieWire, wrote that La La Land' s story has just
10620-596: The "Golden Age" of Hindi cinema . Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time were produced during this period. Examples include Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), directed by Guru Dutt and written by Abrar Alvi , Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955), directed by Raj Kapoor and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas , and Aan (1952), directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Dilip Kumar . These films expressed social themes mainly dealing with working-class life in India , particularly urban life in
10800-474: The 1930s it was clear that if the Soviet cinema was to compete with its Western counterparts, it would have to give audiences what they wanted: the glamour and fantasy they got from Hollywood. The musical film, which emerged at that time, embodied the ideal combination of entertainment and official ideology. A struggle between laughter for laughter's sake and entertainment with a clear ideological message would define
10980-518: The 1930s, the musical films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers became massive cultural fixtures in the eyes of the American public. These films included, Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet , Swing Time (both 1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) would become a landmark film for movie musical as it experimented with new technology such as Technicolor . During
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#173285249746611160-645: The 1930s.) In 1939, Freed was hired as associate producer for the film Babes in Arms . Starting in 1944 with Meet Me in St. Louis , the Freed Unit worked somewhat independently of its own studio to produce some of the most popular and well-known examples of the genre. The products of this unit include Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in
11340-690: The 1940s and 1950s, musical films from MGM musicals regularly premiered. These works included: Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), High Society (1956), and Gigi (1958). During this time, films outside the Arthur Freed unit at MGM included Holiday Inn (1942), White Christmas (1954), and Funny Face (1957) as well as Oklahoma! (1955), The King and I (1956), Carousel , and South Pacific (1958). These films of
11520-639: The 1960s created specifically for film were Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book , two of Disney's biggest hits of all time. The phenomenal box-office performance of The Sound of Music gave the major Hollywood studios more confidence to produce lengthy, large-budget musicals. Despite the resounding success of some of these films, Hollywood also produced a large number of musical flops in the late 1960s and early 1970s which appeared to seriously misjudge public taste. The commercially and/or critically unsuccessful films included Camelot , Finian's Rainbow , Hello Dolly! , Sweet Charity , Doctor Dolittle , Half
11700-653: The 1960s, films based on stage musicals continued to be critical and box-office successes. These films included, West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), The Music Man (1962), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), My Fair Lady , Mary Poppins (both 1964), The Sound of Music (1965), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying , Thoroughly Modern Millie (all 1967), Oliver! , and Funny Girl (both 1968). In
11880-631: The 1960s, the critical and box-office success of the films West Side Story , Gypsy , The Music Man , Bye Bye Birdie , My Fair Lady , Mary Poppins , The Sound of Music , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , The Jungle Book , Thoroughly Modern Millie , Oliver! , and Funny Girl suggested that the traditional musical was in good health, while French filmmaker Jacques Demy 's jazz musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort were popular with international critics. However popular musical tastes were being heavily affected by rock and roll and
12060-738: The 1970s, film culture and the changing demographics of filmgoers placed greater emphasis on gritty realism, while the pure entertainment and theatricality of classical-era Hollywood musicals was seen as old-fashioned. Despite this, Scrooge (1970), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Cabaret (1972), 1776 (1972), Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and Pete's Dragon (1977), as well as Grease and The Wiz (both 1978), were more traditional musicals closely adapted from stage shows and were strong successes with critics and audiences. Throughout
12240-516: The 1980s and 1990s, musicals tended to be mainly coming from the Disney animated films of the period, from composers and lyricists, Howard Ashman , Alan Menken , and Stephen Schwartz . The Disney Renaissance started with 1989's The Little Mermaid , then followed by Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), and Mulan (1998). In
12420-549: The 1990s, the three biggest Bollywood movie stars have been the " Three Khans ": Aamir Khan , Shah Rukh Khan , and Salman Khan . Combined, they have starred in most of the top ten highest-grossing Bollywood films . The three Khans have had successful careers since the late 1980s, and have dominated the Indian box office since the 1990s, across three decades. Baz Luhrmann stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001)
12600-556: The 21st century, the musical genre has been rejuvenated with darker musicals, musical biopics, musical remakes, epic drama musicals and comedy drama musicals such as Moulin Rouge! (2001), Chicago (2002), The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Rent (2005), Dreamgirls (2006), Across the Universe , Enchanted , Hairspray , Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (all 2007), Mamma Mia! (2008), Nine (2009), The Muppets (2011), Les Misérables (2012), Into
12780-557: The Academy Awards. Joshua Oppenheimer 's Academy Award-nominated documentary The Act of Killing may be considered a nonfiction musical. One specific musical trend was the rising number of jukebox musicals based on music from various pop/rock artists on the big screen, some of which based on Broadway shows. Examples of Broadway-based jukebox musical films included Mamma Mia ! ( ABBA ), Rock of Ages , and Sunshine on Leith ( The Proclaimers ). Original ones included Across
12960-591: The American family unit itself. He criticized the film for overgeneralizing, calling this aspect a "convenient cliche", and summed up his review by describing the film as "a superficial treatment of a vital problem that has been staged brilliantly". Robert J. Landry, managing editor of Variety magazine at the time, wrote a review published on October 26. He described Rebel as a "fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick." Unlike some movie critics, Landry thought that James Dean, under
13140-521: The Beast , The Lion King , and others were adapted for the stage after their blockbuster success. In the 21st century, movie musicals were reborn with darker musicals, musical biopics, epic drama musicals and comedy drama musicals such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? , Moulin Rouge! , Chicago , Walk the Line , Dreamgirls , Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street , Les Misérables , La La Land , and West Side Story ; all of which won
13320-488: The Beast . The second film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was Aladdin and features new songs. The third film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was The Lion King and features new songs. The fourth film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was The Little Mermaid and features new songs with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda , replacing Ashman. Pixar also produced Coco ,
13500-412: The Bollywood blockbuster format. Yaadon Ki Baarat (1973), directed by Hussain and written by Salim-Javed, has been identified as the first masala film and the "first" quintessentially "Bollywood" film. Salim-Javed went on to write more successful masala films in the 1970s and 1980s. Masala films launched Amitabh Bachchan into the biggest Bollywood movie star of the 1970s and 1980s. A landmark for
13680-825: The Chocolate Factory , Pete's Dragon , and Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks were also released in the 1970s, the latter winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects . By the 1980s, financiers grew increasingly confident in the musical genre, partly buoyed by the relative health of the musical on Broadway and London's West End . Productions of the 1980s and 1990s included The Apple , Xanadu , The Blues Brothers , Annie , Monty Python's The Meaning of Life , The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas , Victor/Victoria , Footloose , Fast Forward , A Chorus Line , Little Shop of Horrors , Forbidden Zone , Absolute Beginners , Labyrinth , Newsies , Evita , and Everyone Says I Love You . However, Can't Stop
13860-650: The Flame (1930), Song of the West (1930), Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930), Under a Texas Moon (1930), Bride of the Regiment (1930), Whoopee! (1930), King of Jazz (1930), Viennese Nights (1930), and Kiss Me Again (1930). In addition, there were scores of musical features released with color sequences. Hollywood released more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931. By late 1930, audiences had been oversaturated with musicals and studios were forced to cut
14040-465: The Gershwins, respectively. Warner Bros. produced Calamity Jane and A Star Is Born ; the former film was a vehicle for Doris Day , while the latter provided a big-screen comeback for Judy Garland, who had been out of the spotlight since 1950. Meanwhile, director Otto Preminger , better known for "message pictures", made Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess , both starring Dorothy Dandridge , who
14220-685: The Music , starring the Village People , was a calamitous attempt to resurrect the old-style musical and was released to audience indifference in 1980. Little Shop of Horrors was based on an off-Broadway musical adaptation of a 1960 Roger Corman film, a precursor of later film-to-stage-to-film adaptations, including The Producers . Many animated films of the period – predominately from Disney – included traditional musical numbers. Howard Ashman , Alan Menken , and Stephen Schwartz had previous musical theater experience and wrote songs for animated films during this time, supplanting Disney workhorses
14400-499: The Musical (all 2022), The Little Mermaid , Wonka , The Color Purple (all 2023), Mean Girls , Wicked , Mufasa: The Lion King , Joker: Folie à Deux , A Complete Unknown (all 2024). The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the golden age of the musical film, when the genre's popularity was at its highest in the Western world . Disney 's Snow White and
14580-496: The Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953) and Gigi (1958). Non-Freed musicals from the studio included Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954 and High Society in 1956, and the studio distributed Samuel Goldwyn 's Guys and Dolls in 1955. This era saw musical stars become household names, including Judy Garland , Gene Kelly , Ann Miller , Donald O'Connor , Cyd Charisse , Mickey Rooney , Vera-Ellen , Jane Powell , Howard Keel , and Kathryn Grayson . Fred Astaire
14760-427: The Rain . In 2019, CBC Radio included it on its list of "the greatest romantic movies of all time." In 2021, Helena Trauger of The Beacon called it the best film of the 2010s, stating that it is "one of the most creative and well-executed films that every person should attempt to watch at least once." In 2022, Time Out ranked it number 79 on its list of the "100 Best Films of the 21st Century," writing that it "has
14940-514: The Seven Dwarfs , the earliest Disney animated feature film, was a musical which won an honorary Oscar for Walt Disney at the 11th Academy Awards . Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24. Beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists, and dancers. The earliest feature-length films with synchronized sound had only a soundtrack of music and occasional sound effects that played while
15120-487: The Soviet musical was first and foremost a form of propaganda. Vladimir Lenin said that cinema was "the most important of the arts". His successor, Joseph Stalin , also recognized the power of cinema in efficiently spreading Communist Party doctrine. Films were widely popular in the 1920s, but it was foreign cinema that dominated the Soviet filmgoing market. Films from Germany and the U.S. proved more entertaining than Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein 's historical dramas. By
15300-924: The Unicorn , and Spellbound . Biopics about music artists and showmen were also big in the 21st century. Examples include 8 Mile ( Eminem ), Ray ( Ray Charles ), Walk the Line ( Johnny Cash and June Carter ), La Vie en Rose ( Édith Piaf ), Notorious ( Biggie Smalls ), Jersey Boys ( The Four Seasons ) Love & Mercy ( Brian Wilson ), CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story ( TLC ), Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B ( Aaliyah ), Get on Up ( James Brown ), Whitney and I Wanna Dance With Somebody ( Whitney Houston ), Straight Outta Compton ( N.W.A ), The Greatest Showman ( P. T. Barnum ), Bohemian Rhapsody ( Freddie Mercury ), The Dirt ( Mötley Crüe ), Judy ( Judy Garland ), Rocketman ( Elton John ), Respect ( Aretha Franklin ) and Elvis ( Elvis Presley ). Grossing over $ 900 million at
15480-479: The United States and Canada, and $ 320.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $ 472 million, against a production budget of $ 30 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $ 68.25 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film, making it one of the top 20 most profitable releases of 2016. This is Ryan Gosling 's second highest-grossing film, as it
15660-582: The Universe ( The Beatles ), Moulin Rouge! (various pop hits), Idlewild ( Outkast ) and Yesterday ( The Beatles ). Disney also returned to musicals with Enchanted , The Princess and the Frog , Tangled , Winnie the Pooh , The Muppets , Frozen , Muppets Most Wanted , Into the Woods , Moana , Mary Poppins Returns , Frozen II , Encanto , Better Nate Than Ever , Disenchanted , Wish , Moana 2 and Mufasa: The Lion King . Following
15840-537: The Woods (2014), La La Land (2016), Beauty and the Beast , The Greatest Showman (both 2017), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again! , A Star Is Born , Mary Poppins Returns , Bohemian Rhapsody (all 2018), Aladdin , Rocketman , The Lion King (all 2019), In the Heights , Respect , Dear Evan Hansen , Cyrano , Everybody's Talking About Jamie , Tick, Tick… Boom! , West Side Story (all 2021), Elvis , Spirited , Disenchanted , Matilda
16020-506: The acting of James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo to be "extraordinarily good", and the direction by Nicholas Ray to be "outstanding". He praised the realistic manner in which Ray depicted the police station scenes and the engaging manner, according to Moffitt, in which he captured the nihilism of the teenage subculture for his audience. Moffitt took issue with the underlying ideology of the film, especially its implication, as he saw it, that professional bureaucrats could better guide youth than
16200-496: The actors portrayed their characters just as they did in silent films: without audible dialogue. The Jazz Singer , released in 1927 by Warner Brothers , was the first to include an audio track including non- diegetic music and diegetic music, but it had only a short sequence of spoken dialogue. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face", "Toot, Toot, Tootsie", " Blue Skies ", and " My Mammy ". Historian Scott Eyman wrote, "As
16380-422: The back of a bench, but picked right up and kept on going with the scene. In 2024, Gosling reflected on the filming of this scene, wishing he can re-film it to correct the positioning of his hand in the famous still frame from the sequence that was used throughout the film's marketing, saying that "It just killed the energy that way ... It was all leading to what? A lazy ... I call it La La Hand." Chazelle said that
16560-408: The best musical and romantic films of all time. A stage musical adaptation is in the works. While stuck in Los Angeles traffic, Sebastian "Seb" Wilder has a moment of road rage directed at aspiring actress Mia Dolan. After a hard day at work, Mia's next audition goes awry because the casting director takes a phone call during an emotional scene. That night, her roommates take her to a lavish party in
16740-1088: The big screen. It set a new template for Bollywood musical romance films that defined Hindi cinema in the 1990s. The period of Hindi cinema from the 1990s onwards is referred to as "New Bollywood" cinema, linked to economic liberalisation in India during the early 1990s. By the early 1990s, the pendulum had swung back toward family-centric romantic musicals. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was followed by blockbusters such as Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Chandni (1989), Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Raja Hindustani (1996), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). A new generation of popular actors emerged, such as Aamir Khan, Aditya Pancholi , Ajay Devgan , Akshay Kumar , Salman Khan ( Salim Khan's son ), and Shahrukh Khan , and actresses such as Madhuri Dixit , Sridevi , Juhi Chawla , Meenakshi Seshadri , Manisha Koirala , Kajol , and Karisma Kapoor . Since
16920-464: The box office Bohemian Rhapsody is the most commercially successful musical biopic. Director Damien Chazelle created a musical film called La La Land , starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone . It was meant to reintroduce the traditional jazz style of song numbers with influences from the Golden Age of Hollywood and Jacques Demy 's French musicals while incorporating a contemporary/modern take on
17100-425: The box-office. Marisol , Joselito , Pili & Mili , and Rocío Dúrcal were the major figures of musical films from the 1960s to 1970s. Due to Spanish transition to democracy and the rise of " Movida culture ", the musical genre fell in production and box-office, only saved by Carlos Saura and his flamenco musical films. Unlike the musical films of Hollywood and Bollywood, popularly identified with escapism,
17280-504: The box-office. It was an increase of 366% from the previous week and good for a per-theater of $ 20,510. The following week, the film had its wide expansion to 734 theaters, grossing $ 5.8 million for the weekend (including $ 4 million on Christmas Day and $ 9.2 million over the four days), and finishing eighth at the box-office. On January 6, 2017, the weekend of the Golden Globes , the film expanded to 1,515 theaters and grossed $ 10 million over
17460-667: The comic actress Martha Raye and the young comedian Bob Hope in Paramount Pictures musical anthology The Big Broadcast of 1938 . The film also showcased the talents of several internationally recognized musical artists including: Kirsten Flagstad (Norwegian operatic soprano), Wilfred Pelletier (Canadian conductor of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra ), Tito Guizar (Mexican tenor), Shep Fields conducting his Rippling Rhythm Jazz Orchestra and John Serry Sr. (Italian-American concert accordionist). In addition to
17640-404: The conventions of Hindi cinema for decades. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the industry was dominated by musical romance films with "romantic hero" leads, the most popular being Rajesh Khanna . Other actors during this period include Shammi Kapoor , Jeetendra , Sanjeev Kumar , and Shashi Kapoor , and actresses like Sharmila Tagore , Mumtaz , Saira Banu , Helen and Asha Parekh . By
17820-400: The crash and considers turning himself in. When Carol declares they are moving again, Jim pleads with Frank to stand up for him. When Frank refuses, Jim attacks him in frustration, then storms off to the police station to confess, only to be turned away by the desk sergeant. Jim drives back home, finding Judy waiting for him. She apologizes for her prior treatment of him due to peer pressure, and
18000-929: The decline of the musical film is Indian cinema , especially the Bollywood film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where most of films have been, and still are, musicals. The majority of films produced in the Tamil industry , based in Chennai (formerly Madras), the Sandalwood industry , based in Bangalore , the Telugu industry , based in Hyderabad , and the Malayalam industry are also musicals. Despite this exception of almost every Indian movie being
18180-438: The election of Donald Trump sharpened the attention on questions of racial sensitivity and unexamined white privilege in the characters of film. While accolades from audiences and critics grew, the film received backlash for what some considered a disproportional amount of praise. Saturday Night Live lampooned the fervor over the film with a sketch about a man arrested for thinking it was "decent... but also boring." The film
18360-476: The era typically relied on the star power of such film stars as Fred Astaire , Gene Kelly , Bing Crosby , Frank Sinatra , Judy Garland , Ann Miller , Kathryn Grayson , and Howard Keel . They also relied on film directors such as Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli as well as songwriters Comden and Green , Rodgers and Hammerstein , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter , and the Gershwin Brothers . During
18540-597: The fight scene at Griffith Observatory was offered at auction on September 30, 2015, by Profiles in History with an estimated value of US$ 12,000 to $ 15,000; the winning bid was US$ 12,000. Also offered at the same auction were production photographs and a final shooting script dated August 17, 1955 for a behind-the-scenes television promotional film titled Behind the Cameras: Rebel Without a Cause hosted by Gig Young and that had scripted interviews and staged footage by
18720-408: The film an approval rating of 91% based on 470 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, " La La Land breathes new life into a bygone genre with thrillingly assured direction, powerful performances, and an irresistible excess of heart." On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It
18900-474: The film ended and applause grew with the houselights, Sam Goldwyn 's wife Frances looked around at the celebrities in the crowd. She saw 'terror in all their faces', she said, as if they knew that 'the game they had been playing for years was finally over'." Still, only isolated sequences featured "live" sound; most of the film had only a synchronous musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool , which
19080-561: The film has been called a "landmark ... a quantum leap forward in the artistic and technical evolution of a format." The 1949 Mercury two-door sedan James Dean drove in the movie is part of the permanent collection at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. Rebel Without a Cause holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The critical consensus reads, " Rebel Without
19260-519: The film just doesn't measure up." On the other hand, she praised James Dean's acting, writing, "[w]ith complete control of the character, he gives a fine, sensitive performance of an unhappy, lonely teenager, tormented by the knowledge of his emotional instability." Rebel was censored in Britain by the British Board of Film Censors and released with scenes cut and an X-rating . Most of the knife fight
19440-481: The film when he was a student at Harvard University with his classmate Justin Hurwitz . The two explored the concept in their senior thesis through a low-budget musical about a Boston jazz musician, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench . Chazelle was moved by the tradition of 1920s " city symphony " films, such as Manhatta (1921) and Man with a Movie Camera (1929), that paid tribute to cities. After graduating, both moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and continued writing
19620-470: The film's score composed by Hurwitz, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the dance choreography by Mandy Moore . La La Land premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2016, and was released theatrically in the United States on December 9, by Lionsgate . The film emerged as a major commercial success, grossing $ 472 million worldwide on
19800-439: The film, stating that it "succeeds both as a fizzy fantasy and a hard-headed fable, a romantic comedy and a showbiz melodrama, a work of sublime artifice and touching authenticity". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded the film five out of five stars, describing it as "a sun-drenched musical masterpiece." Tom Charity of Sight & Sound stated, "Chazelle has crafted that rare thing, a genuinely romantic comedy, and as well,
19980-531: The film, was actually Santa Monica High School , located in Santa Monica, California . Exterior scenes at the abandoned mansion to which the characters retreat were filmed at the William O. Jenkins House , previously used in the film Sunset Boulevard (1950). It was demolished just two years after filming. Irving Shulman , who adapted Nicholas Ray's initial film story into the screenplay, had considered changing
20160-429: The film. He stated that the duo "feel like the closest thing that we have right now to an old Hollywood couple" as akin to Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn , Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers , Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall , and Myrna Loy and William Powell . The film marked the third collaboration between Gosling and Stone, following Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) and Gangster Squad (2013). Chazelle asked
20340-520: The film. It portrayed the character of Jim Stark inebriated to the point of belligerence screaming at a car in the parking lot "It's a little jeep jeep! Little jeep, jeep!" The scene was considered unproductive to the story's progression by head editor William H. Ziegler and ultimately was cut. In 2006, members of the Film Society of Lincoln Center petitioned to have the scene printed and archived for historical preservation. Sal Mineo would later note in
20520-507: The first computer-animated musical film by the company. Other animated musical films include Rio , Dr. Seuss' The Lorax , Rio 2 , The Book of Life , Trolls , Sing , My Little Pony: The Movie , Smallfoot , UglyDolls , Trolls World Tour , Over the Moon , Vivo , Sing 2 , The Bob's Burgers Movie , Under the Boardwalk , Trolls Band Together , Leo , Thelma
20700-451: The first colour film in Hindi , Kisan Kanya . The next year, he made another colour film, a version of Mother India . However, colour did not become a popular feature until the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema. Following India's independence , the period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is regarded by film historians as
20880-546: The first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor . This was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show (1929). The most popular film of 1929 was the second all-color, all-talking feature which was entitled Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929). This film broke all box office records and remained
21060-411: The former two examples; Awaara presented the city as both a nightmare and a dream, while Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of city life. Mehboob Khan 's Mother India (1957), a remake of his earlier Aurat (1940), was the first Indian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film , which it lost by a single vote. Mother India was also an important film that defined
21240-484: The freedom and youth associated with it, and indeed Elvis Presley made a few films that have been equated with the old musicals in terms of form. A Hard Day's Night and Help! , starring the Beatles , were audacious. Most of the musical films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music were straightforward adaptations or restagings of successful stage productions. The most successful musicals of
21420-516: The golden age of the Soviet musical of the 1930s and 1940s. Then-head of the film industry Boris Shumyatsky sought to emulate Hollywood's conveyor belt method of production, going so far as to suggest the establishment of a Soviet Hollywood. Rebel Without a Cause Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American coming-of-age romantic drama film , directed by Nicholas Ray . The film stars James Dean , Natalie Wood , Sal Mineo , Jim Backus , Ann Doran , Corey Allen and William Hopper . It
21600-453: The highest-grossing film ever produced until 1939. Suddenly, the market became flooded with musicals, revues, and operettas. The following all-color musicals were produced in 1929 and 1930 alone: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), The Show of Shows (1929), Sally (1929), The Vagabond King (1930), Follow Thru (1930), Bright Lights (1930), Golden Dawn (1930), Hold Everything (1930), The Rogue Song (1930), Song of
21780-693: The influence of Nicholas Ray's direction, had mostly freed his acting of the mannerisms characteristic of Marlon Brando's style, and that his performance in the movie was "very effective". He praised Dean's interpretation of a maladjusted teenager, noting his ability "to get inside the skin" of his character as "not often encountered". Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News found fault with Rebel ' s depiction, in her view, of its adults as cardboard figures and of its middle-class teenagers as hoodlums, arguing that it lacked credibility and that "[a]s an honest purposeful drama of juvenile hardness and violence
21960-410: The issues are further complicated by Frank's interfering mother. His frustrations are made manifest to officer Ray Fremick when Jim is released to their custody. Judy is convinced that her father ignores her because she is no longer a little girl, so she dresses up in racy clothes to get attention, which only causes her father to call her a "dirty tramp", while Plato's father abandoned his family when he
22140-635: The late 1980s, Hindi cinema experienced another period of stagnation, with a decline in box office turnout, due to increasing violence, decline in musical melodic quality, and rise in video piracy, leading to middle-class family audiences abandoning theaters. The turning point came with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), directed by Mansoor Khan , written and produced by his father Nasir Hussain , and starring his cousin Aamir Khan with Juhi Chawla . Its blend of youthfulness, wholesome entertainment, emotional quotients and strong melodies lured family audiences back to
22320-564: The latter, which was more dance and jazz-oriented. The film also makes visual allusions to Hollywood classics such as Broadway Melody of 1940 , Singin' in the Rain , The Band Wagon , and An American in Paris . About An American in Paris, Chazelle commented: "That's a movie that we just pillaged. It's an awesome example of how daring some of those old musicals really were." It shares some character development and themes with Chazelle's previous musical work, Whiplash ; Chazelle said: He said that both films reflect his own experiences as
22500-688: The leading roles. Watson dropped out to honor her commitments to Disney 's live-action Beauty and the Beast remake (2017), while Teller exited via long contract negotiations. Coincidentally, Gosling turned down the Beast role in Beauty and the Beast in favor of La La Land . Chazelle subsequently decided to make his characters somewhat older, with experience in struggling to make their dreams, rather than younger newcomers just arriving in Los Angeles. Emma Stone plays Mia, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles. Stone has loved musicals since she saw Les Misérables when she
22680-611: The mansion. The three new friends act out a fantasy as a family. Plato then falls asleep, and Jim and Judy leave to explore the mansion, where they share their first kiss. Buzz's gang find and wake up Plato, who, frightened and distraught, shoots and wounds one of the gang. When Jim returns, he attempts to restrain Plato, who flees, accusing Jim of abandoning him. Plato runs to the observatory and barricades himself inside as more police converge including Fremick who, along with Frank and Carol, has been searching for Jim. Jim and Judy follow Plato into
22860-639: The masala film genre was Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan . Manmohan Desai went on to successfully exploit the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with Bachchan, other popular actors of this era included Feroz Khan , Mithun Chakraborty , Naseeruddin Shah , Jackie Shroff , Sanjay Dutt , Anil Kapoor and Sunny Deol . Actresses from this era included Hema Malini , Jaya Bachchan , Raakhee , Shabana Azmi , Zeenat Aman , Parveen Babi , Rekha , Dimple Kapadia , Smita Patil , Jaya Prada and Padmini Kolhapure . In
23040-553: The mid-1950s, teenager Jim Stark is arrested and taken to the juvenile division of a police station for public intoxication. At the station he crosses paths with John "Plato" Crawford, who was brought in for killing a litter of puppies, and Judy, who was brought in for curfew violation. The three separately reveal their innermost frustrations to the officers; all three of them suffer from problems at home. Jim feels anguished by his constantly bickering parents, Frank and Carol, but even more so by his timid father's failure to stand up to Carol;
23220-504: The music from films that were then being released. For example, Life of the Party (1930) was originally produced as an all-color, all-talking musical comedy. Before it was released, however, the songs were cut out. The same thing happened to Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931) and Manhattan Parade (1932) both of which had been filmed entirely in Technicolor . Marlene Dietrich sang songs successfully in her films, and Rodgers and Hart wrote
23400-522: The musical film format that emerged from early Hollywood sound films. Other early influences on Bombay filmmakers included Urdu literature and the Arabian Nights . The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani 's Alam Ara (1931), was a major commercial success. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming. In 1937, Ardeshir Irani, of Alam Ara fame, made
23580-561: The musical's heyday. They include 1776 , The Wiz , At Long Last Love , Mame , Man of La Mancha , Lost Horizon , Godspell , Phantom of the Paradise , Funny Lady ( Barbra Streisand 's sequel to Funny Girl ), A Little Night Music , and Hair amongst others. The critical wrath against At Long Last Love , in particular, was so strong that it was never released on home video. Fantasy musical films Scrooge , The Blue Bird , The Little Prince , Willy Wonka &
23760-409: The name of James Dean's character to Herman Deville, according to Jurgen Muller's Movies of the '50s . He originally had written a number of scenes that were shot and later cut from the final version of the film. According to an AFI interview with Stewart Stern, with whom Shulman worked on the screenplay, one of the scenes was thought to be too emotionally provocative to be included in the final print of
23940-468: The observatory, where Jim persuades Plato to trade the gun for his red jacket; Jim quietly removes the ammunition before returning it, and then convinces Plato to come outside. When the police notice that Plato still has the gun, they shoot Plato dead as he charges them, unaware that Jim had removed the bullets. Frank comforts his grieving son, vowing to be a better father. Now reconciled with his parents, Jim introduces them to Judy. Warner Brothers had bought
24120-575: The opening scene. He went on to name it his favorite movie of the year. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune similarly lauded the opening sequence, in addition to highlighting Stone's performance, stating "she's reason enough to see La La Land ." Despite being less enthusiastic about Gosling's dancing and the film's middle section, Phillips nevertheless gave the film four out of four stars, declaring it "the year's most seriously pleasurable entertainment". A.O. Scott of The New York Times praised
24300-574: The parked car) had to be completed during the brief " magic hour " moment at sunset. It took eight takes and two days to shoot it. When Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone finally nailed it, "everybody just exploded," Stone said. Since Gosling and Stone were not primarily dancers, the two made a number of mistakes, especially during long uninterrupted single-take musical numbers. However, Chazelle was very sympathetic towards them, understanding their lack of experience and not minding their errors. While shooting Sebastian and Mia's first dance together, Stone stumbled over
24480-453: The planned film. Stone gained confidence from performing in Cabaret to handle the demands of the film. In preparation for her role, Stone watched some of the musical movies that inspired Chazelle, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers collaborations. Stone accepted the offer because Chazelle was so passionate about the project. Ryan Gosling plays Sebastian,
24660-503: The premiere of the R&;B band Bloodstone 's movie Train Ride to Hollywood , but problems in distribution rendered it barely getting token theatrical release. The year 1976 saw the release of the low-budget comic musical, The First Nudie Musical , released by Paramount. The 1978 film version of Grease was a smash hit; its songs were original compositions done in a 1950s pop style. However,
24840-437: The project's potential. Gosling's character Sebastian holds a view of the jazz of the past being superior. According to an article by Anthony Carew, Chazelle wrote this character trait as a reflection of "[his] own relationship with the past and with jazz, too". Chazelle found producers through friends who introduced him to Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz . With the two producers on board, the script went to Focus Features at
25020-531: The public criticism was towards the film being "a little dull", the two leads' singing and dancing being considered unexceptional, and the lack of nuance in Stone's character, with Gosling's occasionally seen as insufferable. Since its release, La La Land continues to receive acclaim. It is regarded as a modern classic and one of the best films of all time due to its captivating performances, attention to detail, and its assent to previous movie musicals such as Singin' in
25200-535: The pure entertainment and theatricality of classical-era Hollywood musicals was seen as old-fashioned. Despite this, Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret were more traditional musicals closely adapted from stage shows and were strong successes with critics and audiences. Changing cultural mores and the abandonment of the Hays Code in 1968 also contributed to changing tastes in film audiences. The 1973 film of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice 's Jesus Christ Superstar
25380-497: The right harmony of romance and melancholy, and that pieces such as "Another Day of Sun" and "A Lovely Night" are catchy and rememberable. He remarked that the Oscar-winning "City of Stars," as well as others of Hurwitz's scores, are "some of the finest written for any movie this century." In 2024, Looper ranked it number 11 on its list of the "51 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," calling the film "a deeply affecting feature thanks to
25560-431: The rights to Lindner's book, intending to use the title for a film. Attempts to create a film version in the late 1940s eventually ended without a film or even a full script being produced. When Marlon Brando did a five-minute screen test for the studio in 1947, he was given fragments of one of the partial scripts. However, Brando was not auditioning for Rebel Without a Cause , and there was no offer of any part made by
25740-399: The romantic dinner that Sebastian prepared for Mia was "one of the scenes that I think I wrote and rewrote and rewrote more than any other in the script". Gosling and Stone also helped create the dialogue of the scene to get it to be one of the more realistic scenes in a film filled with fantasy and fantastical elements. Chazelle spent nearly a year editing the film with editor Tom Cross , as
25920-588: The script, Summit Entertainment and Black Label Media, along with producer Marc Platt , agreed to invest in La La Land and distribute it. They had been impressed by the critical and commercial success of Whiplash. Lionsgate's Patrick Wachsberger, who previously had worked on the Step Up franchise , pushed Chazelle to increase the film's budget since he felt high-quality musicals could not be made cheaply. Miles Teller and Emma Watson were originally slated to star in
26100-429: The script, but made a few modifications, such as altering the location to Los Angeles instead of Boston. Rather than trying to match L.A. to the charms of Paris or San Francisco, he focused on the qualities that make the city distinctive: the traffic, the sprawl, and the skylines. The style and tone of the film were inspired by Jacques Demy 's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort , especially
26280-671: The sequel Grease 2 (released in 1982) bombed at the box-office. Films about performers which incorporated gritty drama and musical numbers interwoven as a diegetic part of the storyline were produced, such as Lady Sings the Blues , All That Jazz , and New York, New York . Some musicals made in Britain experimented with the form, such as Richard Attenborough 's Oh! What a Lovely War (released in 1969), Alan Parker 's Bugsy Malone and Ken Russell 's Tommy and Lisztomania . A number of film musicals were still being made that were financially and/or critically less successful than in
26460-676: The silent era. The beginnings of the Spanish musical were focused on romantic Spanish archetypes: Andalusian villages and landscapes, gypsies, "bandoleros", and copla and other popular folk songs included in story development. These films had even more box-office success than Hollywood premieres in Spain. The first Spanish film stars came from the musical genre: Imperio Argentina , Estrellita Castro , Florián Rey (director) and, later, Lola Flores , Sara Montiel and Carmen Sevilla . The Spanish musical started to expand and grow. Juvenile stars appear and top
26640-430: The start of the 1970s, Hindi cinema was experiencing thematic stagnation, dominated by musical romance films . The arrival of screenwriter duo Salim–Javed , consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar , marked a paradigm shift, revitalizing the industry. They began the genre of gritty, violent, Bombay underworld crime films in the early 1970s, with films such as Zanjeer (1973) and Deewaar (1975). The 1970s
26820-974: The story and characters with balances in fantasy numbers and grounded reality. It received 14 nominations at the 89th Academy Awards , tying the record for most nominations with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997), and won the awards for Best Director , Best Actress , Best Cinematography , Best Original Score , Best Original Song , and Best Production Design . In 2013, NBC produced The Sound of Music Live! as part of their effort for expanded live entertainment events, which became an annual tradition of adaptations of stage musicals, created specifically as live television events. The following years featured Peter Pan Live! , The Wiz Live! , Hairspray Live! , Jesus Christ Superstar Live! , Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Musical Live! , and Annie Live! . ABC and Fox also produced similar events, including Grease Live! , A Christmas Story Live! , Rent: Live , and The Little Mermaid Live! . An exception to
27000-450: The studio. The film, as it later appeared, was the result of a totally new script written in the 1950s that had nothing to do with the Brando test. The screen test is included on a 2006 special edition DVD of the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire . According to a biography of Natalie Wood, she almost did not get the role of Judy because Nicholas Ray thought that she did not fit the role of
27180-448: The two about their audition disasters when they were both trying to make it. Both learned to sing and dance for the film's six original tunes. The rest of the cast – J. K. Simmons , Sonoya Mizuno , Jessica Rothe , Callie Hernandez , Finn Wittrock , Rosemarie DeWitt , John Legend , Jason Fuchs , Meagen Fay – were announced between July and August 2015. The film was choreographed by Mandy Moore . Rehearsals took place at
27360-405: The two begin to fall in love. Agreeing to never return to their respective homes, Jim suggests they visit an old deserted mansion Plato told him about. Meanwhile, Plato is intercepted by three members of Buzz's gang, who are convinced that Jim betrayed them to the police. They steal Plato's address book and pursue Jim; Plato retrieves his mother's gun and leaves to warn Jim and Judy, finding them at
27540-408: The two were primarily concerned with getting the tone right. The songs and score for La La Land were composed and orchestrated by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's Harvard University classmate, who also worked on his two prior films. The lyrics were written by Pasek and Paul , except for "Start a Fire", which was written by John Legend, Hurwitz, Marius de Vries and Angelique Cinelu. A soundtrack album
27720-476: The way." The film was in production from March 28 to May 26, 1955. When production began, Warner Bros. considered it a B-movie project, and Ray used black-and-white film stock. When Jack L. Warner realized James Dean was a rising star and a hot property, filming was switched to color stock, and many scenes had to be reshot in color. It was shot in the widescreen CinemaScope format, which had been introduced two years previously. With its densely expressive images,
27900-538: The weekend of February 24–26 (the weekend of the Academy Awards) the film grossed $ 4.6 million, exactly the same amount it grossed the previous weekend. The next week, following its six Oscar wins, the film grossed $ 3 million. La La Land received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards Chazelle's direction and screenplay, cinematography, music, the performances of Gosling and Stone and their chemistry. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives
28080-535: The weekend, finishing fifth at the box-office. In its sixth week of release, the film grossed $ 14.5 million (a total of $ 16.9 million over the four-day weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day), finishing second at the box-office behind Hidden Figures . After receiving its 14 Oscar nominations, the film expanded to 3,136 theaters on January 27, 2017 (an increase of 1,271 from the week before) and grossed $ 12.1 million (up 43% from its previous week's $ 8.4 million). During
28260-410: The wild teen character. While on a night out with friends, she was in a car accident. Upon hearing this, Ray rushed to the hospital. While in delirium, Wood overheard the doctor murmuring and calling her a "goddamn juvenile delinquent"; she soon yelled to Ray, "Did you hear what he called me, Nick?! He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! Now do I get the part?!" Dawson High School, the school in
28440-408: Was a blockbuster hit. Theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York , included a musical sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than a year all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody (1929) had
28620-490: Was a toddler, and his mother is often away from home, leaving Plato in the care of his housekeeper. On the way to his first day at Dawson High, Jim again meets Judy and offers her a ride. Seemingly unimpressed by Jim, she declines and is instead picked up by her "friends", a gang of delinquents led by Buzz Gunderson who Judy is also dating. Jim is shunned by the rest of the student body but is befriended by Plato, who comes to idolize Jim, and according to Pomerance and Krauss, "Jim
28800-500: Was also coaxed out of retirement for Easter Parade and made a permanent comeback. The other Hollywood studios proved themselves equally adept at tackling the genre at this time, particularly in the 1950s. Four adaptations of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows - Oklahoma! , The King and I , Carousel , and South Pacific - were all successes, while Paramount Pictures released White Christmas and Funny Face , two films which used previously written music by Irving Berlin and
28980-435: Was also when the name "Bollywood" was coined, and when the quintessential conventions of commercial Bollywood films were established. Key to this was the emergence of the masala film genre, which combines elements of multiple genres ( action , comedy , romance , drama , melodrama , musical). The masala film was pioneered in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain , along with screenwriter duo Salim-Javed, pioneering
29160-487: Was criticized by some for its treatment of race and jazz. Kelly Lawler of USA Today noted that Gosling's character has been referred to as a " white savior " by some critics, for "his quest (and eventual success) to save the traditionally black musical genre from extinction, seemingly the only person who can accomplish such a goal." The sentiment was also expressed by Ruby Lott-Lavigna of Wired , Anna Silman of New York , and Ira Madison III of MTV News . Rex Reed of
29340-448: Was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals. The film pays homage to India, incorporating an Indian-themed play and a Bollywood-style dance sequence with a song from the film China Gate . The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western live action musical genre, and subsequently films such as Chicago , The Producers , Rent , Dreamgirls , and Hairspray were produced, fueling
29520-410: Was displaced by Barbie in 2023. La La Land began its theatrical release with a limited release in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York City on December 9. It made $ 881,107 in its opening weekend, giving the film a per-theater average of $ 176,221, the best average of the year. In its second week of limited release, the film expanded to 200 theaters and grossed $ 4.1 million, finishing seventh at
29700-399: Was eight years old. She said "bursting into song has always been a real dream of mine", and her favorite film is the 1931 Charlie Chaplin romantic comedy City Lights . She studied pom dancing as a child, with a year of ballet. She moved to Hollywood with her mother at age fifteen to pursue a career, and struggled constantly to get an audition during her first year. When she did, she often
29880-607: Was excised and not shown on British screens until 1967. The film was banned in New Zealand in 1955 by Chief Censor Gordon Mirams , out of fears that it would incite "teenage delinquency", only to be released on appeal the following year with scenes cut and an R16 rating. Rebel was also banned in Spain, where it had to be smuggled into the country for private screenings, and was not officially released there until 1964. American Film Institute recognition Empire magazine recognition The switchblade James Dean's character used in
30060-468: Was key when they filmed the "A Lovely Night" scene (searching for the parked car). To help his cast and crew get their creative mode flowing, Chazelle held screenings on the soundstages every Friday night of classical films that had inspired him for the film, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg , Singin' in the Rain , Top Hat , and Boogie Nights . From the beginning, Chazelle wanted the film's musical numbers to be filmed "head to toe" and performed in
30240-400: Was later moved back a week to December 9, 2016, with the wide release still being planned for December 16, 2016. Lionsgate opened the film in five locations on December 9, 2016, and expanded it to about 200 theaters on December 16, 2016, before going nationwide on December 25, 2016. The film went fully wide on January 6, 2017, with a release into select IMAX theaters a week later. La La Land
30420-448: Was met with some criticism by religious groups but was well received. By the mid-1970s, filmmakers avoided the genre in favor of using music by popular rock or pop bands as background music, partly in hope of selling a soundtrack album to fans. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally released in 1975 and was a critical failure until it started midnight screenings in the 1980s where it achieved cult status. That same year also saw
30600-492: Was not impressed by James Dean's acting, and cited the various mannerisms he believed Dean copied from Marlon Brando, asserting that "Never have we seen a performer so clearly follow another's style" and calling Dean's interpretation of the Jim Stark role a "clumsy display". Reviewer Jack Moffitt of The Hollywood Reporter , who correctly thought the film would be a money maker, wrote a less critical, more laudatory review. He found
30780-637: Was originally planned for a stretch of ground-level highway, until Chazelle decided to shoot it in the 105–110 interchange, which arcs 100 feet (30 m) in the air. Production designer David Wasco said, "I thought somebody was going to fall off and get killed." Not every portion of the highway was blocked. Chazelle compared the scene to the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Chazelle scouted for "old L.A." locations that were in ruins, or were perhaps razed. One such example
30960-473: Was originally set for a July 15, 2016, release; however, in March 2016, it was announced the film would be given a limited release starting December 2, 2016, before expanding on December 16, 2016. Chazelle stated that the change was because he felt that the release date was not right for the context of the film, and because he wanted to have a slow rollout beginning with the early fall film festivals. The limited release
31140-567: Was released in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2017. The film was released in the Netherlands on December 22, 2016, and in Australia on December 26, with the rest of the territories planned for a release from mid-January 2017. Lionsgate released La La Land on Digital HD on April 11, 2017, and Blu-ray , Ultra HD Blu-ray and DVD on April 25, 2017. La La Land grossed $ 151.1 million in
31320-411: Was released on December 9, 2016, by Interscope Records , featuring selections from Hurwitz's score and songs performed by the cast. The film's opening number, " Another Day of Sun ", shot as a single tracking shot on an L.A. freeway, received praise for its choreography. The songs " City of Stars " and " Audition (The Fools Who Dream) " received numerous awards. La La Land had its world premiere as
31500-487: Was released on October 27, 1955, less than a month after James Dean, whose performance was praised all around by film critics, died on September 30. William Zinsser wrote a scathing review of Rebel in his New York Herald Tribune column, concluding his summary of the film's plot with the words, "All this takes two hours, but it seems more like two days. The movie is written and acted so ineptly, directed so sluggishly, that all names but one will be omitted here. The exception
31680-608: Was the first to be shot, and was filmed on a closed-off portion of two carpool direct connector ramps of the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange , connecting the I-105 Carpool Lane to the I-110 Express Lanes, leading to Downtown Los Angeles . It was filmed in a span of two days, and required more than 100 dancers. For this particular scene, Chazelle wanted to give a sense of how vast the city is. The scene
31860-450: Was the third- and sixth-highest scoring film released in 2016 on each respective site. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported audiences gave an 81% overall positive score and a 93% "definite recommend". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave La La Land four stars out of four, describing it as "a hot miracle" and complimenting its musical numbers, particularly
32040-461: Was the use of the Angels Flight trolley, built in 1901. The funicular had been closed in 2013 after a derailment . Attempts were made to repair and re-open the railway, but to no avail. However, the production team was able to secure permission to use it for a day. Chazelle and his crew then arranged to have it run for shooting (it was re-opened to the public in 2017). Mia works at a coffee shop on
32220-462: Was turned away after singing or saying just one line. Stone drew from her own experiences for her character of Mia, and some were added into the film. She met Chazelle in 2014 while she was making her Broadway debut in Cabaret . Chazelle and Hurwitz saw her perform on a night when the actress had a cold. She met with Chazelle at Brooklyn Diner in New York City , where the director outlined his vision for
32400-512: Was well received by critics upon its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in January, Chazelle continued his efforts to bring La La Land to the big screen. A year later, when Whiplash earned five Oscar nominations at the 87th Academy Awards , including Best Picture , and grossed nearly $ 50 million worldwide off a $ 3.3 million production budget, Chazelle and his project began to attract attention from studios. Five years after Chazelle wrote
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