La La Land: An artist’s perspective

“Here’s to the fools who dream”

When I first watched “La La Land” in the back seat of my family’s minivan on the long drive home from a summer with Carolina Ballet, I couldn’t understand why others described the film as a heartbreaking romance. It wasn’t until I set aside ballet that I finally began to understand the movie’s heartache.

“La La Land” follows the aspirations of the young yet unsuccessful actress Mia (Emma Stone) and the pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), who dreams of resurrecting jazz music. Their lives intertwine when Mia hears Sebastian playing the piano and a Hollywood romance unfolds.

Eventually, however, the fairytale unravels when Mia receives a dream contract in Paris and Sebastian needs to stay in the U.S. for his jazz career. Five years later, Mia and her husband accidentally stumble into a jazz club – the club Mia encouraged Sebastian to create.

As Sebastian plays a melody he knows only Mia will recognize, a cinematically beautiful montage sweeps Mia through a vision of what her life with Sebastian could have been. But she has made her choice. The two make eye contact, softly smile and separate forever.

As a ballet dancer, I appreciated the film’s desire to depict the gritty difficulties of life in the arts. The scene when Mia finds herself lined up in an audition hallway next to tens of women with the same haircut, outfit and physique is painfully realistic for those of us who know the torment of audition numbers, safety pins that leave a hole in your leotard and the combined smell of hair gel and jet glue.

For every Emma Stone, there are thousands of actresses pining for a single word on screen. For every Ryan Gosling, there are countless artists unable to live their dreams. As ironic as it may be for Hollywood to make a film that honors those it discards in real life, the film pays tribute to these hidden talents waiting desperately for their breakthrough.

“La La Land” honors the beautiful moments onstage or before the camera that make the coffee shop shifts and endless rehearsal hours worthwhile. It also honors the discouragement and devastation of audition cuts and poor performances that bring into question all of the artist’s dreams. At the movie’s climax, Mia sings:

“Here’s to the fools who dream / Crazy as they may seem / Here’s to the hearts that break / Here’s to the mess we make.”

Could “La La Land” have been more realistic in portraying the life of artists, “the fools who dream?” Absolutely. But the movie is titled “La La Land,” not “Portrait of an Artist.” It intends to explore a world that is different from the one we know, a world which, according to the film, might be unattainable for finite human beings.

In the months that followed my decision to quit ballet for the sake of theology, I found myself, like Mia, glancing back on a world that could have been. Of course, Mia’s vision is impossible. She can’t actually know what her future would have been with Sebastian, because that future is not real.

Nevertheless, T.S. Eliot entertains a similar idea in the opening of “Burnt Norton:”

“What might have been and what has been / Point to one end, which is always present. / Footfalls echo in the memory / Down the passage which we did not take / Towards the door we never opened / Into the rose-garden. My words echo / Thus, in your mind.”

So too, Sebastian’s music echoes in Mia’s mind as she ponders what might have lain behind closed doors. And there’s something to be said for the closure that this musing invites. At last Mia can acknowledge that she made her choice in total freedom. She is responsible for the life she lives.

But in this moment, the deep tragedy of “La La Land” is on display in its distortion of dreams. Like so many in today’s world, Mia and Sebastian place their own ambitions and dreams above the people in their life.

As wonderful as Sebastian’s jazz club may be, there is nothing more wondrous than an unrepeatable human person made in God’s image and likeness. There is nothing more deserving of sacrifice and self-gift.

The “ars amandi,” or “art of loving,” of which St. John Paul II writes is far less appropriate for Hollywood than glamorous film sets in Paris or roaring applause during a concert. But true love is the art of our deepest dreams. May we be the “fools who dream” of a love that sacrifices everything for the good of another.