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La La Land

2016 film directed by Damien Chazelle

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ20856802
Source-derived summary

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 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 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 $447 million worldwide during its initial run, and received widespread acclaim from critics, particularly for Chazelle's direction and screenplay, the performances of Gosling and Stone, the score, musical numbers, cinematography, visual style, costumes and production design.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “La La Land” as 2016 film directed by Damien Chazelle. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2010, 2014, 2015—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2017-01-12, 2016-12-07, 2016-12-09, 2017-01-25—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Land, film and directed can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2016 film directed by Damien Chazelle. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20856802. 6 of 9 selected statements include explicit references; 8 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2010, 2014 and 2015.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “La La Land”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow La La Land primary sources, La La Land archive and Land research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “La La Land”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from La La Land” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.