Visual Representation of American Dream in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land

Abstract

This research paper examines Damien Chazelle’smovieLa La Landto show how the cinematic representation of American Dream with its deep impact upon the characters reveals hollowness in American dream. It further explores how the employment of cinematographic rhetoric manifests what the movie maker’s critical position to view American dream as such. Chazelle paints the realistic picture of American society in the context of American dream. Rather than supporting or opposing, he picturizes the core base of American society. Cinematography has been used to achieve the intention of the director. His intention is to scrutinize the most celebrated idea of American society in the form of American dream. This movie can be taken as the modern approach of redefining American social structure with fresh perspectives from the moviemaker’s point of view. It also closely analyzes how each American is submerged in their faith towards the attainment of material prosperity through so called ‘success’. Mainly Sebastian and Mia’s pursuit of American Dream leads them to the doom of their life. Theresearch incorporates insights of the film theorists like James Monaco, Jon Lewis and idea of visual representation by Stuart Hall and idea of “hidden meaning” by Roland Barthes. And finally research concludes that the movie minutely presents the denigrating effects of American dream upon its citizen and call to unveil its flamboyant curtain to the common viewers’ view.In short, the finding of research puts forward the complexity of American dream as shown in La La Land.