Have you seen La La Land yet???
I’m an architect.
Which, by definition, makes me a romantic and a nostalgic. In addition to that, we architects look for meaning and purpose in everything. We read between the lines… If there’s nothing there, we’ll make up the meaning. One of our icons, Louis I. Kahn (see what I did there?) is famous — among architects at least — for asking a brick, “What do you want?”. That’s how insanely obsessive we are about purpose. But I digress…
The hero of La La Land’s story, Seb (Ryan Gosling), enters the film in the role of a typical “starving artist” – a jazz pianist, specifically. He’s a purist, despising what the masses buy into (I think his word is “pishy-posh”), and pursuing his own dream of a higher ideal. When his love interest, Mia (Emma Stone), declares early on, “I hate jazz, just want to get that out front”, he drags her into a jazz club, and as the band plays, he passionately explains the “give and take” between the musicians: “…it’s conflict and it’s compromise, and it’s very, VERY exciting!”
His PASSION at this moment, and actually throughout the film, is arresting. It converts Mia.
To Jazz.
To Seb.
To following her own dreams.
He reminded me of what I do, and why I do it.
Architects tell stories through our Designs. Our Compositions are part Art, part Science, part Math, part Psychology, part…. well, actually its all those things all in at the same time in the same place — and —
…it’s conflict and it’s compromise, and it’s very, VERY exciting!
If you’re a hopeless romantic like yours truly, and even if you’re not, grab your significant other and GO see La La Land as soon as you possibly can! It is a REFRESHING reminder that Hollywood can truly entertain and inspire. Not the “pishy-posh” we’ve sadly become accustomed to. Enjoy the emotional ride, the story, the visuals, the music, the choreography, the suspended reality, and all the subtle yet very purposeful things that are placed before you, and be inspired.
Then.. act on that inspiration.
The world needs that “gift” you have to offer, that special thing only you were created for!
