the sky
The film opens with a shot of the sky. The second section, "Spring," begins in the same way: both times, it is clear and blue. It is as though, with these high shots, Chazelle is showing us a larger world, and perhaps suggesting that something is "watching while the world keeps spinning 'round" ("Someone in the Crowd").
Sometimes these shots can bounce up to the sky with real energy, and then focus back down on the earth, capturing the characters from a bird's eye point of view. In "Someone in the Crowd," we see the girls dancing before they head out for the night from a bird's eye view, and from this angle they look like swirling, choreographed colors, full of energy and yet quite vulnerable and small from this perspective.
It reminds us of our place in the grand scheme of things, and suggests there may be something bigger at work, watching us and in charge of our separate destinies.
Curves
Chazelle often moves the camera along a circular axis to give fluidity to his shots. This is so that the camera "in itself, feels melodic, like a dancer, that never gets in the way of the dancing onscreen but becomes part of the choreography, nonetheless." This visual effect gives scenes real energy, and the audience feels as though they it is caught up in the swirling action, carried along with the music and the characters' journeys. For instance, in the number "Someone in the Crowd," we feel as though we are in the house with the girls, spinning with them, so close are we to the action, caught up in the adrenaline of their night out, and swept nearly off our feet with Mia as she makes the decision whether or not to go. When she is at the party, the energy continues and we dive into the pool along with the partygoers and swoop along the line of dancers.
The movement of the camera fits very well with the aesthetics of the film and its thematic attention to circularity: as the seasons and the world goes round, and as Mia moves from barista to barista customer, so too does the camera.
Doubles and mirrors
Mirror images are used frequently in La La Land and they serve to represent the duality of our main characters and of the conflicting pull on their hearts. We first glimpse Sebastian in the mirror in his car and we catch Mia in the mirror on several occasions. First, after the disappointing audition which is stopped just as she's getting emotional for the part. She comes home, has a shower and looks at herself, wondering perhaps what will happen to her. Seeing herself physically, in the way the people in the audition saw her, and then seeing her other self: the one inside, determined to make her dreams come true. And then again in this scene, as her friends leave for the party and she stays, we catch her in the mirror: the two selves present again, one wanting to keep away from the superficiality, the other still spurred on by the possibility that this party may be different—she may meet someone useful for her career.
Of course, the two selves of our respective main characters are so significant, and their dream selves so powerful, that they must in the end be listened to, no matter what they feel for each other.
Vertical lines
Chazelle uses lines to give us an indication of how trapped the characters feel. After Mia's car is towed away and she goes to the club where she sees Sebastian for the first time, she pauses outside the venue and we see her contained within black and red lines. There are also many shots in front of doors where, again, the outline of the structure contains the characters. When Sebastian and Mia speak properly for the first time at the pool party, and she mocks him for playing in an 80s cover band, the two are contained in the structure of the building—a wall at the edge of each of them. It feel claustrophobic and adds pressure to this intense meeting.
These lines may also indicate the "lanes" our characters are in. When Mia and Sebastian are caught in between two walls during their first chat, it could indicate that they are in a lane together, at the start of a shared journey.
The lines ease up when the romance takes off, and is replaced more often with wide open spaces. But as the romance stumbles, the lines appear again. When Sebastian lies in bed and receives the news from the casting agent, which he will drive to Boulder City to deliver to Mia, the blinds above him looks like a prison.
