[Ochsner] was of remarkable precision to the musical direction…the music of the orchestra seemed to emanate from the film. There was no distinction between the screen and the stage. [in French]Radio Canada, July 3, 2017

This fusion of the fourth (music) and the seventh (cinema) art is not new, and the Montreal International Jazz Festival has offered performances of this kind in the past. Members of the orchestra, under the direction of US conductor Erik Ochsner, who were squeezed like sardines on the boards, faced several challenges.

It was self-evident that the obligation to reproduce – almost identically – the entire music of Justin Hurvitz in perfect synchronism with the images was already binding. But, additional difficulty, it is not only instrumental pieces in the film of the director Damien Chazelle. There are also several songs.

However, no interpreter accompanied the orchestra. The songs were thus always interpreted by actors and actresses in two dimensions. The margin of error was even thinner for the instrumentalists who did not see the film on the giant screen above them. Only Ochsner could see him. And in this respect, the conductor has been remarkably precise in the musical direction.

A question of balance

The other technical challenge was finding a balance between the soundtrack of the film and the music offered by the orchestra. It was so-so at first, especially during the now famous dance scene filmed in a clip on the Los Angeles ( Another Day of Sun ) Bottom Exchange .

Probably because it’s about the moment in the movie where there are the most singers who are having fun at the same time. In songs performed by Sebastian Wilder (Ryan Gosling) and Mia Dolan (Emma Stone), the sound quality was much better.

At first, I thought that only the organic musical proposal was the incentive of spectators to attend this event. After all, everyone has seen the movie, is not it? No less than 14 Oscar nominations and 6 statuettes at the key, including Best Director (Chazelle), Best Actress (Stone), Best Song ( City of Stars ) and Best Movie Music.

However, to hear the reactions of the crowd during the moments of humor, one could conclude that an impressive number of festival-goers had never seen the film. We note that, for this Quebec stopover of the tour La La Land in Concert , we took care to integrate the subtitling in French, including lyrics of songs. Hat.

I do not know about you, but the presence of subtitles, even when I do not need it, immediately catches my eye on them. Add that to the fact that one looks naturally on the screen and you will understand that one dive more and more quickly in the heart of the film.

The magic operates

In the sequence where Mia and Sebastian go from Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s dance steps to Los Angeles as a backdrop ( A Lovely Night), the orchestra’s music was mesmerizing as much as possible. Even more true in the scene where the duo floats in the air at the observatory ( Dancing in the Stars ). It was as magical as in the movies. In fact, we were still in the cinema …

This is the great strength of this show. Entering the room, we see this huge orchestra. And the more the film scrolls, the more we forget the musicians, unless we are very close to the stage.

We do not think about it any more, to the point that we do not care that the sequence at the jazz club is not perfectly synchronized. Jazz is still improvisation after all.

During the last half hour, the music of the orchestra seemed to emanate completely from the film. There was no longer any distinction between the screen and the scene. I was completely enthralled by the love drama, as I was when I saw La La Land last year.

And I was unable to get rid of the theme song Mia and Sebastian , which comes back periodically, and that freezes us in the last scene, one of the best finals that can be imagined in the cinema.

It was at this moment that everyone remembered that we were in front of an orchestra, which received a well-deserved ovation. Finally, not immediately, because Oschner and his musicians have reinterpreted three pieces when scrolling the credits.

I have never seen so many people stay until the end of a movie credits … But it is true that yesterday La La land in Concert was more than just a musical on big screen.