Think of the opening of Oklahoma (1955), in which Curly can only admire the beauty of his land with song. 4 The filmmaker must convince the audience that people are suddenly singing and/or dancing because there is no other way to express what they are feeling. The “A Lovely Night” number in La La Land illustrates Chazelle's conviction that the most challenging musical moments in a film happen when characters unexpectedly but organically begin to sing. Chazelle had this scene in mind when arranging La La Land's opening song “Another Day of Sun” to be passed from one motorist to another as they step out of their cars to sing in the middle of a gigantic traffic jam. Thanks primarily to a singing troupe of soldiers marching across the country, the song is finally passed to Jeanette Mac-Donald, who gives it her own operatic interpretation from high up in her chateau. Different groups of people hear the song and sing it themselves so that anyone passing by can also pick it up. Chazelle has claimed another minor bit of inspiration, admitting that “Another Day of Sun,” the production number that follows the Cinemascope gag, was based on the scene in Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) that begins with Maurice Chevalier singing “Isn't It Romantic” in a simple tailor's shop.
At the very beginning of La La Land, the outer edges of a square space containing the word “Cinemascope” suddenly expand to the traditional wide-screen ratio, recalling the opening scene of Tashlin's film in which actor Tom Ewell appears to physically push the walls of the image to the outer edges of the screen. A catalog of the many films and cinematic traditions that Chazelle has addressed in La La Land should start with his joking reference to Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956).
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