1. La La Land - Damien Chazelle (2016)

2. Your responses to the film

3. La La Land reviews
“You'll leave with a tear in your eye and a song in your heart” The Daily Telegraph
“La La Land? More like Blah Blah Land.” Metro
“Profound, beautiful film about love and creativity.” - commonsensemedia.org
“La La Land reaches for the stars, doesn’t quite grab them all, and then is still kind of OK in the end.” Village Voice

4. In pairs Read your critical review.
What are the main points that the critic takes pleasure in/dislikes.
Do you agree? Why/not?

5. Sample critical responses

6. Passive or active spectatorship?

7. Within the study of Spectatorship:
The relationship between the text and the viewer is complex.
There exists a plurality of readings and subjectivity of response.
The viewer enters into a dialogue with the text they are viewing.

8. The viewer’s ‘reading’ of a text could be preferred, negotiated or oppositional (Stuart Hall).
Do we respond as a director intends?
Preferred response
Do we respond in a way unintended?
Oppositional response
Do we partially accept a preferred reading?
Negotiated response
Is a response to a film probably implausible as a reading?
Aberrant response

9. Remember:
Stuart Hall differentiates between audiences (mass response) and spectators (individual response). Do we take a stance to La La Land that is preferred, negotiated, oppositional or aberrant?