Emma Stone

Emma Stone has been a fan of the musicals – on stage and on screen – since she was, by her own reckoning, “very young. ” “My mom was a huge Les Mis fan and she played it in the house and explained what that was all about”, she told us at the Toronto Film Festival.

Venice is over but the jury’s decisions could well have positive reverberations for Hollywood and its award season. Although it remains to be seen if the Golden Lion winner The Woman Who Left (from the Philippines) will get a box office boost – the almost four hours in length kept even lots of journalists away – but the other prizes bode well for their recipients.

If the festival’s worth is judged by the opening, things augur well for this 73rd edition of the Venice Film Festival. Damien Chazelle’s endearing, cinephile, unabashedly romantic musical La La Land is still one of the most buzzed about titles here.

Following the acclaimed opening night debut of La La Land, the HFPA met director Damien Chazelle and his star  (and twice Golden Globe nominee) Emma Stone (Golden Globe nominee Ryan Gosling having been kept from the Lido by filming duties on Blade Runner). “Venice is the perfect launching pad for a movie like La La Land” said 31 year-old Chazelle, 31 years old, whose second film had the honor of opening the 73rd Venice Film Festival.

The Venice Film Festival opened with a bang – or rather a shimmy and a song – here in a sunny Lido with the world premiere of La La Land, as Damien Chazelle’s sophomore feature lived up to all of its pre-festival buzz (and augured well for a continuing festival streak). From the long tracking shot that envelops an ensemble dance number that erupts from a traffic jam on a freeway ramp  (how has no one ever filmed this before?!), to its fanciful duel ending, the film is both an homage and a fresh updating of the Hollywood musical.