La La Land: A Post-Musical Musical

How can you be a revolutionary when you’re such a traditionalist?
The traditionalist being charged here is Sebastian, a jazz pianist who walks the streets of modern day Los Angeles in two-tone wingtips, clinging to the past from head to toe. Played by Ryan Gosling in the new film La La Land, he shrugs off the accusation, which is just as well: the question is really directed at the ambitions of the film itself, an old-fashioned musical attempting to revitalize a form from a bygone era. Thi