In La La Land the two leads are named Mia Dolan and Sebastian Wilder, which I’m thinking could be homages to fellow filmmakers Xavier Dolan and Billy Wilder.
It’s pretty well documented that Chazelle is a big fan of old Hollywood and in particular movies from the 50’s and 60’s. While I haven’t heard him explicitly express love for Wilder in particular, I would be very surprised to find out that he isn’t a fan.
I swear Xavier Dolan is a French-Canadian filmmaker (though I just checked and it only says Canadian; maybe it’s the Mandela Effect), but I’m sure some of his films are in French? Chazelle is French-American and regardless of Dolan’s race, it seems pretty plausible to me that the surnames could be references to these people.
Chazelle famously includes references to other movies in his own (Top Hat, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Singin’ in the Rain to name a few) so it wouldn’t be out of character to include subtle nods to a couple of filmmakers he admires.
What do you think? Am I reaching or could there be some credence to this?
(Apologies for posting twice in the same sub in quick succession. Had these as notes in my phone and wanted to get rid of them)
Edit: sorry about the word ‘we’re’ in the title. Dammit!
Submitted February 12, 2020 at 05:18AM by PizzaNonce https://ift.tt/37eVynz