Favourite directors: Damian Chazelle

I love Damien Chazelle as a director, especially because of the extraordinary way he combines music, emotion and visual storytelling. La La Land and Whiplash are right up there with my favourite movies of all time. Although very different in tone, both explore the exhilarating power of artistic ambition and the painful sacrifices that can accompany it. Whiplash is electrifying in its intensity, while La La Land is romantic, visually beautiful and deeply bittersweet. Chazelle understands how music can drive a story and express emotions that words cannot—and he creates endings that linger in my mind long after the film is over.

I am equally in awe of Chazelle’s longtime musical collaborator, Justin Hurwitz, an incredible composer whose music is fundamental to the power of these films. The beautiful, aching melodies of La La Land and the fierce, propulsive original score of Whiplash do not merely accompany the images—they help tell the story and give the films their emotional pulse. Their partnership is made even more special by their friendship: Chazelle and Hurwitz met as students at Harvard, became roommates and bandmates, and began creating films together long before either was famous. That history must give them an extraordinary intuitive understanding of one another. Chazelle dreams in images and Hurwitz seems to know exactly what those dreams should sound like. 

 

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