That stylistic difference cuts to the biggest disparity between La La Land and The Artist, and it’s the thing that will make La La Land endure for years to come: its timeless and empathetic core.
On the other hand, the characters in The Artist are caricature by design; they’re quite literally silent movie characters living inside the world of a black and white film.
For all of their singing and dancing, Sebastian and Mia are just like every member of the audience.
One could say that La La Land’s musical numbers make it “Oscar bait,” but that shows blatant disregard for the amount of artistry involved in putting those sequences together so immaculately, and it completely ignores the very human center of the story in the form of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.