Chazelle: Whiplash (2014)

Damien Chazelle’s debut feature is a study of the relationship between drumming prodigy Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) and Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), his mentor and bandleader at Shaffer Conservatory of Music, a loose version of New York’s legendary Juilliard School. However, it’s shot and paced more like a sports film, specifically a boxing film, as Neyman adopts an increasingly combative, militant relationship with his drum kit, under the tutelage of Fletcher, who’s closer to a coach, a trainer, or even a military commander than a music teacher. Not since The Piano Teacher has a film so chillingly evoked the masochistic world of professional musicianship, the relentless, merciless quest for self-perfection and self-purification that quickly leads Andrew to seek out the most abject self-abasement at the hands of his genius, which, to its credit, the film never really calls into question. In fact, part of what’s so powerful about the film is that it offers a story about genius we rarely get to see – namely, how much geniuses might be prepared to sacrifice to their genius (Charlie Parker is Andrew’s icon), how much they might be willing to immolate themselves in their vision, dying for it if necessary. As a result, the film really taps into something profoundly inhuman, amoral and alienating about genius, and Andrew’s genius in particular, as does Fletcher, who’s neither pathologised nor humanised, as he treads the finest of lines between destroying and nurturing his prodigy – destroying everything about him except his genius, and, when Andrew initially resists, avenging himself upon every part of Andrew’s life that doesn’t directly bear on his relationship with his drum kit. As that masochistic configuration proceeds, Chazelle’s scenes seem to get shorter and shorter, cut ever more rhythmically and kinetically, which ensures that we never lose the momentum of the actual drumming sequences, which stretch the mise-en-scene as sheer and taut as the surface of a drum, until anything and everything that intrudes upon it feels almost painfully percussive. Certainly, that’s somewhat offset by Chazelle’s lush sense of jazz-time, that space where it always feels like the wee small hours of the morning if you can only manage to get into the right groove, the right tempo, the right synergy. Yet beneath all the brass-lit deep-umber light fixtures, you can’t help but feel that there’s something deeply impoverished about this vision of the New York jazz scene – possibly, disturbingly, because Fletcher himself has become such an anomaly and liability.

Comments

[Richard Delman]

If you are interested in seeing Miles Teller's extraordinary range as an actor, see Footloose. (2011). He plays a Southern clown of a sort, who has absolutely zero rhythm. But through the plot he develops into a fine dancer, and an incredibly funny and endearing actor. You can skip over the movie's plot, but you must see the dance scenes. Julianne Hough is marvelous, and the primary actor, whose name is Kenny Wormald, is quite possibly the best dancer, of any genre, that I have ever seen. The movie got little press, as it is a remake of the Kevin Bacon original, but don't let that put you off. Pure joy!

[Billy Stevenson]

Thanks - will check it out!