(S P
O I
L E
R S)
The most exhilarating action
sequences of 2014 don’t involve flying superheroes, or exploding robots, or Tom
Cruise. They’re simply composed of one
man and drum kit. Miles Teller going to
war with the snare, the kick, the ride.
And himself. Always himself.
The ferocity that Teller’s Andrew
Neimann brings to these scenes is, in many ways, the syncopated heartbeat of
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, one of
the year’s most emotionally intense films and one of the great anti-fables of
the canon. During his bid to establish
his core spot in the Studio Band, the elite jazz competition squad helmed by
the maniacal Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), Neimann routinely punishes his
shortcomings by ensconcing himself in a closet-like private rehearsal room and
whaling away at his kit in precision speed drills that serve as both
self-improvement and self-flagellation.
A series of tight close-ups, but also a string of would-be emotional
exorcisms, these scenes are both thrilling and disturbing in their focused
intensity. The rewards for his drive and
dedication are ruptured blisters on his hands, the blood from within spattering
his sticks and cymbals. And a sense that
it’s still not good enough.
The ambiguous matter of that
possessed drive and determination, and its rewards, is the central question of Whiplash. Teller is an ideal actor for this role. His natural baby face has always allowed him
to play younger than his age, but there’s a steely reserve in his eyes that
also allows him range beyond the boy next door.
The private interior war of Andrew Neimann, the tormented tumult between
his family’s middlebrow existence and the transcendent glory to which he
aspires, his hero worship of the legendarily mercurial Buddy Rich running smack
dab into the immediate powder keg of rage that is Fletcher, his struggle with
romance vs. ROMANCE….it all requires the ability to nimbly shift between a
broad gamut of conflicting emotions. It
requires an actor who can win over the audience’s sympathies, while shattering
them in the next moment. We’ve seen this
character before, the idealistic young man (or maybe the proper formatting at
this point in cinematic history should be Idealistic Young Man) running the
gauntlet to greatness, emerging on the other end a little older, a little more
bruised, but a little wiser.
Whiplash’s summoning of
the question of glory’s price situates it in a timeless tradition of such
stories. But it also serves as a
stinging critique of that most beloved and worshiped of all cultural
archetypes: the tyrannical genius surrogate father. Anthropologically speaking, this character stretches back throughout the annals of history. But Americans have always had a special
affinity for such brilliant bullies. R.
Lee Ermey has made a career out of riffing on Full Metal Jacket’s Sgt. Hartman (itself a riff on Ermey’s own past
as a drill instructor.) Several
generations of young men have latched onto his profane insults as call and
response goofs, but more often than not there’s also a sense of enjoyment for
the power that such diatribes imbue (or, at least, that was the case amongst my
Boy Scout friends in 1988.) Bobby Knight
is still lauded as a college basketball legend; how many former players still
praise him as a great molder of young men, the tough love that they needed at
that critical point in their growth?
Sure, he may have been ultimately fired for crossing the line of
intimidation one too many times, but we’re not that far removed from decades of
Knight’s tirades, chair-throwing, etc. filling up highlight reels.
It’s no coincidence that these
two men made their mark in the military and the sporting world, fields ruled by
their dedication to rule, order, and power dynamics. Their mutual philosophy trades in breaking
down the green recruit, depriving him of any shred of an ego, and then building
him back up into a sleek and disciplined machine. It’s admirable at heart, yet exploited too
often in the name of tradition. But the
love of the tyrant goes even further. It
explains the grudging admiration that Dick Cheney still enjoys, the same one
that Jack Nicholson aspires to in A Few
Good Men. Christ, how many times in
the last decade plus, when another torture revelation, another illegal
wiretapping scandal emerges has “You can’t handle the truth! You need me up on that wall!” been replayed
ad nauseum on the news? We’re told that
we might disagree with the methods themselves, but that we need villains like
them to make the world run. And hell,
with the cowered manner of a post-9/11 country in tow, it’s not a surprise that
such bromides continue to be thrown around.
But we’re straying a bit into improv territory here. Best to get back to the charts.
J.K. Simmons is just one in a
long line of cinematic genius tyrants, his Terence Fletcher a physical coil of
muscle and tendon, a psychological coil of rage and brilliance. His sarcastic, profane tirades are stiletto
knives of aggression, but they’re also darkly hilarious (he’s easily the most
eloquent character in the film.) Indeed,
Neimann and his fellow Studio Band members so often come across as feckless
that the viewer is almost driven to siding with Fletcher. These Millenials! And their lack of anything resembling
standards!
But this version of the tyrant
comes along at an intriguing cultural turning point. Modern society has rallied against bullying
like no other time in recent history, so the social acceptability of loving this
type of character is becoming more and more taboo. It certainly lends added heft to what are
already queasy confrontations between Fletcher and his charges, as he draws a
bead on every ethnic, economic, and sexual insecurity that they possess. At the same time, there’s truth to be had in
Fletcher’s criticism of young people who are only satisfied with comfortable
mediocrity, of a generation of Millenials who have been insulated against
suffering and failure by parents desperate to atone for their seemingly painful
childhoods. Irresistible force,
immovable object…you know the game.
Whiplash’s power lies in
the almost surreal extremes to which the plot is pushed to enhance its
refutation of the genius tyrant image.
Some have criticized the film for not getting jazz right (whatever that
is) or for ignoring the inherent joy of musical performance. But despite the semi-autobiographical aspects
of the story (Chazelle was a high school drum prodigy), it’s a mistake to think
of this as a jazz film. Or as a fully
realistic one, at that.
For me, Andrew’s car crash on his way to a
major competition seems to provide the key to much of the film’s aim. Having been physically and mentally thrashed
by Fletcher in the run up to this contest, he’s now a brilliant set of frayed
nerves, deeply proficient but petrified of making another mistake, of losing
his spot. After the crash, as Andrew
jogs to the performance hall and beyond, the film takes on a disjointed,
somewhat hallucinatory tone. The story is
told from his point of view, so it’s not too much of a stretch to theorize that
some degree of psychological break has taken place, that much of the remaining
plot is a slightly enhanced version of what the real events might be, the
traumatic results of whiplash both figurative and literal.
The viewer might go into Whiplash looking for the emotional reassurance
that often comes from this type of melodramatic, Manichean conflict. But catharsis is not what Chazelle is aiming
for. That would be too easy of an
endgame. Throughout the story, he constantly
subverts the audience’s expectations for a traditional payoff. When Fletcher is brought to tears after
receiving the news of the death of former student Sean Casey, it seems to be that moment when the monster is revealed
to be a softie hiding behind a gruff exterior.
But Fletcher merely doubles down on his histrionic intimidation of the
Stage Band. When Andrew attacks Fletcher
onstage, it’s the moment of glorious revenge that a hero is supposed to have. Only it ends in his expulsion from the
Shaffer Conservatory and a conflicted moment in which he agrees to anonymously
testify against Fletcher in a lawsuit involving the Casey’s death (which, in
opposition to Fletcher’s car crash version, is revealed to be a
depression-related suicide. It’s doubly
interesting that even though the lawyer nails Fletcher for creating the
environment that eventually led to Casey’s demise, the film offers no final
evidence. There exists the very real
possibility that this was who he already was, that Fletcher offered him a
moment of stability and strength before he returned to the long goodbye of his
life.)
Months later, Andrew and Fletcher
seemingly reconcile when they meet in a jazz club, the former now a deli clerk,
his teacher fired from the Conservatory.
Fletcher offers him his old gig, playing “Whiplash” and “Caravan” at the
JVC Festival, and for a moment the audience expects this to be that feel good resolution to all of the
psychological warfare. But Fletcher ups
the ante by betraying Andrew onstage with a piece for which he’s totally
unprepared, final revenge for ratting him out to the college board. Finally, Andrew bolts offstage in the
consoling arms of his father; “Let’s go home” Dad says, in a line drawn from so
many family dramas of yore. But Andrew
is too deeply entrenched in this private war to give up, his final fuck you
delivered to Fletcher as he hijacks the concert with an extended drum solo of
such primal anger, force, and skill that it serves as the emotional exorcism
that he sought for so long in his speed drills.
And yet, the final shots of the
film are of Andrew and Fletcher exchanging a smile. The teacher and the pupil. The devil and the object of temptation. The villain and the hero. Both caught in an ever-regenerating contest
of wills. Shades of the famous Rich-Gene
Krupa drum battle, two prodigious talents soloing against each other in
tandem. No easy answers. No reassurance. Drum roll.
Curtain.
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