Oct. 9, 2014 2:25 p.m. ET
Damien Chazelle may have scripted one of the more inadvertently humorous titles in recent memory (“The Last Exorcism II”), but his heart is clearly in musicals, not comedy: “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” the fractured romance he wrote and directed in 2009, featured jazz trumpeter Jason Palmer, a buoyant score by Justin Hurwitz and cast members breaking into down-market dance numbers in the middle of a restaurant kitchen. It was “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” meets “Elevator to the Gallows.” Its key asset was audacity.
The same can be said for “Whiplash,” which could be considered the first mainstream jazz film since “Bird” (1988) if it were really about jazz. What it’s about, instead, is obsession. Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), a student at the fictional Schaffer School of Music, wants to be the greatest jazz drummer in the history of the genre. His guru: Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the Captain Bligh of musical education, who equates terrorism with inspiration and motivates his better players with torrential invective, homophobic slurs and remarks about their mothers. Fletcher is as obsessed as Andrew—but with finding, not being, a genius.
The drummer joke is, of course, a mainstay of musician humor. (“What do you call a guy with no talent who hangs around musicians?”) But from the introduction, a slowly developing drum roll in the dark, to the tortured calibrations of time-keeping that Fletcher inflicts on his band, to the furiously musical and ecstatically photographed climax of the film, “Whiplash” will instill not just respect but awe.
It also happens to feature a pair of performances that eclipse all else around them. Mr. Simmons is one of the more popular character actors on the current screen. Mr. Teller has made his name through “Rabbit Hole,” “The Spectacular Now” and “Divergent.” Mr. Simmons, usually relegated to portraying benevolent paternity (“Juno”) or wild eccentricity (J. Jonah Jameson in the Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” series), has seldom had the opportunity or screen time to create anything as fully realized as Fletcher—or as beguilingly loathsome. His nice-guy image is part of the fascination: Can he possibly be this awful? Will the end (a musical epiphany) eventually justify the means (sadistic cruelty)?
His student Andrew thinks so, at least at first, but he’s not out to win friends either. He dumps a very nice young woman (Melissa Benoist of “Glee’) on the grounds that she will inevitably get in the way of his career plans. During what is presumably a regular dinner with his father (Paul Reiser) and some family friends, the rather modest accomplishments of the other sons are thrust gracelessly in his face, and Andrew reacts by verbally emasculating his peers and making it quite clear that no one at the table has any idea of what it takes to play music at his level, or achieve the greatness he aspires to.
While Mr. Chazelle has a robust appreciation for jazz lore, he tweaks it to his own purposes. According to the Charlie Parker creation myth, it was at a late-’30s jam session in Kansas City that the saxophonist messed up and the renowned drummer Jo Jones responded by throwing a cymbal—not at Parker’s head, as the movie tells us several times, but at his feet, an act not of anger, but contempt.
Adjusting the story provides Mr. Chazelle the opportunity to have Fletcher throw something at Andrew’s head, and anger is indeed the emotion simmering under Fletcher for most of the movie. But the thing that drives Andrew is a fear of humiliation. Which, for him, means not achieving greatness. Of living a life of obscurity. Of less-than-mythic music. If Fletcher can help him avoid being just another drummer, it’s worth everything to Andrew. And, in the end, the devilish thing about “Whiplash” is that you’re not quite sure he’s wrong.
‘Bird’ (1988)
Forest Whitaker was chosen best actor at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his performance as the legendary alto saxophonist Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s biography of the doomed jazz great, junkie and tortured soul. The film won an Academy Award for sound, Mr. Eastwood won best director at the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle chose Diane Venora as best supporting actress for her role as Parker’s wife, Chan. What one remembers best from the film is Mr. Whitaker’s mournful portrayal, which mixes musical genius with a kind of cosmic resignation.
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