Aspiring drummer and prodigy Andrew (Miles Teller) joins Terence Fletcher’s (J.K. Simmons) elite jazz class at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. Andrew dreams of being the next Charlie Parker. Fletcher turns out to be a tyrannical and emotionally abusive perfectionist. But it is to a purpose, and serves to push Andrew to his limit and beyond.
It’s an agenda driven film by an angry filmmaker a strong point of view and something to say. I felt it was reminiscent of The Hateful Eight.
It’s an agenda driven film by an angry filmmaker a strong point of view and something to say. I felt it was reminiscent of The Hateful Eight.
Spiritual kin.
Dear driven Andrew wants to achieve greatness, and willingly lets Fletcher subject him to pure hell in order to get there. He even chucks his directionless girl friend overboard so he can dedicate more time to music.
Because music über alles!
Shaffer is an elite school. Best in the country. And Fletcher's class is the best in Shaffer. Students are ‘free’ to quit. And yet, they’ve invested lots of money to attend, and it is the path to employment, so… not so simple.
Now, I entirely understand the necessity to push people at elite institutions. The toughness serves a purpose, and that is especially true in the military. If I am going to be sent into combat, I’d need significant toughening up first. Why? Because without it, I would not only get myself killed, but I’d let down my comrades, my team mates, and get them killed as well.
So there’s a necessity for this.
But once you accept the filmmaker’s message, what does that lead to?
We work in a globally competitive marketplace, where people with a much higher cost of living must compete with those in areas with lower ones. Jobs in my business are sent overseas on a regular basis.
Capitalism is competition. It’s like nature: the best ones win, the lesser ones die off and become extinct. So to survive, companies must push employees. Hard. That's the message of every Tiger Mom and Marine Drill Sergeant. It’s also the message of Terence Fletcher, more to the point, Damien Chazelle.
If you don't want your job to go abroad, you'd better be great.
But how do we achieve greatness?
Why, we just got the answer from the movie: tough love, aka emotional and physical abuse.
Fletcher (the writer / director's mouthpiece) lays it out for us in a monologue:
"Parker's a young kid, pretty good on the sax. Gets up to play at a cutting session, and he fucks it up. And Jones nearly decapitates him for it. And he's laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night, but the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And he practices and he practices with one goal in mind, never to be laughed at again. And a year later, he goes back to the Reno and he steps up on that stage, and plays the best motherfucking solo the world has ever heard. So imagine if Jones had just said: "Well, that's okay, Charlie. That was all right. Good job. "And then Charlie thinks to himself, "Well, shit, I did do a pretty good job." End of story. No Bird. That, to me, is an absolute tragedy. But that's just what the world wants now. People wonder why jazz is dying."
It's good, if blunt, dialogue. The film is full of it.
Whiplash is a full throated roar to bring basic training to every workplace. Why? Because if we don’t, we’ll fall behind. We’ll be out-competed. Other societies are pushing themselves as hard as they can, and only the most ruthless will survive.
The cost of this approach is not skipped over: students break down, they cry, and one even commits suicide. As a result, the worry-wart administration and the coddler-brigade intervene. The teacher is sanctioned and driven out.
A safe environment is restored.
Yay. Butterflies and flowers out of bums.
But in the last few seconds of the film, this narrative is inverted.
A look is exchanged between teacher and student. It signifies realization: Andrew has emerged through the crucible, fully realized, and has achieved true greatness. He sees the rightness of the erstwhile villain’s actions, and the teacher is vindicated. The worry-warts and school administration are revealed as simpering weaklings standing in the way of greatness, holding people back from achieving the heights they dream of.
That’s the whiplash.
Dear driven Andrew wants to achieve greatness, and willingly lets Fletcher subject him to pure hell in order to get there. He even chucks his directionless girl friend overboard so he can dedicate more time to music.
Because music über alles!
Shaffer is an elite school. Best in the country. And Fletcher's class is the best in Shaffer. Students are ‘free’ to quit. And yet, they’ve invested lots of money to attend, and it is the path to employment, so… not so simple.
Now, I entirely understand the necessity to push people at elite institutions. The toughness serves a purpose, and that is especially true in the military. If I am going to be sent into combat, I’d need significant toughening up first. Why? Because without it, I would not only get myself killed, but I’d let down my comrades, my team mates, and get them killed as well.
So there’s a necessity for this.
But once you accept the filmmaker’s message, what does that lead to?
We work in a globally competitive marketplace, where people with a much higher cost of living must compete with those in areas with lower ones. Jobs in my business are sent overseas on a regular basis.
Capitalism is competition. It’s like nature: the best ones win, the lesser ones die off and become extinct. So to survive, companies must push employees. Hard. That's the message of every Tiger Mom and Marine Drill Sergeant. It’s also the message of Terence Fletcher, more to the point, Damien Chazelle.
If you don't want your job to go abroad, you'd better be great.
But how do we achieve greatness?
Why, we just got the answer from the movie: tough love, aka emotional and physical abuse.
Fletcher (the writer / director's mouthpiece) lays it out for us in a monologue:
"Parker's a young kid, pretty good on the sax. Gets up to play at a cutting session, and he fucks it up. And Jones nearly decapitates him for it. And he's laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night, but the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And he practices and he practices with one goal in mind, never to be laughed at again. And a year later, he goes back to the Reno and he steps up on that stage, and plays the best motherfucking solo the world has ever heard. So imagine if Jones had just said: "Well, that's okay, Charlie. That was all right. Good job. "And then Charlie thinks to himself, "Well, shit, I did do a pretty good job." End of story. No Bird. That, to me, is an absolute tragedy. But that's just what the world wants now. People wonder why jazz is dying."
It's good, if blunt, dialogue. The film is full of it.
Whiplash is a full throated roar to bring basic training to every workplace. Why? Because if we don’t, we’ll fall behind. We’ll be out-competed. Other societies are pushing themselves as hard as they can, and only the most ruthless will survive.
The cost of this approach is not skipped over: students break down, they cry, and one even commits suicide. As a result, the worry-wart administration and the coddler-brigade intervene. The teacher is sanctioned and driven out.
A safe environment is restored.
Yay. Butterflies and flowers out of bums.
But in the last few seconds of the film, this narrative is inverted.
A look is exchanged between teacher and student. It signifies realization: Andrew has emerged through the crucible, fully realized, and has achieved true greatness. He sees the rightness of the erstwhile villain’s actions, and the teacher is vindicated. The worry-warts and school administration are revealed as simpering weaklings standing in the way of greatness, holding people back from achieving the heights they dream of.
That’s the whiplash.
And from a film making point of view, it's brilliant. It works, and it breaks the 'Save the Cat' structure that has become so ubiquitous. The entire movie is building to that revelatory, nonverbal exchange.
So you have a choice: either you can have greatness through 'emotional and physical abuse', or you can give up on greatness in order to avoid the harshness of 'tough love'.
And yes, I used the more click bait version in the title. Because blog hits. D'uh.
The two sides in the film both have built-in defense mechanisms, starting with slanders: you’re either an abusive tyrant (and I imagine a few other appellations, probably the catch-all 'Fascist') or a simpering weakling, a 'worthless, friendless, faggot-lipped little piece of shit whose mommy left daddy when she figured out he wasn't Eugene O'Neill, and who is now weeping and slobbering all over my drum set like a fucking nine-year old girl!’ Mr. Fletcher such a charmer.
Honestly, I just want to see him teaching actual nine-year olds. Maybe in the sequel: Terence Fletcher Goes Grade School. Get them while they're young, right? In fact, excellence starts in Kindergarten. Fletcher's speech practically writes itself.
After all, what's emotional trauma and a few suicides if it gives us another Bird?
The real kicker? The icing on the ideological Ayn Rand cake?
The real kicker? The icing on the ideological Ayn Rand cake?
The omission: there is not a single woman in the class.
Because I guarantee you, if you change genders, it’s not the same movie.
Because I guarantee you, if you change genders, it’s not the same movie.
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