MILES TELLER and J.K. SIMMONS IN WHIPLASH

Suffering for their art: a sadistic music teacher

The 29-year-old Damien Chazelle's simple, effective, technically savvy second feature (his first was the 2009 Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench) is so zippy with its slam-bang editing and shocker moments it goes right through you, but then maybe after an hour or so you may question some of its powerful effects. Would a modern day music teacher at a New York conservatory something like Juliard smack a pupil repeatedly hard on the face in front of several dozen other students and throw a chair at him? Would he repeatedly yell homophobic epithets at the whole band at every session? Would a student playing with a band at the JVC Jazz Festival steal a very prolonged solo when it's only by chance and at the last minute that he's been included in the show? These things, I guess, are not meant to be taken literally. Chazelle, who has based his screenplay (loosely, we hope) on experience of a severe music teacher in his own high school, is exaggerating to get his points across and to make us think. But with things screwed up to such a pitch as this, can we think?

Anyway, Whiplash, the name of a band composition (featured in the film) that Chazelle hated because its rapid tempo changes are a drummer's nightmare, poses the question: is brutality necessary to bring out musical genius? The filmmaker and crew tossed around the phrase "Full Metal Jacket at Julliard" during the (brutally short) 19-day shoot. Simmons is like the sergeant featured in Kubrick's movie. With his gnarly, muscular body, shaved head and aggressive voice all he needs is a training field and a uniform to evoke the tests and humiliations of combat training. In other ways this is like a conventional sports movie, with the thrills of victory and agonies of defeat leading up to a grand finale when the goal is achieved against all obstacles. Chazelle simplifies and overdoes everything, but does so with such a sure touch and with such economy that it all works brilliantly. And J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher, the morally dubious but efficaciously sadistic instructor, and Miles Teller, as Andrew Neyman, the ambitious fledgling drummer, play their respective parts with impressive assurance.

Andrew is a newbie at the Schafer School. His passion is to become a great drummer worthy of comparison with Buddy Rich, whose solos he studies. (Chazelle doesn't reference subtler greats like Art Blakey and Max Roach: Andrew wants to be a showoff.) Everyone is afraid of Terence Fletcher but wants to study with him and please him. Ironically, he repeatedly tells Andrew and the band to have "fun." Mostly, Andrew's practice and his sessions with Fletcher lead to bloody hands, exhaustion, and a body drenched in sweat. Where's the "fun"? In masochism? Fletcher tells Andrew that Charlie Parker was inspired to try harder and become a transcendently great saxophonist by having a cymbal thrown at him and being kicked off the stage. Would he really not have become the "Bird" without that humiliation? Is "good job" really the worst thing you can tell a beginner, as Fletcher says?

The brutality of Fletcher's teaching works well, visually at least, for drumming, when the player is beating on his instrument. To help a classical pianist or a violinist one might need a more gentle hand, such as that of the octogenarian New York teacher Seymour Bernstein, chronicled in Ethan Hawke's new documentary Seymour: An Introduction. From watching Seymur we learn things about fingering, selecting the best Steinway, posture, modulation of sound levels. In Whiplash, we don't learn many specific details about music beyond that it involves tempos and bars, and that a musician can spoil the sound of an ensemble by playing off key. (We already knew that.) Since this film is all about Andrew and his ruthless, lonely struggle, there's not much sense of the social life at the school, if there is any.

Other things are skewed or exaggerated. Andrew's desire to be on time for a performance leads him to pull himself together after an event that should have left him in the hospital. And yet this effort only brings about the dismissal from Fletcher, "You're done!" Andrew is so obsessed with his music that he breaks off a realationship with a girl (Melissa Benoist) that he has barely begun. To show that most of the world's population, in the relentless view of those who pursue excellence, is mediocre, Andrew's dad is branded as an amiable loser, a a would-be writer who has wound up teaching high school and munching popcorn and M&M's while watching movies with his son.

Whiplash, whose unrolling appropriately shows a precise sense of timing, is full of music, and most of the musicians are real ones. Simmons studied conducting at one time. Miles Teller, a fluid and confident young actor who came to the movie with experience as a rock drummer, shows both deftness and commitment in his depiction of Andrew's many and grueling drum sessions, which finally end in pleasure and triumph. But just as an arts or music student must apparently endure pain and sacrifice and even humiliation on the way to accomplishment, Whiplash sacrifices subtlety and nuance in the interests of presenting its moral dilemma with brutal theatrical effectiveness. It works, but at a cost. Nonetheless it is turning up on many annual best lists, and Simmons is sure to get a deserved Best Supporting Oscar nomination.

Whiplash, 105 mins., debuted at Sundance, and was made with Sundance assistance based on a short film that previewed the subject. It has shown at other festivals including Toronto and was screened for this review as part of the 32nd New York Film Festival. US theatrical release began 10 October and reviews have been raves (Metacritic 88%). Now playing at Landmark Clay Theater in San Francisco and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and in other Landmark theaters nationwide.
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(For my full coverage of the 2014 NYFF see also FILMLEAF.)

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.