There is a school of thought around the concept of talent. Matthew Syed writes in his book ‘Bounce’ that talent is but a myth, and that the real power is in practice. Malcolm Gladwell writes that a minimum of 10,000 hours of focused practice is necessary to become great. But how do people stay motivated past the first 5,000 hours?
Broken down to the bare bones, Whiplash is a film about Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), a young jazz drummer at the most prestigious music school in America who sincerely wants to be “one of the greats”. He sees his route to the top through Fletcher (J.K Simmons), a jazz conductor with a fearsome reputation. Fletcher wants to inspire the next Charlie Parker. That is the simple description, although the film contains many more complex themes, motivation is just one.
Merry Clayton was interviewed for the Oscar winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom and remembered a night when singing with Ray Charles’ backing singers, The Raelettes, at Madison Square Gardens when she forgot her note. Ray Charles, she said, banged out her note on the piano in front of five thousand people. She was so humiliated that she promised herself that she would never forget a note again. There’s a very similar, and more romanticised story at the heart of Whiplash. Fletcher tells Neyman the story that clearly inspires his teaching style:
In 1937, after queuing and waiting his turn, a 16 year old Charlie Parker got up on stage to jam at the Reno Club in Kansas City. It was a chance to jam with a guest, a star, Jo Jones. Despite a strong start, Parker lost himself and froze. Jones let his feelings about the young man playing sax on stage known and threw a cymbal at his feet. Humiliated, Parker ran out of the club, but he practiced his heart out, returned later and silenced any critics. Fletcher sees himself as Jo Jones in his allegorical telling of this story, hoping that one of his students will go on to become the next Charlie Parker. He is the motivator helping Darwin’s theory of evolution succeed in Jazz, weeding out the weak and inspiring those with the will to succeed. He doesn’t care how many people he forces out of the music industry, as long as he reveals the true genius of the next ‘Yardbird’. This is his how he sees himself, not as a teacher, not as a conductor, not as a musician - but as an inspiration to the next generation.
Simmons brings this role to life, providing fear and tension to his chair-throwing, tyrannical music sessions. He is an intimidating dictator while conducting the band. But he also shows genuine care and passion in one on one conversations with students. While Simmons shines throughout the film, there is an individual scene in which we see the full arc of caring passion, tension building, and full destructive rage, and that is Andrew’s first day in the studio band, a scene so powerful that it was almost the entire trailer seems to be made from it. After proving to his students that he has complete power over them by kicking out a trombonist for seemingly nothing, Fletcher does a complete 360 flip, putting the young Andrew Neyman at ease before his first attempt to play with the rest of the band. As Neyman continually fails to meet the right tempo though, Fletcher goes into a rage, hurling chairs across the room and demanding to know if Neyman is a “rusher” or a “dragger”. Fletcher finally starts slapping Neyman off tempo to prove his point and when physically abusing him fails to work, he continues to verbally abuse him.
This scene brought another musical anecdote to mind. While recording for Nirvana, Dave Grohl was asked by Butch Vig, the record producer, to play with a click-track (metronome) to help him slow his rhythm. Dave Grohl has said that as a drummer, being asked to use a click-track is like “being stabbed in the heart by a rusty fork.”
In spite of how painful it may have been to a young drummer, Vig was right and Grohl knew it and adapted his rhythm. If you’re unaware, Dave Grohl has since gone from strength to strength and is one of the best respected drummers (and musicians) in rock and roll today. How would a young Dave Grohl have reacted to being abused by Fletcher? Would the fictional Andrew Neyman have responded to the milder Butch Vig’s suggestion? Since these questions concern fictional characters, they are obviously unanswerable, but simply by being posed, they point out the flaws in Fletcher’s ‘my way or the highway’ model of teaching.
Another key theme is success. Andrew Neyman believes that there is nothing he won’t sacrifice in order to achieve his idea of success and he looks down on anybody who doesn’t share his all out belief, be that his girlfriend, or his family. Neyman is a complicated character, he is driven, motivated, angry and to people outside his singular focus, he is vocal of it. But he is also very meek, shy and submissive when in the presence of his role-model, Fletcher. He takes incredible levels of abuse before cracking. He is, in many ways, Fletcher’s ideal student, taking every bit of abuse and humiliation to heart and practicing in the fruitless hope that the abuse will one day stop. Miles Teller plays this dual character well, matching and complimenting J.K Simmons incredibly.
These two characters’ ideas of success meld perfectly, but they are both so close-minded that they don’t see what it is costing them. Fletcher’s failed experiment to create the next great jazz musician causes open hatred and mis-trust between his band-members, he is molding the future of the musical genre, he just refuses to see it from any angle but his own. Neyman’s idea of success almost guarantees loneliness. His relationship with his father and his attempt at a romantic relationship prove that being alone isn’t what he wants, but he’s willing to deal with it.
In an incredible scene with family, his achievements are dismissed and overlooked by his uncle, while his cousin’s feats on the American Football field, despite being Division 3 and therefore unlikely to precede a career, are applauded. Everyone at that table seems too close-minded and self-focused to realise that each individual has their own idea of success. This scene has comedic moments in which Neyman channels his inner Fletcher while insulting his cousin’s achievements, but below the comedy is a deeper resentment of people unlike himself. The self-belief that motivates him to play drums, also makes him a selfish and single-minded person that is incredibly hard to like.
These character performances, joined by an incredible soundtrack, beautifully atmospheric and moody cinematography and fast montage editing, create a film that is both aggressive and caring. It plays out in its own tempo, switching seamlessly between the slow building of tension and break-neck fast action. Whiplash is surely a contender for this year’s awards season.
Written by Edward L. Corrigan on 18/01/2015
