Whiplash

We all remember that one special teacher who took us under their wing and instilled in us a love for the subject at hand, inspiring us to be our best. Through their loving guidance, we were able to find a passion for a subject or maybe just found a way to get through something that we had previously loathed or couldn’t quite comprehend. Most of us have an educator like that in our life who finds joy in helping people succeed. Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), a jazz instructor at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York, is not that kind of teacher. 

Terence cares about two things: his reputation as a conductor and the music being perfect. To protect both, he will beat you down to tears and abuse you to the point of quitting. He believes that the true greats in music will not let someone like him discourage them from success, and those who can be discouraged by him would never be numbered among the greats to begin with. 

Jazz drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) dreams of leaving a legacy like that of his idol, Buddy Rich. One evening, while practicing on his drums, Terence Fletcher overhears and prompts him to play rudiments and a double-time swing beat. Unimpressed by what he hears, he leaves. Later, he appears in Neiman’s jazz class and recruits him to perform in his ensemble as a backup for his core drummer. 

Though he is encouraging at first, Andrew soon discovers that Fletcher is relentlessly strict, prone to violent outbursts, and abuses his students both verbally and physically. When Andrew fails to keep tempo during his first rehearsal of Hank Levy’s Whiplash, Fletcher throws a chair at him, slaps him in the face repeatedly, and berates him in front of the other players. Determined to prove himself, Andrew practices to the point of his hands blistering and bleeding. During this time, he meets Nicole (Melissa Benoist), a young restaurant server, and they start dating. 

Through a series of circumstances, and Andrew’s ability to memorize the song sheets, he ends up taking over as core drummer. But the abuse keeps piling on, and eventually, things spill over, resulting in Andrew physically attacking Terence before a performance. When approached, he turns evidence on Terrence, getting the instructor fired from his prestigious position. But Fletcher soon finds work again elsewhere, directing musicians again for the stage. 

This is not Mr. Holland’s Opus nor is it meant to be. This film is more about the pursuit of greatness. Fletcher speaks of one of the greats who was humiliated by his band leader, left wounded but determined to never let it happen again, practiced heavily for a year, and came back perfected, taking his place amongst the best of the best. “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than “good job,” he says, pontificating about how this player would have not achieved greatness had he not been humiliated by a hard band leader. He would have accepted mediocrity and never pushed himself to perfection. 

Fletcher sees himself as the kind of guy who weeds out those who will never be great and pushes those who may be, through any means necessary. His methods are extreme, such as verbally and physically humiliating his students in front of the rest of the ensemble, even throwing a player out of his group who was pitch perfect just because they weren’t certain that they were. There is no denying it; he gets results. But is the cost worth the price? People can argue for or against that. 

Perfection is what he is demanding. I saw a video online not too long ago where professional musicians analyzed the scene where Andrew is being assaulted for not quite being on Fletcher’s tempo. The general consensus is that this is an extreme example of perfection and that most professionals would not be perfectly on tempo. The drums set the pace for the rest of the band, and if they are off by milliseconds, the band follows suit. Without matching up a metronome to the playing on screen, most of us would not be able to tell that Andrew is either rushing or dragging; it’s so close. Neither would an audience who is there to enjoy the music, not experience sonic perfection. Most of us would understand, even condone, Andrew should he pack up his sticks and leave after that first rehearsal. 

Which brings us back to the themes of this film. Andrew wants to be labeled amongst the bests. As much as he may come to hate Fletcher, he also comes to respect what the man brings out in him. That doesn’t stop him from losing it and attacking him when things turn really south late in the film. It also doesn’t stop him from turning evidence on the man to get him fired. But when Fletcher approaches him on the street, offering him a position in a new ensemble performing later, Andrew accepts it, knowing the kind of man he has chosen to play for.

It seems suspicious that Fletcher states he has no idea who turned him in. When he offers a part in the ensemble to Andrew, it’s all but certain that he knows. The question then becomes “what is he up to?” We get that answered very quickly, yet how it all turns out is not what was expected. Instead, Andrew takes a humiliating situation and, like the aforementioned player who came back from humiliation, he gets back on stage and proves he is one of the greats. Fletcher had previously lamented that he never had a student like that. Now he has, and he begrudgingly shows his respect. We get the impression that Fletcher has never done that before. Even the players who are dead on all the time just get treated like they have done nothing but the bare minimum. Andrew gets more than that in this final moment, but at what cost? When he retakes the stage he is not only playing perfectly, but he, not Fletcher, is leading the rest of the musicians.

J. K. Simmons has quite a bit of range, but his default mode seems to be enraged. Yet he is capable of showing other emotions. We get a scene early on where he is overwhelmed with sorrow when news of a former student dying in a car accident reaches him. This is a student that apparently impressed him, though outside of this moment, he never mentions him. Later, when Andrew is involved in his own car accident and arrives on stage bloody and badly injured, Fletcher is dismissive of him. Fletcher’s only real concern is that his jazz ensemble is perfect, not the health and safety of his players. Apparently, J. K. was the nicest man when cameras were not rolling, preventing the shooting environment from becoming a nightmare to the real musicians and students playing for him. 

Miles Teller is mesmerizing in this performance. I know little about drumming nor have I ever had the desire to learn it. But watching him play is hypnotic. Teller had been drumming since he was fifteen and did most of the actual on-screen playing himself. This allowed director Damien Chazelle to shoot his scenes in such a way that it highlights that no double was used. This adds a visceral quality to the playing, especially when Andrew’s hands start to bleed and we see drops of blood spraying on the drums. Further augmenting this is the rapid cuts to those bloody hands as he puts Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid to try and stem the flow. 

J. K. Simmons was told to take things well beyond what would be considered acceptable behavior. This could have easily landed this film into the land of absurdity. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen. Both he and Teller are so good in their shared scenes that instead of being shocked into incredulous laughter, we are instead appalled at what is going on in front of us. When Fletcher is slapping Andrew, we feel like he is slapping us. Miles Teller’s performance is more subdued than Simmons’s, and thus he got less recognition in the end. It feels like a bit of a snub because Teller is so darn good in this. Simmons, with the flashier performance, ended up winning the Oscar. 

Whiplash is a harsh look at the world of musicians and what it takes to pursue greatness. In general, professional athletes get more recognition when they are great than musicians do, but the sacrifices are the same either way. Athletics is flashier and more accessible to the masses, though, which can be a bone of contention for those pursuing greatness in music. Whiplash gives us that and also shows that while the abuse being hurled at Andrew was awful, it did push him to greatness. The finest steel is forged in the hottest fire. Only he can answer whether that was worth it in the end.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, and David Lancaster

Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Damien Chazelle

Best Film Editing: Tom Cross (won)

Best Sound Mixing: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, and Thomas Curley (won)

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Release Date: October 10, 2014

Running Time: 106 minutes

Rated R

Starring: Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, and Paul Reiser

Directed by: Damien Chazelle