“There are no two words in the English language more harmful
than ‘Good job.’ ”
So says Terence Fletcher, instructor at the Shaeffer
Conservatory of Music, a master manipulator whose sole purpose in life seems to
be to weed out the mediocre and to push his students harder than he was pushed
himself. More drill sergeant than
musician, there’s no one the students at Shaeffer fear or respect more.
Much has been made of J.K. Simmons performance as Fletcher
in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, and it’s the sort of showy role that generates
awards talk. Without question, the actor
commands every scene he’s in, shredding his student’s confidence with
profanity-filled rants that are poetry in his hands. The moments when he
destroys his pupils only to build them up once more for another razing are
showstoppers that simultaneously horrify and amuse.
But there’s far more going on here than watching a
borderline psychotic bully those beneath him.
Andrew Nieman (a great Miles Teller) is a young drummer who longs to be
one of the greats. With Buddy Rich as his model, you know the type of intensity
he’s capable of. Nieman believes the
pursuit of genius is a solitary one, going so far as to quash a potentially
meaningful relationship with a smart, beautiful young woman (Melissa Benoist)
who recognizes his unique qualities. Practicing until his hands bleed is not
uncommon to him and that he comes under Fletcher’s tutelage is no
surprise. The young man refuses to
buckle under the intense pressure his instructor puts on him, rising to nearly
every challenge put before him.
A tale of two obsessives, these men have a passion for their
craft that most of us can only marvel at and perhaps question. There’s a fine
line between commitment and obsession and the film posits that it must be
crossed if true greatness is to be achieved, though to do so is to court
self-destruction. Yet, if this can be
avoided, the rewards are great as evidenced during the film’s climax, an
exhilarating, exhausting, unforgettable sequence that resembles a moment of
creation, the genesis of genius.
Whiplash is an indictment of complacency and entitlement
that couldn’t be more timely, what with the sense of national inertia that’s
consumed the country as we now have multiple generations that have come to
expect all of their needs taken care of with little or no effort expended on
their part. To be sure, Andrew and
Fletcher’s behavior is fanatical but the work ethic they display is a welcome
sight. That this is a radical notion speaks to how far we’ve fallen, but Chazelle
refuses to compromise his message, making Whiplash one of the best films of
2014.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2015.
