Whiplash - 2014
I pretty much adore most anything in which Darren Aronofsky’s involved. This really has nothing to do with Whiplash at all, except this: a few years back, Aronofosky directed a suffocating gem called Black Swan. Swan is essentially a behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat world of ballet in prestigious schools. For these would-be stars, the pressure and tension on their performance are consistently ratcheted up to near 10 proportions. The result of this leaves the performers with very little breathing room, and inevitably sister turns against sister as each tries to climb over the backs of others to make their way to the top. The film is visceral, intense, stifling, and, in the end, phantasmagoric.
Though Whiplash keeps its feet firmly on the ground, in contrast to Swan’s ending surrealism, I would argue that the film does much the same thing with regards to performance jazz. Teller’s character, much like Portman’s, is a bright-eyed adolescent wunderkind hell-bent on making it big in the best school and performance halls in the country. He stays up nights, playing old cassettes of jazz drummers, banging out their cadence with increasing proficiency.
All is well for Andrew Neyman (Teller) until he comes under the tutelage of J.K. Simmons’ Terence Fletcher. It could be argued pretty convincingly, that Simmons’ performance is the single strongest of the year. He is an absolute sadist – all fire, passion, and condescension in his pursuit of bringing perfection out of his students. The initial sequence when the two first meet in the practice room, where Fletcher hurls both insults and chairs at Neyman, is absolutely brutal and yet magnetic. (“Is it a little too slow? Or too fast?!) The former seems to channel the bark and bite of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, and his character appears to continually ask the question: “How far is too far?”
Whereas Black Swan contains some strong fantastical notes in its conclusion, it is Whiplash’s visceral nature that perhaps stays with us most – literally drumming until blood drips from his fingers, tears from his eyes, and blisters open on his hands. Proud and resolute, these two men engage in a battle of wills which does not find its closure until the very final sequence.
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