Plane Film 1: Whiplash

I’d hoped this film would be on my plane – and, indeed, it was. I was very keen on the film from its trailer, and of course its profile was raised substantially by its triple Oscar win, including best supporting actor for J.K. Simmons. This has been the year’s small-indie-movie-hitting-the-big-time success story, and it’s about a subject very close to my heart – playing the drums. So of course I was going to love it.

Drums are really only the medium for the actual story here, though. This could easily have been about any high-intensity pursuit, and actually has a lot in common with sports stories. What this is really about is the relationship between a very unpleasant mentor and a determined young acolyte who wants to be the best. But the drums provide for great visuals, those blood blisters can burst and dramatically stain the drum skins, and jazz drumming is probably the best place in music to find a musician having to go through a physically very challenging ordeal while also being subordinate to someone else – the band leader. Sure, there are forms of drumming and other performance that are arguably more intense, but they don’t have the dynamic of someone else forcing them.

So I loved the premise. In more detail, here’s the set-up: in an elite musical school, the ‘studio band’ is recognized as where the best of the best play. They win competitions and alumni go on to impressive careers in the jazz world. And its leader is the formidable Terence Fletcher (Simmons), a man who can just swan into any of the school’s other bands and poach members, and who is generally arrogant, unpleasant and quick to tear people apart psychologically because he believes that’s how musicians can be pushed. Because he’s produced great results and his institution needs him, his behaviour is tolerated and thus he continues to push the boundaries. It’s the same compelling set-up as House: MD, and I’d say these were in fact very similar characters. They’re in a powerful position, intelligent and confident with a cutting wit and a willingness to bring others down, celebrated in what they do and yet inevitably headed towards disaster.

Into this band comes young Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller. Initially rejected when Fletcher sees him practice, he is given a chance as an alternate, and that’s when the abuse begins. The stressed Neiman doesn’t lock into Fletcher’s tempo, and Fletcher’s transformation from warm and paternalistic at first to physically abusive is brilliantly done. Prefering to endure abuse than fail, Neiman persists, but soon becomes obsessive. When Fletcher brings in the obviously inferior drummer of Neiman’s previous band, very obviously only to mess with Neiman’s head, Neiman begins practising until he is bleeding badly, punching through the skin of his practice kit and breaking up with his girlfriend – a character really written in only for this gesture of Neiman dumping her because he thinks she’ll get in the way of his art. Neiman is being influenced by an unpleasant person and becomes unpleasant, but that only makes the drama more compelling.

Being late to a performance turns into a huge drama when Neiman ends up in a car accident but still attempting to play. The layers of drama build until one last twist where there’s a devilish attempt for one character to screw another over. But from the start, the story has been about pushing to a higher musical ground, and maybe it remains possible.

Now, I knew while watching this that jazz aficionadoes would be upset because what we see here doesn’t really give any impression of the real lives of jazz greats. Most jazz greats had pretty easy professional lives, doing what they do incredibly well. They loved music, and explored great depths of it. Neiman idolizes Buddy Rich – and as a drummer, pretty much all of us do, even if in the wider jazz sphere he’s considered a bit vulgar – and his idea of pushing himself as a musician is centred on faster single-stroke rolls and double-time swing. There’s a story about Jo Jones throwing a cymbal at stripling Charlie Parker that has been very much Hollywood-ized: the real story is that Parker got ahead and played the wrong part of the song early, and when he didn’t notice Jones’ cymbal cues, Jones threw a cymbal on the floor to get his attention, making him a bit of a laughing stock. Parker pulled his socks up, studied hard, got a regular gig and by the time he went back he was ready to become a legend. The film has it as some kind of James Bond villain encounter where Jones could hurl the cymbal so hard it nearly decapitated Bird. It’s for the drama!

And I believed the story about jazz because while it misses the point about music and expression and individuality, I am also totally sure there are myriad musicians and music teachers who do miss the point. This is obviously a personal story, based on writer/director Damien Chazelle’s experience in Princeton High School. There’s a scene where Neiman’s resentment that mediocre football is considered more laudable than elite jazz is meant to show him becoming less pleasant, but also I suspect is grounded in Chazelle’s feelings and a little cathartic. Band leaders do turn into tyrants and launch into ridiculous arrogant tirades, especially in big-band jazz where the musicians are more like cogs in the machine and have very specific moments to express themselves. Buddy Rich in particular was a monster to his musicians when displeased. Kids do obsess over technical chops and dumb speed, and lose perspective of artistic expression or the fact that beautiful music is uplifting. People get jazz all wrong every day, especially when competitive. It makes sense.

And besides, here are some superb performances. I’m not convinced he played all of the Rich-derived solo at the end, but Teller is clearly playing most of those drums and has strong chops as well as giving a heartfelt performance. Simmons, who I only really know from being Tenzin in The Legend of Korra, deserves all his plaudits. And even if I fundamentally disagree with this film’s depiction of music and a teacher having to be criminally cruel to separate wheat from chaff, I know there are people out there like that, and characters like that are incredibly compelling to watch.