Whiplash (12A.)
Directed by Damien Chazelle.
Starring Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser and Melissa Benoist. 107 mins
Whiplash is a film about drumming, jazz drumming. Jazz drumming with drum solos. And bullying. It's a remarkably intense and riveting film about jazz drumming and bullying. But you will have to sit through drum solos.
Nobody likes a bully, but all actors want to play one. Fletcher (Simmons) is basically a marine drill instructor let loose in the Fame academy, the meanest one since R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. This is a film about the painstaking search for perfection; a battle between an intensely driven music student (Teller) and his tyrannical band leader Fletcher. The musician work at it, they do it again and again and again until they meet Flecther's exacting standards. It is not a film where these struggles get worked through in a montage. There's blood on those drum kits.
Whoever tutored director Chazelle, who is not yet thirty, did a great job. His film making is tight and precise, a vigorously maintained series of close ups and short sharp camera moves that leave just just enough breathing space to stop it becoming oppressive. He gets compelling performances out of his lead actors.
This is not a film for those who believe a drummer is just a glorified metronome or that drumming should be heard, but not much. The drum solo was outlawed from popular music sometime in the 70s but it lives on in Jazz circles and it is not a thing to be listened to lightly, or at all. Whiplash share some attributes with a drum solo, being an incredibly impressive and physically draining technical exercise that you feel compelled to applaud but may, just may, not feel inclined to actually enjoy.
Whiplash (12A.)
Directed by Damien Chazelle.
Starring Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser and Melissa Benoist. 107 mins
Whiplash is a film about drumming, jazz drumming. Jazz drumming with drum solos. And bullying. It's a remarkably intense and riveting film about jazz drumming and bullying. But you will have to sit through drum solos.
Nobody likes a bully, but all actors want to play one. Fletcher (Simmons) is basically a marine drill instructor let loose in the Fame academy, the meanest one since R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. This is a film about the painstaking search for perfection; a battle between an intensely driven music student (Teller) and his tyrannical band leader Fletcher. The musician work at it, they do it again and again and again until they meet Flecther's exacting standards. It is not a film where these struggles get worked through in a montage. There's blood on those drum kits.
Whoever tutored director Chazelle, who is not yet thirty, did a great job. His film making is tight and precise, a vigorously maintained series of close ups and short sharp camera moves that leave just just enough breathing space to stop it becoming oppressive. He gets compelling performances out of his lead actors.
This is not a film for those who believe a drummer is just a glorified metronome or that drumming should be heard, but not much. The drum solo was outlawed from popular music sometime in the 70s but it lives on in Jazz circles and it is not a thing to be listened to lightly, or at all. Whiplash share some attributes with a drum solo, being an incredibly impressive and physically draining technical exercise that you feel compelled to applaud but may, just may, not feel inclined to actually enjoy.
