Oscar Movies for 2015: Whiplash
I don't know if you have watched alot of 1950s and 1960s movies where jazz was the musical medium and all the cool guys played jazz and battled the Powers-That-Be for their souls and honor, but this film is an homage to them. It is a remake of The Sweet Smell of Success, and Fletcher (played with consumate bullying venality by J.K. Simmons, Schillinger, on the boys behind bars epic classic TV show, OZ) is Burt Lancaster's other "Cookie full of Arsenic".
Whiplash follows the monochromatic color schemes of the old black and white movies. Everything is lit and the color hollowed out by neon and flourescent lighting. Color never looked so colorless in this movie. One of the alternate drummers for Fletcher's competition band is called a "ginger" and a "mick", but you would never know it by looking at him. His hair looks a bland pale grayish color.
The shots are set up as framed proscenium stages and the movie is all about performances, bad, good, and transcendent. The viewer is always aware that she is watching a performance, not just of jazz by various bands and actors in a movie, but the characters in the movie, particularly Fletcher, are acting for the other characters. What is going on in his mind? Is his sadism a form of anti-Socratic pedagogery? Has power corrupted him? Is all the world a stage and Fletcher is strutting on it and making the other players fret?
The movie is about a young and talented drummer at a prestigious music academy who loves to play and wants to be the best. He is, however young and unsure about how to be the best. Enter Fletcher, the Master Teacher, who is going to teach Andrew (Miles Teller), the drummer, how to drum to his own beat. Fletcher thinks that the beat should be his to control the march, but Andrew might just find out another beat under his own control, or not.
The first part of the movie seems to follow a portrait of the young Andrew as a developing artist but there are a couple of twists along the way and unexpected denouments from those twists. It is what keeps the movie interesting and a step above the usual story of the making of a young artist and a man and a drummer.
I've been watching some old John Cassevettes' movies from the late 60s and early seventies, and this movie reminds me of them. It uses Cassavetes type shots of New York City (if you want to see an accurate picture of NYC in the 60s and 70s watch Cassavetes movies for them, he always sets his movies firmly in that milieu and in that historical time). Whiplash also uses the circling blurring shots of the old movies when a jazz rift from the score suddenly flares up and strikes like a snake bite. As I said before, the story, character, and even the technical side of the movie reflect the old black and white jazz scored movies.
Simmons is perfect, as well he should be. He can play the Marquis de Sade out of sadism. This is my introduction to Miles Teller and I think that Elvis Lives and is Back Again!
Elvis of course.
Teller. He has those Elvis lips and nose!
Click to viewWhiplash follows the monochromatic color schemes of the old black and white movies. Everything is lit and the color hollowed out by neon and flourescent lighting. Color never looked so colorless in this movie. One of the alternate drummers for Fletcher's competition band is called a "ginger" and a "mick", but you would never know it by looking at him. His hair looks a bland pale grayish color.
The shots are set up as framed proscenium stages and the movie is all about performances, bad, good, and transcendent. The viewer is always aware that she is watching a performance, not just of jazz by various bands and actors in a movie, but the characters in the movie, particularly Fletcher, are acting for the other characters. What is going on in his mind? Is his sadism a form of anti-Socratic pedagogery? Has power corrupted him? Is all the world a stage and Fletcher is strutting on it and making the other players fret?
The movie is about a young and talented drummer at a prestigious music academy who loves to play and wants to be the best. He is, however young and unsure about how to be the best. Enter Fletcher, the Master Teacher, who is going to teach Andrew (Miles Teller), the drummer, how to drum to his own beat. Fletcher thinks that the beat should be his to control the march, but Andrew might just find out another beat under his own control, or not.
The first part of the movie seems to follow a portrait of the young Andrew as a developing artist but there are a couple of twists along the way and unexpected denouments from those twists. It is what keeps the movie interesting and a step above the usual story of the making of a young artist and a man and a drummer.
I've been watching some old John Cassevettes' movies from the late 60s and early seventies, and this movie reminds me of them. It uses Cassavetes type shots of New York City (if you want to see an accurate picture of NYC in the 60s and 70s watch Cassavetes movies for them, he always sets his movies firmly in that milieu and in that historical time). Whiplash also uses the circling blurring shots of the old movies when a jazz rift from the score suddenly flares up and strikes like a snake bite. As I said before, the story, character, and even the technical side of the movie reflect the old black and white jazz scored movies.
Simmons is perfect, as well he should be. He can play the Marquis de Sade out of sadism. This is my introduction to Miles Teller and I think that Elvis Lives and is Back Again!
Elvis of course.
Teller. He has those Elvis lips and nose!