Respond to these rapid questions in our Whiplash quiz and we will tell you which Whiplash character you are. Play it now.
It’s not really about jazz in the movie “Whiplash,” which centers on a young drummer (Miles Teller) who beats himself up to appease a harsh teacher (J.K. Simmons) and improve as a musician. It also has nothing to do with the situation of jazz education in modern America. And it is absurd to call it “unrealistic” in any journalistic sense, as some have done. It’s a nearly perfect movie, a kind of twisted masterpiece about the desire to make art, and it’s one of the few movies about music that seems to have been created by someone who is aware of the physical experience of making music: the way members of an ensemble seem to meld with the score, the conductor, and each other when they begin to play. It’s also a really good movie about the unique interaction between masculine students and teachers who see the practice of craft as both a creative and an athletic endeavor—a public display of fortitude, bravery, and the capacity to endure suffering. Here, art becomes a barometer or a rock to measure one’s progress against. You wouldn’t be mistaken if you said that this is essentially a childish approach to viewing art. You would also have to acknowledge that it has a terribly unsettling ring to it.
Damien Chazelle’s first film, written and directed, imagines New York as a neo-noir metropolis of nearly permanent night, similar to “Sweet Smell of Success” or “Taxi Driver,” and it moves in accordance with its own emotional logic, as dreams frequently do. The most intense scenes imply that the protagonist, Andrew, may not actually be feeling what we see on screen but rather that what we see is a projection of his jumbled and extremely intense emotions (hence the teacher’s repeated references to Andrew’s mother leaving his father because he was not a great writer but “merely” a teacher and his sick playground taunts).
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Whiplash Quiz
But ultimately, these are just suggestions, and the movie is better for it. As Fletcher uses physical and emotional assault to yank Andrew free of his psychic moorings, we are kept off balance by our inability to fully trust the true reality of what we are watching. The question of what is “real” versus “not real” isn’t the objective of “Whiplash,” just as it isn’t when you’re dreaming or watching a movie with a lot of Expressionist elements (such as “Black Swan” or “The Red Shoes” or “Raging Bull,” all three of which this movie plunders). It’s important that you believe what’s happening on screen to be true. That feeling of truth.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Whiplash quiz.
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This movie feels absolutely fake as a depiction of anything that might possibly occur, but true as a record of the emotions this boy is experiencing and what motivated others experience (sometimes to their damage) as they consider what it takes to be—not even the best, but merely excellent. The movie accurately portrays Andrew’s desire to develop his great but undeveloped potential as well as his skepticism over his level of competence. And it’s true to Fletcher’s pessimistic, bordering on sick worldview, who keeps telling the tale of how Charlie Parker came to be known as Charlie Parker after drummer Philly Jo Jones struck him in the head with a cymbal, forcing him to flee into the wilderness, lick his wounds, and vow to come back and get better. (I nearly put “threw a symbol at his head,” which would be a perfectly fine sentence for anyone who has seen this film, whether they thought it clever or stupid.))
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This argument is cunning, nasty, reductive, and joyless. It transforms the quest for artistic brilliance into a test of one’s capacity for bearing humiliation, physical harm, rejection, and public ridicule. Similar to Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” it is as obstinate in equating perseverance and transcendence. However, the capacity to endure adversity is difficult to surpass as a predictor of future success. It might actually be the skeleton that holds the genius’ flesh in place.
For more personality quizzes check this: First Period Quiz.
