Andrew knows that the slightest mistake in competition or the practice room will cost him his spot in the band, and this limited opportunity is his inspiration. Things quickly heat up: personalities clash, monologues are delivered, and frustration ensues.Īndrew’s rise to success is hindered by obstacles and tough decisions that force him to give up everything that distracts him from drumming. Fletcher’s method demands it. His talent and obsessive work ethic quickly earn the attention of the school’s most rigorous conductor, Terrence Fletcher, who gives Andrew a shot in the competition studio band. Drummer BoyĪt the start of Whiplash, Andrew Neyman is entering his first semester at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. The film contains superb acting performances, stylish but effective cinematography, and an upbeat, unpredictable nature that resembles the very essence of jazz itself. Because of an editing error, an earlier version referred to the drummer of Cream as Chet, rather than Ginger Baker.Why do we strive for greatness? What pushes someone to practice something over and over, until his hands bleed, until he perfects it? Can this intensity be brought out in all of us? Whiplash is a portrait of a young jazz drummer, Andrew Neyman, who possesses this drive to such a degree that everything else in his life is just background noise. ![]() This article was amended on 17 January 2015. ![]() For all its overripe contrivance, you’ll leave the cinema with a spring in your step and a thump in your chest, eager to bang the drum for what deserves to be one of the year’s real word-of-mouth hits. Even when the drama descends into parodic paradiddles and melodramatic car-crashes (both literal and metaphoric) there’s a splashy, impressionist energy which keeps us locked into its insistent rhythm. ![]() Perhaps Chazelle’s most remarkable achievement is the fact that he manages to turn an impromptu drum solo – that most unforgivably indulgent of musical breaks – into a tense and engrossing dramatic set piece that sets the heart racing. Teller is terrific too as the young gun bleeding for his art, wholly convincing as the raw talent in whom even the most poisonous taskmaster can hear the distant drums of greatness. With its scenes of our embattled hero plunging his bruised and bloodied hands into buckets of iced water while a tyrannical music instructor showers him with excoriating epithets and throws chairs at his head, this owes less to the reach-for-the-stars formulas of Fame than it does to the now-familiar beats of boot-camp and boxing movies.Īs for the performances, Simmons is a sinewy symphony of physicality, his muscular arms and poised fingers waving the drama onward apace, his endlessly expressive eyes alert and ablaze, his razor-sharp mouth playing the paper-cut dialogue like a demonic fiddle. Three cheers, then, for one-time aspiring-drummer Damien Chazelle, writer/director of this whip-smart feature (adapted from his 2013 short) about a young wannabe jazz-legend earning his spurs at a fiercely competitive music school. No wonder Animal from the Muppets struck such a chord. Even in documentaries, drummers have been portrayed more as wildlife than musicians think of Beware of Mr Baker, which opens with Cream tub-thumper Ginger Baker whacking his interviewer across the face with his cane, breaking his nose. Badoom tish! The perennial butt of countless muso-jokes, drummers have long been the source of morbidly outlandish legend, from tragicomic screen-gags about the Thamesmen’s timekeeper dying in a bizarre gardening accident, to tales of Spinal Tap’s Peter “James” Bond spontaneously combusting on the Isle of Lucy. Q: How do you know if there’s a drummer at your front door? A: He knocks three times then comes in late.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |