3/3/15 (Part One): On the Beat

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For musicians, there’s a thin, almost invisible, line separating “dedication” from “obsession.” On one side of the line, adherents remove all unnecessary outside distractions, focusing almost exclusively on their craft. They practice endlessly, never stop learning and live, eat and breathe their music. For dedicated musicians, it’s not necessarily a sacrificial move: when you live for music, what else would you rather be doing? On the other side of the line, it’s a similar story, with one major twist: when you’re obsessed with your craft, you eschew any and everything, zeroing in on your music with a frightening degree of tunnel vision. Turning their back on friends, family, relationships (both romantic and professional), societal niceties and any concept of a well-rounded life, obsessed musicians live for only one thing: their craft. Removing their music from the equation would be as deadly as dropping a goldfish on the floor.

The world is full of amazing, talented, dedicated musicians. The irony, of course, is that the only way to be a legendary musician, the kind of performer that other players idolize, copy and envy, the kind of musician who achieves immortality through their art, is to be obsessed. There are plenty of normal, well-adjusted musicians covering virtually every square inch of the Earth. The geniuses? I’m guessing you’ll only need one hand to do that math.

Damien Chazelle’s vibrant, kinetic and endlessly thrilling Whiplash (2014) takes a good, hard look at the dividing line between “dedication” and “obsession,” at the difference between being “your best” and “THE best.” Our entry-point into this world is Andrew (Miles Teller), a 19-year-old drum prodigy who idolizes Buddy Rich and wants to be the best damn drummer in the world. As such, he’s currently studying at the prestigious Shaffer Music Conservatory: when he’s not in class, he’s behind his kit, pummeling his way through one endless practice session after another. Andrew is a fine, upstanding young man, with a good head on his shoulders and a supportive father (Paul Reiser) who only wants the best for him. At this point, our hero is standing firmly on the “dedicated” side of things.

While practicing one night, Andrew happens to attract the attention of Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the Draconian, hot-tempered, much feared “local god” who commands (conducts isn’t quite strong enough) the much-vaunted Shaffer Academy studio band. Getting selected for Fletcher’s group is kind of like an amateur getting invited to spar with Bruce Lee: it’s a huge honor but you’re gonna get your ass kicked. While Fletcher doesn’t give Andrew the nod right away, he does pop into his class the next day, gives everyone an impromptu audition and whisks our young hero from obscurity into the upper echelons.

Once he finally gets a chance to sit in on Fletcher’s class, however, Andrew comes to a massive revelation: his wannabe hero is an abusive, violent, savage, mean-spirited shithead who believes that the only way to achieve greatness is to be battered until you’re broken. For him, the only way to test greatness is with fire…lots and lots of fire. As Andrew and Fletcher slam heads like bighorn sheep, each one attempting to exert their authority over the other, it seems that Fletcher’s tact is working: under his exacting, abusive, obsessive tutelage, Andrew is getting better and better, faster and faster. When it finally comes time for the student to challenge the master, however, Andrew will come to find that not all obsessions are created equal: his obsession to be the best might just get crushed into dust by Fletcher’s obsession with MAKING him the best. Will Andrew scale the heights that he so desperately wants, joining the esteemed company of his hero, Buddy Rich, or will Fletcher break him just like he broke everyone else?

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat: Whiplash is a pretty amazing film. Smart, relentless, brutal, simple, streamlined…if Chazelle’s film was a fighter, it would be the silent, pensive and cold-blooded tough guy that doesn’t need to brag: he just wipes up the street with you. In every way, Whiplash is an old soul: the film’s simplicity and style handily recall similarly single-minded dramas from the ’60s and ’70s, so sparse and frill-free as to be a complete breath of fresh air in this increasingly fractured modern era. This is a no bullshit character study which, at the end of the day, is exactly what it needs to be.

As a film, Whiplash is as single-minded and laser-focused as our young protagonist: in fact, the only element of the film that ultimately falls flat is the obligatory romantic angle involving Andrew and Nicole (Melissa Benoist), the concession-stand worker that he falls for. I understand why the relationship is there: it provides a nice, first-hand illustration of the relationship sacrifices that obsessed musicians make. Thematically, it holds water just fine. On a filmmaking level, however, the side-story actually dilutes some of the film’s power: watching Andrew and Fletcher battle is like watching Godzilla go ten rounds with Ghidora, while the awkward courtship feels like the padding in between the “good stuff.” It also doesn’t help that the scenes between Teller and Benoist are some of the most conventional and static in the film, featuring basic back-and-forth coverage and mundane dialogue.

Quibbles aside, however, Whiplash pretty much knocks everything else out of the park. Teller is fantastic as the young prodigy, able to portray naivety, vulnerability, anger and obsession in equal measures. Whether facing off against Fletcher, his backstabbing peers or his own condescending family, Teller is more than up for the task. While I believe that this is the first film I’ve actually seen him in, I’m willing to wager that I see lots more of him in the future.

There’s a reason why J.K. Simmons took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar over Edward Norton’s fiery performance from Birdman (2014): his performance as Fletcher is one of the most intense, incredible and uncomfortable acting tour de forces that I’ve ever seen. There’s no denying that Simmons is an absolutely essential actor: he’s one of those guys who seems to be in everything, including TV commercials, yet he never wears out his welcome…he’s like Ron Perlman or Bruce Campbell in that you just want more of him, regardless of the production. As an acting job, it’s practically a master-class in the craft: veins popping, spit flying from his hard-set lips, throwing chairs, slapping the shit out of students…if you don’t jump the first time he really lets loose, you might be watching a different movie. Simmons performance is so good that it’s the kind of thing that could easily get lost in hyperbole: it really is one of the best performances in years, no two ways about it.

Aside from the kinetic style and tremendous performances, Whiplash is a marvel of filmmaking technique. The score, sometimes foreboding, sometimes playfully jazzy (in a “Times Square circa 1970” way), is used sparsely but to great effect. There are no leading musical cues, no heart-tugging orchestral swells (I’m glaring at you, The Theory of Everything (2014)) and no hand-holding. As befits a film about jazz musicians, Whiplash is expertly edited on the beat, making the jazz an integral part of both the film’s narrative and its DNA. Editing is often (and rightfully so) an invisible art-form but we all owe Tom Cross a debt of gratitude for his stellar editing job here. There’s a reason why Whiplash won the Best Editing award and the proof is definitely in the pudding.

The film also looks great, with plenty of atmospheric shots and some wonderfully slow, measured pans. There’s a tendency towards extreme close-ups, which really heightens the film’s tension, as well as drawing attention to the film’s incredible performances: Teller and Simmons do so much with their faces (particularly their eyes) that one well-timed close-shot says as much as a scene full of expository dialogue. Again, this is a film that purposefully recalls an older style of filmmaking: the assumption, here, is that we’re all smart enough to follow along…no need to telegraph, over-explain or “connect the dots,” as it were.

You can have a good film with a terrible script but, in my opinion, you can’t really have a great film with a terrible script: good thing for us that Chazelle (who wrote the script) is also the genius behind the screenplay for Eugenio Mira’s extraordinary Grand Piano (2013), one of the smartest, best written films I’ve ever seen. With two fantastic script under his belt (I might even be forced to check out The Last Exorcism 2 (2013), since he penned that, as well), Chazelle is officially a force to be reckoned with.

In every way, Whiplash is a simple story told exceptionally well: in other words, my favorite kind. By cutting out all the unnecessary minutiae that clogs so many similar films, Whiplash hums like a live wire and never releases its grip on the audience. From the brilliantly stylized, simple opening, to the awesome visual of Andrew plunging his bleeding hand into a tub of ice water, all the way to the genuinely surprising twist ending that manages to throw conventionally clichéd “triumphant” final performances right out the window, Whiplash is one delightful surprise after another. As an ode to the impossible dedication and obsession that go hand in hand with creating beautiful music, as well as the universal need to be accepted by those we look up to, Whiplash has few peers.

One of Fletcher’s favorite retorts, snarled in his typically polite, bulldog-with-a-smile way, is “Not my fucking tempo”: no matter how good his students are, they’re never good enough for him…or for themselves, as far as he’s concerned. I’d like to think that, if it could “talk,” Whiplash would have the same withering contempt for most of its peers: not my fucking tempo, indeed. The rest of ’em are welcome to play along but they’ll never be able to keep up.

2/25/14: Lost in Space (Oscar Bait, Part 9)

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My Oscar-prep viewing for the last week of February continued with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Of all of the nominees, I was probably (initially) most excited to see this one, since I’m a huge fan of Cuaron’s previous film, the wonderfully dystopic Children of Men. After waiting seven years for a follow-up, how would Gravity stack up? And did it really earn all ten of its Oscar nominations? Read on, gentle readers…read on.

As a boy, my twin loves (above and beyond anything else that I loved) were dinosaurs and outer space. If there was a book about the subject(s), I read it. if there was a show or movie, I watched it. I’ve always been fascinated by huge, open expanses but my inability to swim has always rendered the deep-sea about as terrifying as diving into an active volcano. Space, however, was a different story. As frightening as the notion of all of that vast emptiness was, I never ceased to be fascinated and drawn to it. As time went on and I got older, my former obsession with dinosaurs gradually faded into my childhood, although I remember being fairly agog when I first saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My obsession with space, however, has never waned. If anything, I find myself more fascinated by it now then I ever was: we truly live in a glorious time for anyone who’s ever wondered about what might be “up there,” since we seem to get word of astounding new galactic discoveries on a fairly regular basis. If there’s one thing me and my boyhood self would agree on, it’s this: outer space is pretty damn amazing.

Interestingly enough, however, my lifelong love of space hasn’t really translated into a love of sci-fi films. I’ve found many, over the years, that I really enjoy and a few that I even love: 2001; Alien; The Black Hole; Event Horizon, to name a few. For the most part, however, I’m not really drawn to the space shoot-em-ups of stuff like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. I’m much more interested in low-key, intellectual films like Moon, Europa Report, 2001 and Solaris. Part of the appeal of space, to me, has always been the inherent mystery of it: the best sci-fi films manage to preserve this sense of mystery while still giving something to thrill along to.

Gravity could certainly be said to exist in the same company as the aforementioned “intelligent” sci-fi films, but it’s not quite the same thing. There is nothing lunk-headed or especially clumsy about the film but its heart is definitely more interested in action (sometimes so non-stop as to almost seem real-time) than it is in wonder or inquiry. There’s nothing wrong with this, mind you, but it immediately puts Gravity into a slightly different category and is one of the reasons why I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed after the whole thing was over.

Story-wise, Gravity is simplicity itself: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are American astronauts on a routine spacewalk when disaster strikes. The Russians have accidentally bombed one of their own satellites, which has caused deadly space debris to travel into the Americans’ vicinity. Too late to avoid the bombardment, Stone and Kowalski find themselves adrift in space, no contact with Earth and only their connecting tether keeping them from spinning away into the vastness of forever. Using every ounce of their strength, courage and cautious optimism, the two must do everything they can to make it back home, lest the far reaches of space become their frigid tomb.

In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it: just slightly over 90 minutes of Bullock trying desperately to get back home. In many respects, Gravity and All Is Lost (Redford stuck at sea on a sinking sailboat) are kindred spirits. Both are claustrophobic, quick-paced thrill rides that feature one protagonist (it’s no spoiler to say that Bullock spends the majority of the film alone), almost no supporting characters or additional actors and minimal locations. While I heartily enjoyed Gravity, I’ll have to give the edge here to All Is Lost for one very important reason: it didn’t dilute its impact with unnecessary emotional baggage. In All Is Lost, we end up knowing as little about Redford’s character as possible: he doesn’t even get a name. This isn’t to say that there’s no character information whatsoever: through a few small, subtle scenes, we find out enough about Redford’s character (wife and kids back home, well-to-do older man) to become invested in his struggle. At no time, however, does the film wring unnecessary mileage out of the emotional beats: they’re just there to humanize the character.

In Gravity, however, Ryan’s back-story directly influences her actions in the film and, at times, is used as the sole emotional ballast. For my money, this wasn’t the best way to humanize the character and, to be honest, had a bit of the opposite effect for me. At times, I found myself questioning Ryan’s actions: she would be unthinkingly swift and decisive one moment, curled in a fetal position and looking “lost” the next. While this might be a natural reaction for any normal person caught in the situation, it still had the effect of dragging down the film and injecting a maudlin, overly emotional tone that was at odds with the film’s more clinical inclinations. It’s almost as if Cuaron was unsure if the audience would be fully invested in the actual things happening to Bullock’s character (who the hell wouldn’t find being lost in space terrifying and thrilling?!), so he decided to hedge his bets by piling on a tragic back-story for her to overcome. It’s a reductive measure and, effectively, boils down Ryan’s entire experience in space to “overcoming personal adversity.” It’s equivalent to Ripley coming at the Mother Alien with the robot suit only to end up shaking hands and hugging it out. This is particularly puzzling since, aside from the too obvious back-story and some beats with Clooney’s character, there isn’t anything obvious about the actual film. This was a pretty big disappointment for me, since it seemed like a concession to what modern audiences expect from films, not what filmmakers actually intend. I keep wondering how amazing this film would have been as a non-stop, tightly-shot, A-B-C thriller and it makes the final product even more disappointing.

But, let’s be absolutely frank here: most people going to see Gravity won’t be going for the character development, the writing or anything of that nature: they’ll be going to experience a huge, eye-popping visual smorgasbord. And on that count, Gravity absolutely does not disappoint. In fact, I daresay that I really have no appropriate words to describe how utterly, sumptuously amazing the film looks. There isn’t one frame that didn’t look meticulously composed and I still have no idea whatsoever how many of the shots were achieved. As far as I can tell, Cuaron took a small crew into deep space and filmed: that’s about the best explanation I have for a lot of the film. The SFX are seamless, the space visuals are so stunning that I got teary-eyed (really) and the sound effects put you right in the thick of everything. If there’s one part of the filmmaking I didn’t care for, however, it would definitely have to be Steven Price’s intrusive, too-obvious score. Something more minimalist and  moody would have helped the film but I felt like the score tried to be too leading: I’m not a fan of hand-holding between filmmakers and the audience and the score was definitely that. As far as the technical awards and the Best Cinematography statue, however? There was simply no other film in the running after this one: even discussing other films’ effects as being equitable is absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the day, perhaps my own unreasonable expectations led me to be disappointed by Gravity. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed most of the film as I was watching it (save for the overly emotional bits referenced above). I was even stunned at several points, especially that jaw-dropping opening. It was a fun, exquisitely crafted film with a rock-solid performance by Bullock (not Oscar worthy, IMHO, but damn close), a very Clooney-esque performance by George C and a totally awesome reference to my favorite scene in Jaws. It was also, unfortunately, a rather slight film, almost more of an effects exercise then anything else. I remember how much I found myself pondering and returning to Children of Men after I first saw it. After watching Gravity, my only thought was, “Damn: shoulda seen it in the theaters.” While Gravity was a good Cuaron film, it looks like I might have to wait another seven years for a great Cuaron film.