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

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, abusive relationships, Austin Stowell, based on a short, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Film Editing winner, best films of 2014, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor Winner, C.J. Vana, character dramas, cinema, Damien Chazelle, dedication vs obsession, dramas, drummers, dysfunctional family, egomania, father figures, father-son relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, J.K. Simmons, jazz musicians, Justin Hurwitz, Melissa Benoist, mentor, Miles Teller, Movies, multiple award nominee, multiple Oscar winner, music school, musical prodigy, Nate Lang, New York City, obsession, Oscars, Paul Reiser, protege, romance, set in New York City, Sharone Meir, teacher-student relationships, Tom Cross, twist ending, Whiplash, writer-director

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.

6/29/14 (Part Two): Utopia For Dummies

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After the Dark, alternate title, cinema, doomsday scenarios, fantasy sequences, film reviews, films, high school angst, international school, Jakarta, James D'Arcy, John Huddles, Movies, nuclear apocalypse, Philosophy 101, Rhys Wakefield, Sophie Lowe, survival of the fittest, teacher-student relationships, The Philosophers, writer-director

Imagine, for a moment, how completely ineffectual Halloween (1978) would be if the whole film ended up as Laurie Strode’s dream. It would certainly explain some of the film’s more fantastic bits (that Michael is a surprisingly resilient fella) but it would also serve as one massive disappointment at the end, similar to that whole “snow-globe” finale for St. Elsewhere. A revelation like this would deflate any tension the movie managed to build up, while also giving the easy-out of allowing any of the formerly disposed of characters to just pop back up, smiling, like nothing ever happened. It would feel like a cop-out, in some ways, as if the stakes that were previously so high had instantly been reduced to mush. Sure, there may still be tension during the initial viewing but how many people would return to the film time and again if they knew the whole thing was completely illusory? Fool us once and all that jazz. Now…suppose that we’re told the whole film is merely a dream within the first few minutes? Where, then, do our stakes go?

I’m guessing it would end up pretty similar to writer-director John Huddles’ fairly pedestrian After the Dark (2013), also known as The Philosophers (a much more on-the-nose title). Within fairly short order, we’re introduced to an international high school philosophy class, in Jakarta, led by the rather odious Mr. Zimit (James D’Arcy). It’s the final day of class for these seniors and Zimit wants to work up a little experiment to really get their teenage brains thinking: he proposes an end-of-the-world scenario where the 21 people in the room (including himself) must decide which ten of them would be allowed to stay in the fall-out shelter. This, of course, will give everyone a chance to debate the needs of the many vs the few, the necessity of certain professions in a doomsday scenario, etc etc. It will also give the filmmakers a chance to portray this end-of-the-world scenario in as safe a way as possible: after all, we’ve already been told up-front that this is all just a thought-experiment. Anyone who “dies” in the experiment will just have to suffer the trauma of sitting everything out, without all of that messy stuff like, you know…really dying. It’s a “duck-duck-goose” approach to drama and ends up carrying just as much emotional heft, in the long run.

We’re run through several different scenarios, each one guided by Zimit as he attempts to make whatever point he (ultimately) wants to make. For all intents and purposes, his various machinations seem aimed squarely at James (Rhys Wakefield), the working class boyfriend of Zimit’s star pupil, Petra (Sophie Lowe). Time and time again, Zimit seems to do everything he can to marginalize and piss off James, from ensuring that he “randomly” selects the profession/character trait that Zimit has picked out for him to constantly calling into question James’ place in the class. This, of course, has the tendency to tick off Petra and the others (once it’s revealed) but there appears to be a method to Zimit’s madness. Is he really just trying to broaden their horizons and get them to think outside the box or does he have a more sinister, ulterior motive? At the end of the day, it really won’t matter because, like Vegas, what happens in the scenarios stays in the scenarios.

Here’s the thing: once we’re told, up front, that all of the meat of the film will consist of fantasy sequences, with no actual bearing on the “real world,” it’s impossible to stay invested in what’s happening. Zimit “shoots” students, “banishes” people into a nuclear holocaust,” attempts to “engineer” relationships, “attacks” students, acts like an ass…but it’s all just a pretense, a tissue paper-thin gimmick and certainly not the load-bearing support that can prop up a film. This is not to say that the fantasy sequences, themselves, don’t present some small measure of interest: on their own, they ask some reasonable questions about the lengths folks will go to in order to survive, as well as all the things they won’t do. There’s plenty of mildly thought-provoking discussions about the importance of “practical skill vs artistic ones” as far as rebuilding a destroyed civilization goes but the whole thing is strictly surface-level and academic: this isn’t a tense drama so much as a filmed Philosophy 101 lecture. In fact, one of the most engaging segments in the film is actually the bit where we see depictions of various philosophical concepts: it’s still surface-level stuff but at least we’re learning a little something.

Aside from the unfortunate “fantasy” angle, After the Dark ends up being a thoroughly middle-of-the-road film. D’Arcy’s Zimit is ridiculous character, the kind of high school teacher that could only exist in a film like this. He has a “big” secret, of course, but it ends up being a pretty silly one (which leads to one of the film’s most ludicrously melodramatic scenes, which is saying a lot). Wakefield, as demonstrated in Sanctum (2011), is a serviceable but thoroughly uninteresting actor, although his tendency to emote does allow him to offer up one of the film’s biggest headslappers: “Just because I don’t want to sleep with you anymore doesn’t mean I don’t still love you!” You tell ’em, big guy! Lowe does fine with her role as the “voice of reason” who tackles Zimit head-on but her character pretty much devolves into a mouthpiece for “artists over plumbers” by the film’s final third, hammering home her talking points so often that it feels like we’re the mirror she’s practicing to before the big debate. Everyone else in the cast falls somewhere between these extremes, although no one approaches the sheer obnoxiousness of D’Arcy’s performance.

For the most part, the film looks pretty good, although Huddles has a tendency to film all of the romantic scenes between James and Petra in as clichéd a way as possible, all languid camera movements, indie rock and amber lighting: when compared to the rest of the film, these bits stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Equally awkward are various moments in the film that seemed destined to jolt the audience, such as the decidedly ooky scene where everyone pairs off and gets to the business of baby-making. We never get anything more than some vague suggestions but the pairing of Petra with Mr. Zimit certainly has some queasy undertones. There are also some odd tonal disparities, like the bit where one character jovially explains his desire to be exiled with the other group as wanting to have the exiled women all to himself. Fuck altruism: this guy has the right idea, eh?

By turns overly self-serious and ridiculously over-the-top, After the Dark ends up being a bit of a non-entity. Minus the gimmick of the fantasy scenarios, the film would still be rough but it would, at least, have some genuine stakes to sweat over. As it stands, however, nothing that happens is real, so why should we really care who lives or dies? By the time we get to the point where Petra gets to choose all of the “survivors” and picks all of the people who Zimit repeatedly tossed out, such as the poet, musician and “Ebola-infected doctor” (yes, really), the film’s aims are pretty clear. Zimit warns Petra that she hasn’t chosen people with actual survival skills: her group won’t last long in his decimated vision of the future. We won’t live long, she counters, but we’ll live well. That’s the apex of the film’s philosophy and to that, I merely shrug: good for you, Petra, but I’ll be over here, hanging out with the kids who can start a fire and find food.