Whiplash

It may be 4 am on a Sunday morning morning, but I’m in the mood to just talk about this film. Whiplash means so much to me as a consumer of film, a fan of motion pictures, a film student, a drummer and a person. This started off with just a script that was unable to get funding for a feature film, then Chazelle adapted one of the best sequences of the film into a 17 minute short film just to show what he was capable of as a director to execs and it worked.  Something new I picked up on my rewatch of this is how Andrew’s last name is pronounced by characters. When Andrew and other students at Shaffer pronounce Neiman, it’s as “Ney-man” whereas with Fletcher he says it completely differently as “Knee-men”. It just shows straight off the bat that Fletcher doesn’t have any respect for Andrew and pronouncing his surname incorrectly is just something perfect for his character. Whiplash also features two of the best shots in any film ever, Neimans dad watching Andrew’s performance at the end of the feature and Fletchers look of approval towards Neiman at the big finish of the Caravan number. They both just speak so much for all three characters with only facial expressions and absolutely no dialogue. Neimans dad is just delivering a look of pure fear, knowing that what Fletcher set out to do to his son to make him into one of the so-called “greats” has succeeded and he’s just completely horrified knowing his son cannot come back from this, this is also similarly echoed by Fletchers look of approval to Andrew just as they finish Caravan. It’s the only approval that Fletcher gives to Neiman in the film that is genuine and sincere, Fletcher knows that what’s he’s done to Neiman has worker and he now respects Andrew for not leaving the performance entirely, getting back up there and proving him wrong and he now respects him for that.  Another aspect of the film I picked up on was the little subplot of Andrew and his relationship with Nicole, his local movie theatre employee. For my first few watches of the film, I just played it off as filler and something that doesn’t mean much to the rest of the film but then I thought about it. Andrew only asks her out after getting the part in Fletchers band which gives him a big confidence boost to ask out Nicole but as the film goes on, he just gives all his attention and effort into Fletcher, just giving up on Nicole and really only caring about himself and being brutally honest with her about his situation with his drumming (also being a complete cunt with how he explains it to her). The screenplay written by Chazelle is just phenomenal as well, it’s so intricately written and the character dialogue flows so well between characters and their interactions with others. Only Miles Teller and J.K Simmons could’ve pulled off the roles of Neiman and Fletcher and no one else could’ve done it. I could just go on and on about Whiplash if I wanted to, I don’t think there will ever be another film that I could possibly love and appreciate as much as this. Yap sessions over now.