"Whiplash" My Review Part 2 - What I Missed

     So, after my last rant about "Whiplash" I had the most humbling and amazing experience.  Somehow the Executive Producer, Gary M. Walters, found it and we briefly had a "conversation" via Twitter.  No, I'm not pretending that he and I are friends, or anything like that, but here's someone who is very successful, very good at what he does, and he took the time to incredibly kindly acknowledge my opinion.  Why?  I have no idea.  Sure, I've gotten a bit of attention recently for my work in Music Education, but let's not kid ourselves, Mr. Walters does not need to worry in the least about what some oddball music teacher in Phoenix has to say about his work.  And yet, he made a point to tell me that he respected my passion for both music and my comments about his movie.  It was kinda of startling.  Moving.  Inspiring.

I learned a lot in those couple of very simple tweets he sent me.  The most important was something I shared with my own students afterwards:  The truly Creative person understands that not everyone will want what they create.  Simple enough to state, really tough to actually live.  It's clear to me that Mr. Walters does.

And so, I kinda felt that I needed to take another look at Whiplash.  He's been incredibly gracious to me, when he had no need to - I'm wondering if it's just in his nature - and so I felt I should take another look.  Why not?

The truth is that I am a fan of movies.  I love them. But outside the elements of scoring a soundtrack or Foley work, I have no real sense of their production process, beyond the very cursory basic.  My point is that I am no expert by anyone's standard.  But I do admit that when I have any real block of "free time" - particularly on "date night" with my quite lovely and exquisite Michele - we are pretty much guaranteed to go see a movie.  We just really enjoy them.  Anyway....

After my first review, along with the tweets with Mr. Walters, I also talked a bit about the film with my friend Eric L.  Eric, to be fair, is what I would call an expert on movies.   And he said something to me that truly got me thinking that I had missed something critical.  He said that one of the things that he loved in Whiplash was the element that the student was just as flawed in many ways as the teacher.  And suddenly a light came on in my head.

I had made the assumption that the student was "good."  I don't actually know why, but in retrospect, I clearly did.  I am guessing now in hindsight that it was to balance the clear "bad" of the teacher, but the truth is that there is no obligation as such for the student to be good.  And maybe that was the whole point.  Maybe the ending wasn't a battle of good versus bad but more of a comparison of two takes on bad.  If that is the case, which I am rather inclined to believe now - at least for myself - it is, then I totally missed the point of the film the first time.

And here's the thing, in the end, that's on me.  Not the film makers.  Maybe Whiplash isn't really about Music at all.  Maybe it's about how people approach life, with music simply as a creative vehicle to tell the story.  As I thought more about it, it started to make sense to me.  In the same way the words "Feel" and "Groove" are never part of the script, there is also nothing that ever tells us that the student was ever actually any good.  Yeah, he got into the school, but the way he listens to music is all wrong.  Every scene I can recall is of him listening to a lot of flashy playing but never anything of finesse. Never looking for the pure musicality.  I assumed he was "good" and deserved to be there, but perhaps he wasn't and didn't.  After all, just one example, he treats the girl like crap for the most awful and selfish and arrogant of reasons.  True, he later, kinda figures it out, but you almost get the sense that he got to that point from desperation, not from a new sense of self after a journey.  Maybe, as Eric says, he's just as bad as the teacher.  In a different way, but bad none the less.  And if that is the case, then the ending wasn't about the "Victory," it was about the casualties of bad people and their actions.  Sure, the student played a song, and played it well I suppose, but that doesn't make him a musician in the true sense of the word.  Whatever they were at the start, his goals by the end were not really about the music, or "making it."  They were really about proving himself to the teacher. And like I said a teacher that he should have known by then did not deserve to matter.  Certainly not with regard to what defines him as a musician.  On my second viewing it seemed like there was nothing that pointed to the student even wanting to get truly inside the Music.  Absolutely nothing.  This kid is no more a musician than the teacher.

And so the more I watched again the more I got convinced that the movie is not about Music at all.  I was so caught up in the superficial elements of the script that I missed the bigger picture. (Pun intended).  As I said in my first review, it was all about arrogance.  I just missed the possibility that that was the film's whole point.  I guess my own arrogance got in the way a bit.

I don't know.  Maybe I'm just trying to find a way to rationalize my newfound respect for Mr. Walters.  Or I'm "fan boying" or whatever.  I have no idea.  What I do know is that when I watched Whiplash again and did not think of it as a movie about Music as such, it seemed to make a lot more sense.  It's a tragedy on all sides.  And all this got me to think.  To take another look at something.  To go beyond my own expectations and my own bias.  Ironically, that is something I work with my own students on all the time.  It seems I am not always a very good student myself.  I need to work on that.

And all this just from a few kind tweets from someone who clearly does see a bigger creative picture.  Will Mr. Walters read this?  I have no idea.  Will he care? Again, no idea.  Is my new theory on the film correct?  I don't know.  I deliberately have not researched it in order to not color or bias my new thoughts about it.  What I do know for certain is that while I've been very lucky in the recent past to have been acknowledged on a very large scale for my innovations in Music Education - I'm not gonna say the specifics here, Google it if you really wanna know - I was absolutely "schooled" about Creativity by Mr. Walters.  And though part of me is a good bit embarrassed, especially given my supposed "expertise," honestly, pretty much all of me is grateful for it and completely thrilled.

Finally Saw The Movie "Whiplash." It's Awful.

    OK. So I know I'm way late to the party on this, as they say, and it's been a while since I've posted anything here, and I know that I am not the first person to express this thought, but having finally watched the movie "Whiplash," I just wanted to vent a bit, because I have to say, as so many other have before, it's absolutely terrible in terms of the message it says about how to truly make music.  Part of me wonders if I waited so long to see it because I knew inherently from the trailers that something was very wrong.  Who knows.

Don't get me wrong, the acting is incredible.  I mean, wow!  Amazing performances.  Really. And the sound track is absolutely unreal.  So well played I don't even know how or where to begin to describe it.

But the message, after all the truly remarkable performances, about what makes a musician truly a musician is just, I am sorry, about the worst thing I can imagine.

Now, let me be absolutely clear.  I have only watched the film one time.  It is possible that I missed something.  And perhaps the ending is supposed to be some kind of metaphor for earning another person's genuine respect, but even then, I'm sorry, it's bad.  It's just wrong.   I'll try to be as succinct as I can in my explanation - something I am generally not good at.

First, let's talk drumming.  Endless shots of the student working to play faster.  Self imposed physical (as well as emotional) abuse and suffering all for the completely non musical goal of more notes in less time.  As far as I can tell the words "Feel" and "Groove" do not appear even once  in the script.  Certainly not in a musical context.  And that is rather concerning to me.  I don't care what the style, or what the person's background, any substantive conversation - or lecture - or in the style of this movie, screaming abusive mandate, that relates to drumming has to ultimately deal with feel and groove.  Has to.  'Cuz, simply, if it doesn't feel good, and if it doesn't groove, it's not music, it's just time.  And that is not the same thing.  Moving on...

Music is about Joy.  Pure and simple.  Not necessarily fun.  Joy.  Those are not interchangeable.  The entire atmosphere in that rehearsal hall was entirely without Joy.  This does not mean no sadness or mournful quality to the Music when called for, it means that at it's heart, regardless of the style or compositional intent of the piece, if there is no Joy the result can only be sterile.  Just because a piece comes from a place of great sadness, does not mean that it is without Joy.  Just one example, a traditional New Orleans funeral.  Absolute sadness.  Total grief.  The coming to terms with the most disheartening of realities.  And yet...there is Joy.  Joy in the celebration of the life.  Joy in the remembrance.  Joy in the cherishing of the memories and the pain and the sorrow and the guilt and whatever else there might be.  Why?  Because in the end, after all is said and done, what it's really about is the Joy of Love.   Even at it's worst - coming from a place a pure hate - Lord, I despise that word and the notion of it, but I digress - it is still cathartic.  And in that catharsis, in that process, at the end of it, there is still Joy.  In fact all that is left is Joy.  Anyway, another rant for another time...

But in that rehearsal hall, there was never any Joy.  There was no true life in the music.  Notes and rhythms are not inherently music.  In this case there was sound.  Not music.  The sound you hear from that ensemble - yes the soundtrack of the movie is amazing! - but in reality, that group never makes music that sounds like that.  Never.  Not possible.  I am not even certain that anything that resemble makes can truly be called music based on they way they are made to work.  Not in rehearsal, and certainly not in competition.

And why in the world is the ultimate goal the competition?  I don't care what it might lead to, you cannot be Musical and competitive at the same time.  I've talked about this before, so I'll spare you all from that rant here, but those two are inherently at odds against each other.  Always.  Competition, by definition. breeds conformity.  Conformity destroys Creativity.  And without Creativity there is no Music.

And this idea that in the end the student stands up for himself by essentially "bullying the bully" so he was ultimately victorious, is absurd.  And therein is the heart of what concerns me most about the message of this movie.  Anyone who is not a musician is getting a terribly unmusical message about what makes a successful musician.  "Bleed for the part."  "Want it more than anything."  "Stop at nothing" etc.  Come on.  What a load of crap.

Work hard?  Absolutely.  In fact, work so hard that your definition of that term changes each time you think you're working as hard as you can, so that you are always pushing yourself to go beyond your self-proclaimed and perceived Creative limits.   Even so far as to lose yourself and your soul, as it were, to the Art?  Sure!  Go for it.  Really.  But to lose it to things nonmusical? Pointless. Worse, in fact.  Creatively destructive.

The movie essentially ends with the notion that whoever can be the most arrogant wins in music.  Not so.  The goal should never have been to "show the teacher" (or really anyone else, for that matter) "I can do this!  I'm the best."  It should be to show yourself.  Music lies within. At least at its start.  From there it can connect to what is outside.  It can even, from within, receive what's coming from the outside.  But if it's not present on the inside, then it really doesn't matter what's coming in.  You won't receive it.  And the whole of the movie's ending is all about the ultimately nonmusical, superficial outside, not what's really within.   That last scene was not about self-assuradness. Not about overcoming something.   It was about proving to someone who absolutely did not deserve it, that the student was in fact "good enough."  And it was absolutely not a pure motivation for the student.  If it was, the student would never have relinquished control of the moment as he clearly did with the single stroke drumroll (fast-slow-fast).  Once that happened it was all absolutely about arrogance. Not being a musician.  I am not saying that he should have retained control over the moment purely for the sale of control. That would be arrogant.  I am saying that when he gave up the control to that teacher, in that circumstance, he was allowing that teacher to define who he was musically.  Sad.  Tragic, in fact, in my view.

And, sorry, the idea that at that point the teacher and student were on the same level (or even not the same level) so that was a moment of collaboration, is terribly flawed logic.  There was no evidence ever in the film that the teacher was even capable a truly respecting his students.  Or anyone it would seem.  No, that was not collaboration at the end, that was acquiescence.  That was the student giving in to the teacher.  A teacher who did not deserve it.  Not that any true teacher would even want it.

I suppose there is some merit in the idea that it was about how the student was rising above his past experiences and forgiving the teacher, becoming truly the better person, but it just doesn't feel that likely to me.  What seemed more likely was that the student was still grasping for the approval of someone who just should not matter.  Who clearly does not deserve, under any circumstance, to matter.  You wanna forgive the teacher? OK.  That's fine.  But to give that teacher any kind of power over what defines you Musically?  No.  Not even a little bit.  If nothing else, the student knowing the lie that was told about the former student dying in a car accident pretty much closes the door on all that.  But, who knows, maybe I'm wrong.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Now, after all the ranting I just did about it, I do reserve the right to later change my mind about "Whiplash," so here's hoping I've got it all wrong. Seriously, I hope I do.   Like I said, I am not saying it's a bad movie.  Honestly, I really loved it.  I LOVE THIS MOVIE!  The acting, the soundtrack, all of that element are beyond reproach.   But the musician in me, sorry, not so much.