Mini Review Whiplash : Music is not subjective

Whiplash

I wanted to write just a comment on this but it got a bit longer so decided to write a mini review.

Saw whiplash. overwhelmed by it . Its pure cinematic excellence. If ever i would want to make a movie on music . I would make something like this. Its a wet dream. even if you are not an expert on music, you can know how much method and technique has gone into making each and every scene.

I am a big fan of srks CDI crash training scene https://tanqeed.com/scene-of-the-week-chak-de-india/
and i loved how it was done in whiplash.The director took it 10 times higher. those who think “its too harsh/its not a pleasant way to teach” can go home and watch tzp. this is the real deal. this is the drill you have to go through if you want muscle memory,if you want any kind of art to become a reflex action. This is the harsh reality. In the movie Andrew Neiman joins the best music school of the country in his pursue to become the greatest jazz drummer. It is his hard luck that he has got an instructor who is a toughmaster like Fletcher. Its like a bad demanding boss in your company. You have to live with it and do your best to rise upto his level.He has a high std and instead of quitting, Neiman rises upto the challenge and gives a goosebumpy performance in the climax which is directed brillainty.

and finally, my most favourite aspect in the film where i will leave you with a scene:

Andrew is asked at a dinner table how the music competitions work, since “isn’t music subjective?” “No,” is his flat, harsh reply.

Rating : 5/5

Some of my favourite scenes :

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66 Comments
  1. cr7 9 years ago

    Loved the movie . As I said in another thread the climax is epic . One of the finest ever. liked the whole dinner table scene too.

  2. sputnik 9 years ago

    First of all Music is in fact subjective. The same music which some might consider great others will find it totally boring or useless. He was being a jerk at the dinner table saying he doesn’t need any friends and that he would rather be a great who dies broke, drunk and full of heroin at 34 than live up to 90. He thinks he will become a great and everyone else is basically a nobody. And that’s what he says to his girlfriend too.

    The movie repeats the lie multiple times that Charlie Parker become a great because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head almost decapitating him. Jo Jones never threw the cymbal at Charlie Parker.

    ‘Here’s the real story, as related in Stanley Crouch’s recent biography of Parker, “Kansas City Lightning.” Crouch spoke with the bassist Gene Ramey, who was there. It happened in 1936, and Parker (whose nickname was Bird) was sixteen:

    “Bird had gotten up there and got his meter turned around,” Ramey remembered. “When they got to the end of the thirty-two-bar chorus, he was in the second bar on that next chorus. Somehow or other he got ahead of himself or something. He had the right meter. He was with the groove all right, but he was probably anxious to make it. Anyway, he couldn’t get off. Jo Jones hit the bell corners—ding. Bird kept playing. Ding. Ding. Everybody was looking, and people were starting to say, ‘Get this cat off of here.’ Ding! So finally, finally, Jo Jones pulled off the cymbal and said ‘DING’ on the floor. Some would call it a crash, and they were right, a DING trying to pass itself as under a crash. Bird jumped, you know, and it startled him and he eased out of the solo. Everybody was screaming and laughing. The whole place.”‘

    From the same article.

    ‘And, yes, Parker did play a historic solo a year later. He showed up at another jam session, in 1937, and, as the trumpeter Oliver Todd told Crouch, “Before the thing was over, all the guys that had rejected him were sitting down with their mouths wide open. I had seen a miracle. I really had. It was something that made tears come down my face.”

    Here’s what Parker didn’t do in the intervening year: sit alone in his room and work on making his fingers go faster. He played music, thought music, lived music. In “Whiplash,” the young musicians don’t play much music. Andrew isn’t in a band or a combo, doesn’t get together with his fellow-students and jam—not in a park, not in a subway station, not in a café, not even in a basement. He doesn’t study music theory, not alone and not (as Parker did) with his peers. There’s no obsessive comparing of recordings and styles, no sense of a wide-ranging appreciation of jazz history—no Elvin Jones, no Tony Williams, no Max Roach, no Ed Blackwell. In short, the musician’s life is about pure competitive ambition—the concert band and the exposure it provides—and nothing else.’

    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/whiplash-getting-jazz-right-movies

    • Baba 9 years ago

      there is a concept in music known as “earworm” which is done by engineering the tunes to manipulate the senses of the human ear and mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

      “Friday” uses the 50s progression, an I-vi-IV-V chord progression that hundreds of popular songs have used such as “Heart and Soul” and “Unchained Melody”. It is performed in the key of B major at a tempo of 112 beats per minute. According to Randy Lewis of Los Angeles Times, the familiar structure contributes to the song’s catchiness, making it what others have called an earworm”

    • Baba 9 years ago

      “Jo Jones never threw the cymbal at Charlie Parker.”

      there is no conclusive evidence to say this. here is article that says it was thrown at charlie

      “Jones didn’t throw the cymbal at Parker’s head. He threw it at the floor around his feet, “gonging” him off. ”

      Link

      • sputnik 9 years ago

        The movie said he throw the cymbal at his head nearly decapitating him which is a lie. The quote that I posted was from the bassist Gene Ramey, who was there and he said he threw on the floor.

        I already read the slate article you posted and even that article says “Whiplash distorts the Parker legend to fit its twisted premise.”

        And from the same article there is a link to this article which is about a psychological study which proves that “We are not all created equal where our genes and abilities are concerned.” and that
        Practice Does Not Make Perfect

        • Baba 9 years ago

          the article says he did throw the cymbal but not at his head. you said he didnt throw the cymbal at all.

          that article says “Not everyone needs 10,000 hours of practice to be great at something.” yes but majority do need it. everyone is not gifted. most have to work their way. they may not create gifted music but surely they will be good

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            Read my comment again. I put the quote from the bassist who was there.

            “So finally, finally, Jo Jones pulled off the cymbal and said ‘DING’ on the floor. Some would call it a crash, and they were right, a DING trying to pass itself as under a crash. Bird jumped, you know, and it startled him and he eased out of the solo.”

            I think its just a legend. Things get exaggerated by people over time.

            Yes practice is needed by everyone even by the naturally gifted ones to become great. Anyone with basic talent can play an already famous music piece with hours of practice. There are 1000s of musicians playing in an symphony or orchestra but they don’t all achieve individual greatness. To achieve individual greatness they will need naturally gifted talent and lots of practice.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            you said this “Jo Jones never threw the cymbal at Charlie Parker.”

            In one of your reviews posted below, it is again mentioned that Jo jones indeed threw the cymbal at parker.

            you overexagerated/lied to stress your point.

            “There are 1000s of musicians playing in an symphony or orchestra but they don’t all achieve individual greatness”

            the 1000s of musicians are all good players of music. they could play this music due to practise.

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            I overexaggerated/lied to stress my point? What are you talking. You are the one doing that.

            The only person whose opinion matters is the one who was actually present there when that incident happened. The bassist Gene Ramey who was present on that stage said Jo Jones threw the cymbal on the floor. He did not say at Charlie Parker’s feet. Everyone else’s opinion is just hearsay.

            “Bird had gotten up there and got his meter turned around,” Ramey remembered. “When they got to the end of the thirty-two-bar chorus, he was in the second bar on that next chorus. Somehow or other he got ahead of himself or something. He had the right meter. He was with the groove all right, but he was probably anxious to make it. Anyway, he couldn’t get off. Jo Jones hit the bell corners—ding. Bird kept playing. Ding. Ding. Everybody was looking, and people were starting to say, ‘Get this cat off of here.’ Ding! So finally, finally, Jo Jones pulled off the cymbal and said ‘DING’ on the floor. Some would call it a crash, and they were right, a DING trying to pass itself as under a crash. Bird jumped, you know, and it startled him and he eased out of the solo. Everybody was screaming and laughing. The whole place.”‘

          • Baba 9 years ago

            “The only person whose opinion matters is the one who was actually present there when that incident happened”

            then why have you posted the reviews of experts below who say jo jones did throw the cymbal at parkers feet? if you dont subscribe to the views of the experts you have posted yourself, then how do you expect others to believe it?

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            Don’t argue for the heck of it. I presented the quote of the person who was actually present there and you are still trying to argue.

            “then why have you posted the reviews of experts below who say jo jones did throw the cymbal at parkers feet?”

            I can’t believe this nonsense. Do you even understand what you are saying? They are experts of drumming and that’s why their criticism of the movie and drumming is valid not their opinion of some incident where they were not present.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            “They are experts of drumming and that’s why their criticism of the movie and drumming is valid not their opinion of some incident where they were not present.”

            yes , yes. we are supposed to read only that part which matches with your coment. the other things which do not match with your commentaries should be ignored. after all you are an expert on this topic

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            No no we are supposed to ignore the statement of the witness who was actually there but believe the opinion of the expert who wasn’t there.

            Even this Charlie Parker biography says Jo Jones dropped the cymbal on the floor besides Parker’s feet. It does not say that he threw at Parker’s feet.

            Link

            Let me dumb it down for you. If someone makes a movie on a cricketer tomorrow and if there is a line in the movie that says that “Kapil Dev threw a bat at Gavaskar’s head in the dressing room”. Dravid reviews the movie and criticizes the technique of the cricketer from the movie and says Kapil did not throw the bat at Gavaskar’s head but at Gavaskar’s feet.

            And then there is Srikanth who was actually present in the dressing room and he says that Kapil threw the bat on the floor. I will take Dravid’s technique criticism because he was a great cricketer himself but I won’t believe his version of the story because he just wasn’t there. We should believe Dravid who was not present there and disregard Srikanth who was actually present in the dressing room according to your silly logic.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            “Even this Charlie Parker biography says Jo Jones dropped the cymbal on the floor besides Parker’s feet. It does not say that he threw at Parker’s feet.”

            the movie exagrerated the incident by saying he threw it at his head. you exagerated saying he did not throw the cymbalat at all at charlie parker.you both are liars

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            There is a difference between “at” and “beside”. You are the one who’s trying to defend a lie when the truth is already out. I backed up my statement with the quote in my very first statement here.

  3. sputnik 9 years ago

    Music is different from physical sports or army training where a tough task master will probably help more. But again every individual is different. Some may respond well to a tough taskmaster and others may respond well to words of encouragement.

    For anyone to excel at anything one needs talent first. Hard work and practice are obviously required to become great. But just because some untalented guy spent hours and hours practicing something he is not going to become a great. The movie tries to show that its all brutal hard work that will make someone excel. The director based Fletcher’s character on a bandleader that he had. The director did not become a great drummer because he had a tough master. In fact he dropped out of playing music.

    The movie is not a masterpiece. Repeating my comment on the movie.

    ‘I think the movie was good and intense until the car crash scene. Thereafter the movie did not know which direction to go. It tried to go into the abusive teacher angle but then came back to the music thing again.

    So I did not like the abusive teacher suddenly becoming a teacher with good intention only to say “Boo Ha I am taking revenge for what you did to me” and then back to a teacher with good intention again. So I did not like the climax or last scene much.’

    I think all that was because the director was trying to do a sports movie cliche with the music setting.

    ‘At the same time, I like genre movies, and this fits pretty squarely into the sports-film genre. You’re building up to the big fight, or the big game. In this case, it’s the big performance. There are certain kinds of narrative rules in terms of how you do that, where you have to bring the character really low before you bring them high, and you have to do another microcosm of that within the big fight. Even if they’ve had their low point, you can’t just have them show up to the climax and immediately knock the guy out. You still need to have another mini low point. There are narrative rules that you don’t have to follow, but I actually thought since this is not a sports movie, they would be fun to follow. It gave me the leverage to wholeheartedly embrace some of those tropes.’

    And here is what he has to say on the ending.

    ‘The Dissolve: But some reviewers describe him as a monster, and some as a cruel but necessary teacher, citing what Andrew accomplishes under his watch. Did you intend for Fletcher to be ambiguous?

    Chazelle: Yeah, because I think that’s the question posed by a lot of these tyrannical teachers, tyrannical band leaders, tyrannical directors. To what extent is it the tyranny pushing people, and to what extent is it other stuff? I personally think fear is a motivator, and we shouldn’t deny that. Someone like Fletcher preys on fear. I think there’s a reason his methodology sometimes works, both in real life and on the screen. Fletcher’s methodology is like if there was an ant on this table, and I wanted to kill it, so I used a bulldozer. Yeah, you kill the ant, but you also do a lot of other damage. And in Fletcher’s mindset, that’s actually fine. Fletcher’s mindset is, “If I have 100 students, and 99 of them are, because of my teaching, ultimately discouraged and crushed from ever pushing this art form, but one of them becomes Charlie Parker, it was all worth it.” That’s not a mentality I share, but in many ways, that’s the story of the movie. He potentially finds his Charlie Parker, but he causes a lot of wreckage in that pursuit.

    The Dissolve: The film seems more ambiguous as it’s in progress—it feels like it could become a Full Metal Jacket situation, with revenge on a destructive bully, or an inspirational-teacher movie, or something else entirely. Were you thinking in terms of keeping people guessing about the ending?

    Chazelle: Yeah, one thing I definitely wanted people to wonder is whether Andrew is going to basically kill himself drumming, like the old fairy tale of the dancer who dances herself to death, or [Edgar Allan Poe’s] “The Oval Portrait,” where the painter kills his subject by painting her. The idea of art being something that kills is weirdly fascinating to me. Especially toward the end, I definitely wanted to film Andrew in a way that looks like he’s this close to literally having a heart attack and keeling over. I wanted people to worry not just for his sanity, but for his physical well-being. There’s a physical side to this instrument, and a brutality that’s not just emotional, but corporeal.

    https://thedissolve.com/features/emerging/787-damien-chazelle-on-what-is-and-isnt-ambiguous-abou/

    • Baba 9 years ago

      the common perception is that music is indeed subjective. most films show that and that is why i have no interest in them. from whatever little knowledge i have gained about music i think it is almost like engineering. there are certain ways you can arrange the tunes which appear “pleasant” to the human ear.

      the other common perception is music artists are born, they cant be created. i have no interest in those movies as well. born artists are one in a million. what about the rest of the million? for them they indeed can achieve perfection if not greatness by drill. a tough taskmaster who knows the music in depth can indeed teach music in the manner it is shown in the film. Because its a film some scenes have been dramatised. its not a documentary but very close to something that i would be greatly interested in a topic about music.

  4. AAP 9 years ago

    Its true that music has a certain grammar and can be explained in a theory as far as only western music is concerned – symphony/orchestra. When it comes to Hindustani classical all the theories fall apart.

  5. AAP 9 years ago

    In fact when you see a documentary like Samsara, there is a definite scenes in the visual impact and the music being played. There is a science behind it. But again, its also abt visuals which create half of the mood and setting.

    A person listening to hard rock all day wont be able to sit through blues – even if the music is good.

    • AAP 9 years ago

      Listen to this from Interstellar. The clock ticking has the right impact on time which is being passed.

      Or for that matter any theme of Haider.

      Thats why I criticized loud mindless and regressive music of Baby. It just doesnt set in the right mood. There is a tension in silence as well – but bollywood has long way to learn it.

      • Baba 9 years ago

        you have posted the wrong link. the theme of haider was monotonous, sleep-inducing and boring while the BGM of baby was thrilling and kept the audience awake

        • AAP 9 years ago

          “the theme of haider was monotonous, sleep-inducing and boring”

          And you say music is subjective 😀

        • AAP 9 years ago

          Here is the right link. Thanks for pointing it out.

          “BGM of baby was thrilling and kept the audience awake”

          Very true. I am glad you yourself admit that in a plotless movie it was the only thing which didnt allow viewers to sleep.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            you didnt understand my comment. Baby’s BGM was enough to keep the audiences awake (regardless of the story)while the bgm of haider was enuff to put anyone to sleep.

  6. AAP 9 years ago

    @baba – i think it is you who didnt understand my point.

    Why do you say music is not subjective then?

    Everyone knows S26 had music blasting out of speakers and so was Baby .

    • Baba 9 years ago

      you dont understand the context. there are certain arrangements in music which are pre conceieved and we know if we hit that pattern of buttons, it is going to create an xyz tune. say if you buy a piano , there are instructions to press keys to create tunes of “saare jahan se acha” or “hapy birthday” and other nursery rhymes. similarly there are set patterns to create music from jazz drum which is shown in the film. then its a question of timing to create the same pattern perfectly so that it manipulates ear and mind registers the tune as “good music”.

      mind blasting music is needed in thrillers. not ones which can put you to sleep like haider

      • AAP 9 years ago

        Yes, but as far as only western music is concerned. As I said – when it comes to asian or specifically Hindustani classical – these rules dont apply. Western world loves rules , asians – esp Indians are more creative and individualistic.

        “mind blasting music is needed in thrillers. not ones which can put you to sleep like haider”

        Your whole argument of the title of this post goes for a toss with this 😀

  7. AAP 9 years ago

    “i dont know what you mean. isnt the tune indian?”

    What in first place has to got to do with the tune when we are talking of notations? The words are indian – yes , the lyrics is indian – yes.

    If played by an sitarist in Pakistan or India. Or if played by an Veena player in Madras – the tune would have been different.

    What Was I talking abt the tune in first place? Was I talking abt the science of it or the basic “subjectivity” of it?

    I haven’t seen this movie but I am sure if your if really listen to the greatest Jazz musicians – you wont like it.

  8. AAP 9 years ago

    @BABA, Lets discuss – what are the best Jazz songs you think of?

    • Baba 9 years ago

      i have very little knowledge of jazz. as i have said in the review and coments, mostly i am unattracted to musicals bcos the artists are shown as “God-gifted” and eternal human beings! I like films showing ordinary people rising to the challenge by putting through blood and sweat. working and practising for hours to get a note right. I like the concept of “drilling” and “crash course”. this is what appealed to me in whiplash. this is what appealed to me in CDI.aqnd this is what i find real

      • AAP 9 years ago

        There is “I like ” word lot of times in above comment.

        Lot of ppl like pissing sound in toilet seat.

        My whole point is – music is not what you said in the title 😀

        • AAP 9 years ago

          Now who the fuck has more ego??

        • Baba 9 years ago

          thats bcos i have a very strong philosphy behind the “I like” part which i have said above. if you have guts challenge my philosphy and show me that yours is better. then you will prove yourself right and the theme of whiplash wrong

      • AAP 9 years ago

        “I like films showing ordinary people rising to the challenge by putting through blood and sweat. working and practising for hours to get a note right.”

        There have been many musicians on which films are not made. Greatest ones – like for example Bhimsen Joshi or Gangubai Hangal or Mallikarjun Mansur etc. Who went through so much more hardship from a tender age. Bhimsen Joshi left home at the age of 9 or 10 – but what all of them had in heart was music. Its not without will or talent a person can become a maestro. All great musicians need to have a basic understanding and passion for music. Hours of practice can make you a best bodybuilder – not a musician.

        “mostly i am unattracted to musicals bcos the artists are shown as “God-gifted” and eternal human beings! I like films showing ordinary people rising to the challenge by putting through blood and sweat.”

        Great musicians have always put in blood and sweat. Its just that they have something else – thats what separates them from the rest.

        “working and practising for hours to get a note right. I like the concept of “drilling” and “crash course”.”

        This crash course is contrasting with your earlier statement in same comment.

        “this is what appealed to me in CDI.aqnd this is what i find real”

        Whatever we see around – everything is real. Or its not.

  9. AAP 9 years ago

    “thats bcos i have a very strong philosphy behind the “I like” part which i have said above”

    You whole theory falls apart then. 😀

    • Baba 9 years ago

      you have to prove it. otherwise it stays. you have to prove why practising and working for hours is not beneficial to achieve something

      • AAP 9 years ago

        I already proved it. You changed the goalpost. The point was music is subjective. You dont like Haider, I dont like Baby BGM.

        • Baba 9 years ago

          music is not subjective. music lovers are. you may be liking boring montonous bgm as you are a pretentious pseudo intellect while i like the mind blasting bgm of baby. m

  10. AAP 9 years ago

    You me to let me know the best jazz songs?

    Baba?

    If no, then stop the gutter u have opened.

    • Baba 9 years ago

      you somehow want an upperhand but i am not allowing you to choose your route/gutter 😉

  11. AAP 9 years ago

    “music is not subjective. music lovers are. you may be liking boring montonous bgm as you are a pretentious pseudo intellect while i like the mind blasting bgm of baby. ”

    Lets rephrase this. All it means is ppl are subjective. That means only ppl who agree with you on a particular music are good. Or the music is good?
    Now I am confused whether you want to judge the music or ppl ?
    If you cant agree with ppl around you and call them lunatics /egoistic/boring etc and judge them constantly – then my suggestion is you should listen to the music more. And just be happy with what you like rather than making posts like its not subjective.

    This whole post and your heading has gone for a toss and you know that 😀

    • Baba 9 years ago

      you are easily confused. music lovers are different. acc to me , haider has montonous music and it bores me. but nonetheless its music and it can be created, learnt and passed on. you dislike baby/s26 bgm. but its nonethless a form of music which can again be created, learnt and spread. In whiplash when he says the “music is not subjective” its not bcos everyone has to like the same music. it means music can be created and judged on objective terms .it can also be learnt by practise and can be spread and passed on. one doesnt have to be God gifted. you are talking in thin air all through this post . i want to give you the benefit of doubt bcos you have not seen the movie but knowing the kind of egoistic person you are, you wil stil pretend to not understand the context of whiplash

      • AAP 9 years ago

        No, music cant be learnt and created like that. There is a lot of individuality and moods go on in creating it. Maybe we can recreate a symphony but as far as asian/Hindustani classical goes even each singers two separate performances are different. And when they are liked by all/many – they are called god gifted. When they arent – they are called not so great. Its all about individual imagination and how you articulate it.

        Its like a painting. A painter cant make the same painting again – there is always some different in his two works.

        • Baba 9 years ago

          “music cant be learnt and created like that.”

          do you have a ceritifed degree in music in jazz? or any form of music? otherwise your opinion is of no value

  12. AAP 9 years ago

    “music is not subjective. music lovers are”

    Then who the fuck the music is for? Cockroaches ? Lizards? (summer time coming so there will be many of them now) ..or the valleys Haider lived in? Well they cud hear only one sound – ban ban ban!!

  13. AAP 9 years ago

    Btw, just for everyone’s knowledge – when MJ was on tour of India for Dangerous tour, in farms of maharashtra his music was used to scare the pigs away who were eating farms. Many village farmers played his music loud enough to scare the pigs away 😀 😀

  14. sputnik 9 years ago

    Here is a critical review of Whiplash by the drummer Kid Millions (John Colpitts) and he says he loved Drumline which I had mentioned when commenting about Whiplash.

    Whiplash, the new movie directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Miles Teller (The Spectacular Now) as an aspiring jazz drummer and J.K. Simmons as a drill-sergeant bandleader, had me struggling with an existential question as the film came to its unintentionally comical ending: is this how the rest of the world views drumming and music? I’m not even sure Whiplash is a good movie — but in terms of drumming and the practice of music, it’s a farce. It’s a classic athletic underdog story (see: Rocky or Miracle or Hoosiers) reframed in a music school. But then it doesn’t even stick to that tried-and-true narrative. But I need to give away some spoilers… you’ve been warned.

    Whiplash begins with the sound of a single-stroke roll in complete darkness, slowly increasing in tempo until the sound blurs into a seamless buzz of sound. OK, that’s a classic exercise. A real drummer did that. Then there’s a slow-motion zoom on Neyman (Miles Teller) bashing away at his drum set. The rack tom is tiny, so I guess he plays jazz. He’s soloing, his arms are flailing, the lighting is moody… and for those moments I wondered if they’d found an actor who could really play the drums. His technique wasn’t amazing but he was moving around the kit with some affinity. Traditional grip, even! It was a pulseless solo, nothing too amazing, but with spirit and energy. I didn’t know that Teller is a fairly well-known actor, so I wondered if this guy was someone they found at the local conservatory who also acted. But no, he’s just an actor who can play OK drums.

    Then Fletcher (played by Simmons) enters the room and sets the scene a bit. We’re at a conservatory and Fletcher runs the top jazz big band in the school. He heard Neyman playing after hours and wanted to check him out, because he’s always looking for new talent. I guess his reputation as a raging asshole has preceded him because Neyman is terrified. Neyman comes off like the young idiot that he is, but he’s respectful — a lot of “yes, sir” and “no, sir.” By the end of the conversation we’re in the frame of the film. It’s efficient and well done, with great acting: this movie is going to be about a kid in his first year of music school.

    But as a drummer, I’m thinking, OK, what did Fletcher hear in this dude? He just played quickly all over the kit; a kind of bad Buddy Rich-style solo. Jazz drumming is the most technically demanding drumming there is and if it’s a serious big band, then you need to be good. You need to swing. Because the drumming was so unspectacular, I started to wonder whether the subtext was that Fletcher actually was attracted to the student sexually. Maybe this movie was about sexual abuse in schools. There’s a lot of that going around.

    But it turns out that Whiplash is not about sexual abuse — or drumming, or music, or friendship, or fathers and sons, or music school or all the cherished sentimental things one needs to give up to become “one of the greats” — it’s about the casual sexism, racism and homophobia that’s our country’s stock-in-trade. Whether it’s played for comedy (many people in the audience laughed at the virulent sexist and homophobic slurs that Fletcher hurls at his band) or for dramatic purposes (which is kind of a cop-out because the film never addresses Fletcher’s racism or sexism), it’s exploitation at its most base. And this film itself is classic exploitation, perhaps of a different sort.

    Here we have an underdog character, kind of, with Neyman. He doesn’t come from a family of musicians. So what? He’s a freshman. OK. And at the end of the day, he breaks down under the pressure of Fletcher’s heavy-handed abuse. But he can’t show up to gigs on time, so he doesn’t get to play. And then there’s a really ridiculous scene… am I really gonna say this? It’s too elaborate. Suffice it to say, he tries to get to a gig, he’s late — not once, but twice, and gets hit by a truck — and he still plays the gig. But he plays terribly — because he was, you know, hit by a truck. But he seems to blame it all on Fletcher, whom he tackles in a rage during the concert and then gets kicked out of school for it. But let’s break it down: he’s training to be a musician, so he has to be on time for gigs. Take the hit. Learn a lesson. And by the way, you’re not that good at playing drums. So that’s another strike.

    So do we get amazing music in this movie? Well, no, not really. The band plays bloodless renditions of the old jazz standard “Caravan” and the odd-meter mainstay “Whiplash,” and then we see Fletcher in a bar later in the film playing in a tepid piano quartet, playing something boring. I would rate the performance two Zs out of three.

    Is there something about music that feels galvanic and spiritual here? No, no, it’s straight-up academy, boot camp, overcompetitive, testosterone-fueled posturing. There’s nothing to prove to us that music matters to these characters. There’s absolutely no backstory for Fletcher. I thought, OK, he dresses in these tight black shirts, he’s very cut and everyone he sees is a “cocksucking faggot” — perhaps he’s a self-hating gay man. That might be intriguing. Maybe those scenes were cut. It’s never explored.

    There are no women in the top jazz group. There is one woman in the film who plays sax on screen and she’s quickly denigrated.

    There are scenes where Neyman watches Buddy Rich footage on his phone, and we know he has at least one Buddy Rich CD and one Buddy Rich DVD. But is there anything that shows us that Neyman might be a prodigy, or a kid whose life has been transformed by music? How did he get hooked? No fucking idea.

    At one point, Neyman sits in front of a wall, exhausted, and the wall is covered with lots of practice exercises — maybe from Modern Drummer. The camera pauses on a quotation: “Drummers with lesser ability just end up playing rock music” or something like that. OK, I know, rock drummers are terrible drummers! What’s your point? So are some actors.

    And OK, have the set dressers never seen a drumhead that’s been played on? Didn’t they bring a professional drummer on set as a consultant? I scanned the credits and didn’t find one. The drumheads are covered with scratches… why? I don’t think I’ve ever scratched a drum head — and no, wise-ass, those aren’t brush scratches.

    I was disappointed when they showed Neyman practicing, his hands covered in blood, his face a rictus of agony, every muscle in his body strained and tight, then plunging his bleeding hands into a bucket of ice water. (I have done that — minus the blood.) Jesus Christ, music is about relaxing as you play faster — the more you relax, the faster you go. Instead, this guy is looking at a life of pain and an early retirement. At one point he’s going for it — playing really fast for no reason, blasting away, getting worked up, insane — until he punches his fist through the snare drum!!! WHAT?! For a minute, I thought maybe he popped over from another film — turns out Teller’s in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie as Reed Richards, the stretchy guy. But who punches snare drums in anger? Any drummer who did that wouldn’t get any more gigs — because their hand would be broken.

    The film obsesses about this crazy-fast 310 BPM tempo and Neyman bears down on it. He works really hard to sound entirely unfunky and leaden all while playing stupidly fast. Of course, there are some other drummers he’s competing with — also actors who can’t really play drums. There’s a funny scene where Fletcher wants the drummers to play a proper tempo — and none of them can. So he makes them stay for hours until they can play uptempo properly. But in reality it’s just three actors pretending to play the drums really fast, and what that means to an actor is quite strange. They kind of do it. But then… they really don’t. I mean, hey, I can’t act, but those guys took the gig of portraying drummers, so it’s on them. They can make fun of me when I’m in the next X-Men movie. I can guarantee you that they made more money portraying drummers than I will ever make actually being a drummer.

    The band leader Fletcher literally is an abuser — he’s slapping students, calling them “cocksuckers,” “ladies” and “faggots,” as this country’s uncritical romanticization of all things military bleeds into the halls of this fictional music school. It’s all about hazing and brutality. At one point Fletcher pulls a floor tom away from a drummer and throws it against a wall; I’m thinking, why would you do this to an instrument? I mean, I understand destruction and anger in music but these guys are trying to play “Caravan,” they’re not the Who at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

    Whiplash is about trying to become a musician in such a twisted and perverse way that it constantly undermines itself. The pinnacle of success for these people is to be in the “core” of the Lincoln Center Jazz Band, up there with Wynton. There’s even a pivotal scene set in Carnegie Hall during the JVC Jazz Festival. Those are some really tired institutions — certainly not the only places you could play as an aspiring jazz musician.

    There’s a lot more to music.

    Music is not about trying to be the greatest musician who ever lived. It’s not about idealizing a friendless, obsessive, tortured existence for something as abstracted and devoid of joy as competition. It’s about playing music with people — finding a community and truly connecting with other people. Yes, some of that path requires that you spend a lot of time by yourself, practicing. But the goal is never to be Charlie Parker or “one of the greats.” That’s some sophomoric academy shit.

    But maybe I shouldn’t criticize Whiplash as a whole. Perhaps the characters’ cluelessness about music is actually the point of the film. I’m not sure it romanticizes the academy — maybe it’s suggesting that the academy doesn’t get it, and that music really is about having fun. It’s a decent movie, but in the end, there’s nothing to aspire to in there.

    There’s an amazing movie to be made about drumming and music — in fact, I really loved Drumline from 2002. In that film, there’s competition, but it’s nuanced. There’s camaraderie, there’s love and there’s dedication to something beautiful and transcendent, and it’s fun. Music is fun.

    That’s why Neyman quits drumming in the middle of Whiplash — because it’s not any fun for him. And that’s why he’ll never make it — he’s in it for the wrong reasons. It becomes a pissing match between him and Fletcher. In the end, he kind of wins, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. There’s some kind of manufactured joy at the end of the film but it’s completely empty. The prize turns out to be a lie perpetuated by a hollow man, a false idol.

    Without giving anything away, I’ll tell you that the movie ends with a drum solo.

    Link

  15. sputnik 9 years ago

    Ex-Santana Drummer Michael Shrieve on Whiplash’s Evil Ways

    Shrieve: I was excited to see Whiplash, of course, because it’s about drumming, but I had several issues with it. That approach to teaching [physically and verbally abusive, dictatorial] is something I really don’t care for. I think it’s more damaging than helpful. It’s [fine] to be inspiring and tough, but it’s gotta be done with love, a different kind of attitude. I’ve seen that kind of teaching happen in middle school with my son, and the teacher was so harsh and cruel that it turned him off from learning music altogether. That’s the more drastic side of that thing. Although this was supposedly college and people are committed, so it’s a different situation. But in younger grades it can take the fun and joy out of playing music. That’s not to say you don’t have to work extremely hard, but a lot of the high-school jazz bands are in competitions and there’s nothing wrong with that. But music’s not a competition.

    As far as [Miles Teller’s character, Andrew Nieman’s] technique and the portrayal of him working so hard that he’s bleeding, that’s completely unrealistic. When you play fast, what you learn to do is the faster you play, the more you have to relax and breathe. Any drum teacher will tell you you’re holding your sticks completely wrong if you are doing damage to your hands. So that’s really off-point.

    That was more of a Hollywood exaggeration, to make the movie seem more dramatic?
    Shrieve: [laughs] Yeah. You can’t get speed without relaxing. You can’t get speed and control with your hands like that, getting bloody. If you’re getting blisters, you’re doing something wrong. It’s not to say you’re not going to get them when you’re learning. But you’re holding them too tight if you’re doing that. It takes some years to figure that out, but the speed aspect and the blood was unrealistic. There were things about the movie I enjoyed, but the whole portrayal of teacher and student I thought was… well, it’s a movie—what are you gonna do?

    I’m sure there were liberties taken to make it seem more exciting.
    Shrieve: Dramatic. Yeah. [Nieman’s] working super-hard, he’s committed enough to get rid of his girlfriend, because she’ll just get in the way. [The teacher] throwing the drum [at the student] is really off the wall. [Teller] did learn to play drums and he was okay. There was a feature in Rolling Stone about him because of that film and he talked about learning and working really hard at it. He got a lot of things together in the limited amount of time he had. That’s for certain.

    Have you taught people how to play drums?
    Shrieve: Yes, but not in that context; just private lessons and clinics. I know it gets very intense with these high shools and colleges, when they go to competitions. In Seattle, we have two of the winningest high schools in the nation, with Roosevelt and Garfield. They consistently bring back first- and second-place trophies from Lincoln Center every year. They gotta be tough. So let’s say you have Clarence Acox from Garfield; he’s gotta be strict and tough to get a great performance like that. The same with Roosevelt. But all those kids loved him, you know? They’re not in fear. Music is supposed to be joyous, but of course you have to work at it. And I know it’s the same with classical piano competitions for kids and violins. I think that that sort of approach is probably more abusive with piano and young kids going to those competitions and going for those placements with certain schools. It’s very competitive. Jazz is a personal journey, too. You’ve gotta love that music and work really hard. That kind of teacher is a detriment to any path of improving in a way that brings joy and life to the music.

    When you were growing up, did you play in your high-school band?
    Shrieve: I did. I played in a school band, in a symphonic band. In high school, I played in Police Youth Drum Corps. And I took private lessons as well with some really great people. They were all very encouraging. The biggest jerk I ran into in high school was the football coach and PE teacher. [Fletcher] was more like an athletic coach or a military guy. I didn’t have those experiences myself, but I experienced it through my son.

    That approach seems counterproductive to you?
    Shrieve: Yes. Absolutely. He was very extreme. Peter Erskine tells this thing about Jo Jones throwing a cymbal at Charlie Parker [which Whiplash uses as a recurring anecdote to illustrate the impetus for Parker to become an innovative saxophonist] that it wasn’t the way the movie portrayed it. He threw it at [Parker’s] feet [not at his head, as the film implied]. But I know it’s Hollywood… It sounds like [Fletcher] is bitter, like he didn’t have the career he wanted.

    Link

  16. sputnik 9 years ago

    Whiplash review by drummer Peter Erskine who is the director of drumset studies at USC’s Thornton School of Music.

    Disclaimer: I have been interviewed and will appear in the DVD release of “Whiplash” as part of a Special or Bonus Features chapter/segment. I was asked questions about my own musical training, and not asked any questions directly about the film, although I did attempt to make some relevant observations. The film, despite its over-the-top portrayal of a conservatory band director (and a drummer whose practice sessions lead to blister-bleeding scenes more worthy of “Jaws” or Kurosawa’s “Ran” than a movie about drumming), does manage to bring up a couple of interesting questions…

    In all of my years as both a music student and educator, I’ve never come across a band director or educator like the one depicted in “Whiplash.” The closest college personality I can think of might be Bobby Knight — who used to coach the mens’ basketball team at Indiana University — JK Simmons’ character seems to be a combination of Bobby Knight (i.e., the chair throwing) and the US Marines drill sergeant so chillingly portrayed in Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.” That said, the director’s subjective experience and memory of his own brutal experience in jazz band must account for the characterization. The other explanation is that this is Hollywood.

    Background: jazz education exists in school thanks to the pioneering and visionary work of many jazz educators and musicians. Back in the late 1950s-through-the-mid-60s, it was not okay to have a “jazz” band in school or to call your big band a “jazz” band. Euphemisms were the order of the day, from “stage band” to “lab band” to “studio orchestra,” and so on. The Stan Kenton Stage Band Camps started 1959, a grand experiment that would ultimately be responsible for getting jazz into mainstream curricula in schools across the nation (and, eventually, around the world). I was a 7-year-old student at the 1961 Kenton camp. Other campers there included Keith Jarrett, David Sanborn, Randy Brecker, Jim McNeely, Don Grolnick, Lou Marini, Jr., et al. And the faculty! The best teachers from Berklee, North Texas, Indiana University, PLUS the likes of the Cannonball Adderly Sextet and the entire Stan Kenton Orchestra. EVERY SINGLE musician/teacher gave tirelessly, demanded perfection, but offered tons of love and support and enthusiasm to the students assembled there (on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana). Later, I would play in big bands conducted by Dave Sporny at the Interlochen Arts Academy (with such bandmates as Chris Brubeck and Bob Mintzer) and David Baker at IU. Every instructor who taught me possessed a tremendous sense of musical and personal ethics. Maybe I was extremely fortunate (yes, I was!), but this was and remains more the norm than not.


    Have you ever encountered an educator like JK Simmon’s band director character before? Or Teller’s “one of the greats”-aspiring students?

    I’ve played under the baton of stern and demanding conductors, as well as the critical ears of some pretty tough bandleaders. I’ve always experienced equal amounts of praise and criticism from the toughest of them. A conductor or bandleader will only get good results if he or she shows as much love or enthusiasm as the discipline or toughness they dole out. Being a jerk is, ultimately, self-defeating in music education: for one thing, the band will not respond well; secondly, such bandleaders are anathema to the other educators who ultimately wind up acting as judges in competitive music festivals — such bands will never win (the judges will see to that); thirdly, the kind of verbal and physical abuse shown in the film “Whiplash” simply does not exist in higher education…university or conservatory educators receive training and operate under very strict guidelines regarding comments that are racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc., and under no circumstance is physical abuse tolerated! (The “…am I rushing or am I dragging?” slapping scene reminded me a lot of the scene in “Chinatown” where Jack Nicholson’s character is slapping Faye Dunaway and she says [between slaps], “She’s my daughter … she’s my sister … she’s my daughter … she’s my sister …” In any event: ouch.)


    What impression of jazz studies do you think the general public will come away with from watching the film?

    I’m disappointed that any viewer of the film will not see the joy of music-making that’s almost always a part of large-ensemble rehearsals and performances. Musicians make music because they LOVE music. None of that is really apparent in the film, in my opinion.

    Also, the misrepresentation of the Jo Jones throwing the cymbal at Charlie Parker’s feet anecdote may well lead people to thinking that Jo Jones did indeed, as JK Simmons’ character avers, try to decapitate Charlie Parker at that epochal jam session in Kansas City (where a very real Charlie Parker attempted to play some of his double-time / new harmony improvisation and more or less flubbed it … Papa Jo eventually tossed a cymbal towards Charlie Parker’s young feet in a “gonging” motion to get him off the bandstand); jazz masters could be tough, but the movie gets that story all wrong.

    The one thing I DO like is the Simmons character saying that the words “Good job” are ruinous… I wouldn’t say that they are the two most-damaging words in the English language … “fuck you” probably trumps “good job” by a mile … but the films DOES make a credible argument against the metastasis of mediocrity in our culture (my terminology).

    What do you think the film got right about jazz studies? And, conversely, where did it fail?
    Please see above …

    What did you think of Teller’s performance as a drummer?

    It’s a movie, and the actor did a good job. The drummer(s) who did the pre-record did a very fine job. Teller is a good actor. He’s a so-so drummer: his hands are a mess in terms of technique, holding the sticks, etc., and no true fan of Buddy Rich would ever set up his or her drums in the manner that Teller’s character does in the film. A 10” tom? Highly-angled? With a crash cymbal at that angle? Nope, doesn’t wash. Besides, that “winning” drum solo performance at the end of the film is a very passé sort of thing … if the film takes place “now,” any drummer playing like that at a competitive jazz festival –especially one in New York City — would get a cymbal thrown at their feet by the ghost of Papa Jo Jones, or I’d do it for him. Now I know how professional photographers must feel when they see an actor portraying a scene like a photo shoot where the photographer never bothers to focus any of the shots he or she is taking. My daughter was a cast member of amazon.com’s “Betas.” I can see, now, how some computer programmers got turned-off by the show. Where I enjoyed the drama and the comedy and saw the fictional app startup company as a vehicle to tell a story, the devil is in the details for many viewers.

    Do you have a favorite fictional drummer?

    No. I have too many favorite real drummers who gave their lives to the music. Jazz people might seem touchy, but we KNOW the sacrifice and amount of real hard work and thought that goes into this music. It’s not just learning how to play a beat ultra-fast. That’s for morons. The art of jazz drumming is wonderfully complex and subtle and swinging and architectural and geometric and fucking fantastic: I’m sorry, the film makes it look like some Captain Ahab shit… it totally misses the point.

    But as far as movie drummers go: I always loved seeing Shelly Manne in the movies. And Sal Mineo did a helluva job in The Gene Krupa Story (where Shelly played Dave Tough). Both very non-fictional drummers. Maybe Sinatra in “The Man With The Golden Arm”? Actually, no, my favorite movie about a drummer is “The Drummer,” a short film starring the late Dave Ratajczak … here’s the link to it.

    I urge anyone reading this to watch it… that movie captures the heart and soul of drumming and dreaming better than any other film I’ve seen. It’s a lovely bit of film.

    Do you think there is any merit to that sort of intensity when teaching?

    What intensity? Slapping a student? No. Calling someone a racist, sexist or homophobic name? Nope. Throwing a perfectly good tom-tom against the wall? Anyone who does that needs professional medical help, in my opinion.

    Now … intensity in terms of demanding the best of a player? Yes. Providing inspiration to an aspiring musician? Yes. Being HONEST with a musician? Yes. But flogging a horse — or a student – is for dolts or sadists, not educators or bandleaders or conductors.

    What did you think of the visual presentation of jazz in the film?

    Considering that the film was shot in a (reportedly) short amount of time, I think the director and editor did a very good job. A drummer crawling out of a major car wreck and then somehow managing to get himself on-stage to play, bleeding and injured, in that all-important regional big band competition (where there are no other bands apparent?) Hardly. Musicians sitting there all stony-faced while the bandleader or conductor raises his fist to stop the band over and over again… Jazz has too many free spirits for that kind of behavior to fly. I’ve never seen a band act like that, or “live” music sound so “drop the needle.” Also: if someone wants to test my ability to play a tempo: give me 4 beats, not just two — YOU don’t even know the tempo with that kind of a count-off, Mr. Band Director.

    What is the ultimate goal of a college band director?

    To inspire his or her students to get the MOST out of music, by GIVING the most to music. To, yes, inspire and instill a sense of discipline and responsibility, but to show students the rewards of concentration and playing well and working as a team. At the same time, developing any latent improvisor’s confidence and belief in their own solo voice. All the while increasing the musicians’ vocabulary and knowledge of the language of the music. That’s what I try to do at the Thornton School of Music at USC, and I know that my colleague professors including Bob Mintzer, Alan Pasqua, Patrice Rushen and Chris Sampson all do the same. I can’t imagine our dean Rob Cutietta putting up with an ounce of the behavior portrayed in the film. But, like I said: it’s fantasy, it’s Hollywood.

    Meanwhile, the one very real detail in the film — the big band chart titled “Whiplash” which serves as inspiration and background to the movie — is a kick for me because the composer and arranger of that piece, the late Hank Levy, worked a lot with the Stan Kenton Orchestra (while I was a member beginning at age 18) as well as with the Don Ellis Orchestra (who recorded “Whiplash” back in 1974 or so; Ralph Humphrey was the original drummer on that). Attached is a photo of me playing with Stan’s band under Hank’s direction at a music clinic or camp. Hank was a lovely man and he got all of his student bands to sound incredible…and did pretty good job with the Kenton band as well!

    What is a reasonable expectation for a jazz studies student to have from a college-level jazz program?

    All of the above: jazz is a musical style and a language as well as a tradition, a legacy, a responsibility… a treasure. I submit that jazz is America’s highest-level musical art form. Any student of the music should expect to learn the history of the music and get a glimpse into how he or she might help shape its future. The purpose of jazz might have been best-expressed by drumming icon Art Blakey, when he said that the true purpose of jazz was “to wash away the dust of everyday life.” “Whiplash” gets a hint of that here and there, and for that we can be grateful. But we can also be grateful that no such educators exist in the idiom, at least as far as I’m aware. Unfortunately, the film ultimately feels like an insult to music educators.

    Link

  17. Baba 9 years ago

    most of the reviews you have posted have problems with flecthers way of teaching. some are nitpicking the way teller learns it quickly or the way he plays drums. its a film. not a documentary and the hero is not an expert in drumming.

    did you dislike the way srk taught in CDI?

    • sputnik 9 years ago

      They are criticizing many of the same things that I criticized after watching the movie that is the stupid car crash scene or the final drumming scene or Miles Teller’s constipated or agony filled expressions while drumming.

      Anyway they are drummers and their opinions count more than people who have no knowledge of drumming or music like me or you.

      They have a problem with Fletcher’s teaching because it is abuse. Nobody can slap or throw a chair or hurl all those sexist and racist abuses and get away at a musical school.

      One of the drummers above said Fletcher was like a sports coach or a military guy. As the director admitted he was basically making a music movie with the sports movie cliches. In a sports movie the coach making people train hard physically is different. And anyway I don’t remember SRK slapping the girls in CDI or hurling sexist abuses at the girls.

      “some are nitpicking the way teller learns it quickly or the way he plays drums. its a film. not a documentary and the hero is not an expert in drumming.”

      Mary Kom was also a movie and Priyanka Chopra is also not a boxer but you were criticizing her posture and her boxing technique. The drummers criticizing Teller’s drumming is a perfectly valid criticism because they know how to hold the sticks and how to play the drums. If some hockey player criticized the way the girls or SRK held the hockey stick or the way they were playing hockey in CDI then that is a perfectly valid criticism.

      • Baba 9 years ago

        ” I don’t remember SRK slapping the girls in CDI or hurling sexist abuses at the girls.”

        he manhandled girls and threatened them phyisically and mentally. its extreme for an indian society. for americans, what is shown in whiplash is extreme.

        ” In a sports movie the coach making people train hard physically is different”

        one of those expert reviewers have also said that it takes years to know how to hold the stick and that jazz drummers do get bruses from time to time. so definfitely phyiscal training /muscle memory becomes a part.

        “Mary Kom was also a movie and Priyanka Chopra is also not a boxer but you were criticizing her posture and her boxing technique.”

        are you serious? Mary kom was a biopic claiming to be about “true events” . you have to be absolutely perfect. otherwise dont call it a biopic. call it a fiction and i woudl not have much problem. whiplash is a fictional film. the drummers questioning tellers technique is a valid critism but not a fair one. i can critise every good action film made in any part of the world using this kind of std. you have to give some liberty to the actors when they dotn have the background.the attempt should be sincere and i think every critic above has priased him for the attempt.

        • sputnik 9 years ago

          I watched a scene from CDI again now and I agree that “he manhandled girls and threatened them physically and mentally.” He did not slap them but he did make some sexist comments too. Making them train hard physically is fine but the other stuff like manhandling girls or making sexist comments is wrong. And it is extreme for any society not just Indian.

          “one of those expert reviewers have also said that it takes years to know how to hold the stick and that jazz drummers do get bruses from time to time. so definfitely phyiscal training /muscle memory becomes a part.”

          Yes one said it takes years to know to hold the stick right. But if Fletcher is this great teacher wouldn’t he teach how to hold the sticks right? One said that they will get blisters if they are not holding the sticks right but they are saying that all the bleeding shown is unrealistic.

          Yes Whiplash is a fictional film but its supposed to be about a drummer. So the drummers questioning Teller’s technique is a valid criticism. One can make a movie about a fictional boxer or hockey player or cricketer but they still have to get the technique part right. As one drummer asked “did they not hire a professional drummer on set as a consultant?”. They did hire a drummer Nate Lang who played Teller’s rival. So all these criticisms are in spite of that.

          “the attempt should be sincere and i think every critic above has priased him for the attempt.”

          They all said Teller is a ok drummer and one of them talked about Teller’s interview of how he learnt to play the drums.

          Here is the director saying that 90% of the time its visually Teller but audio wise its someone else in many of the competition scenes. He also tells that they did use inserts of someone else’s hands in some scenes.

          Many people mistakenly think Teller actually played the drums in the movie and all the drum music that they heard was played by him. Here is Teller actually playing the drums and he sounds bad and I am being generous.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            you are agreeing now that srk teaching in CDI was wrong but when i had made the post and priased that particualr way of teaching, you had only only praises for it 😉 https://tanqeed.com/scene-of-the-week-chak-de-india/

            “if Fletcher is this great teacher wouldn’t he teach how to hold the sticks right?”

            it doesnt depend entirely on the teacher. training is a two way communication. it takes years to perfect techniques. it took me months to get one punch right during my karate sessions. that doesnt mean my teacher was unskilled. mere me koi kami thi or there was not a perfect communication between the two of us.

            ” So the drummers questioning Teller’s technique is a valid criticism. ”

            i already said its a valid critism , but not a fair one. this is not a biopic. teller was not playing charlie parker.

        • sputnik 9 years ago

          “you are agreeing now that srk teaching in CDI was wrong but when i had made the post and priased that particualr way of teaching, you had only only praises for it”

          The scene you had posted is private now but from your post it looks like its the same scene that I watched yesterday.

          Yeah I did say its a “Good scene” back then but I may have skimmed through it. Nobody including you pointed out the “manhandling girls and making sexist comments” part then. Since you mentioned that now I re watched that scene and I agreed with you on that part.

          And as I said above “Making them train hard physically is fine but the other stuff like manhandling girls or making sexist comments is wrong.”

          “teller was not playing charlie parker.”

          Yes and they have not criticized Teller for not acting well as Charlie Parker. And Charlie Parker was a saxophonist not a drummer.

          • Baba 9 years ago

            “Nobody including you pointed out the “manhandling girls and making sexist comments” part then. Since you mentioned that now I re watched that scene and I agreed with you on that part.”

            i had a long discussion with ritz on the way of teaching in that thread where i said it is the “RIGHT” thing to do and i have taunted him about tzp and made several comments how this way of teaching does work.

            “Yeah I did say its a “Good scene” back then but I may have skimmed through it. ”

            you have to say this now. 😉

          • sputnik 9 years ago

            Yeah I saw that you had a long discussion with ritz on the way of teaching in that thread but I was not a part of it.

            In sports the objective is to play hard and win. So repeating my line again – “Making them train hard physically is fine but the other stuff like manhandling girls or making sexist comments is wrong.”

            ‘“Yeah I did say its a “Good scene” back then but I may have skimmed through it. ”

            you have to say this now.’

            I may have not even skimmed through it because I must have seen the image of the clip (which is not visible now) and your description in the post which says its the ‘Gunda’ scene. I re watched the scene because you specifically mentioned “he manhandled girls and threatened them phyisically and mentally” and after watching the scene I agreed with you.

            What do you want me to do? Argue for the heck of it like you do 🙂

          • Baba 9 years ago

            “In sports the objective is to play hard and win. So repeating my line again ”

            you are saying this bcos you are couch potato and a victim of “sport movie cliches”. this kind of approach is good enough to learn any kind of art. i dont agree with everything fletcher does in the film. but as i said in the review, its like a bad boss who is demanding. you can do nothing about it. you cant resign from your job bcos the boss is like that. he will shout at you , call you names . most would crib about it or leave the job too. but teller doesnt. the more he is discouraged, the more he practises and shows his worth to his boss. that is what the film is about.

            “I may have not even skimmed through it because I must have seen the image of the clip ”

            i ma afraid then i should not take any of your comments seriously from now. i know now for a fact that you are a loose talker!you have accepted it yourself

  18. Baba 9 years ago

    Unbelievable strength of kata on display here:

    https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=550632898411890&set=vb.363765800431935&type=2&theater

    there is a japanese movie called “High Kick Girl” in which the importance and practical utlity of kata is explained quite well. its theme is the famous bruce lee quote ” “I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times.”. a similar theme is there in the movie Whiplash, a movie on music but stil the theme is relevant.

    “hume ye sabit nahi karna hi hum kitne taqatwar hai ya hummme kitni technique hai,bas basic movements ko bar bar karne se tezi aa jat hai (muscle memory/relfex action)”

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