Movies - TV
Damien Chazelle Sees Whiplash As A Twisted Sort Of 'Origin Story'
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Damien Chazelle's 2014 film "Whiplash" argues that, in order to truly learn and achieve greatness, a student has to endure all kinds of torture. The film follows the antagonistic relationship between Andrew Nieman (Miles Teller), an ambitious jazz drummer, and Prof. Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), a ruthless man who believes in abusive motivation.
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In a 2014 interview with Interview Magazine, Chazelle talked a little bit more about his beliefs on the matter, notably pertaining to Fletcher's motivations. Chazelle said, "J.K. and I talked a little bit about how that kind of behavior gets passed down. And I think in many ways the movie is almost a weird origin story for a new Fletcher, or an instrumentalist version of Fletcher.”
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Andrew essentially becomes another version of Fletcher, proving the latter’s philosophy that only pain and outrage can lead to greatness that will leave a permanent mark on the music world. Chazelle added, “Andrew starts to exhibit the same type of cruelty, and that was very much part of the design of the character.”
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