In Whiplash (2014), Andrew Neyman (played by Miles Teller) undergoes the torturous mentorship of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) as he ascends to the position of principal drummer in The Shaffer Conservatory’s top jazz band. Fletcher believes that any sacrifice is worth making for the sake of transcendent art. He likes to tell his students the (apocryphal) story of how Charlie Parker might never have become the godlike “Bird,” if Jo Jones hadn’t thrown a cymbal at his head when he messed up one night. The threat of violence inspired Parker to go beyond his limitations through arduous practice and enter the pantheon of the truly great.
Fletcher employs his own abusive tactics, both psychological and physical, to bring out the best in his students, or simply from the pleasure he takes in being mean—there’s no easy reassurance as to Fletcher’s motivations in Whiplash. At one point Fletcher insists Andrew play until his hands bleed, at which point Fletcher reacts with disgust at having his drums defiled.
The scene in the clip above, in which Fletcher emulates Jo Jones, except with a chair, is unforgettable.
A drummer friend of mine insists that Whiplash is universally hated among conservatory teachers for its wildly improbable storyline, although he admits that musicians like drummer Buddy Rich and horn player Miles Davis earned their reputations for cruelty.
I’ve thought about Whiplash for nearly ten years now because, whether monsters like Terence Fletcher remain among faculty (I have no doubt they do, if in different guises), Whiplash expresses a dominant way of thinking about a calling to the arts. About what counts—and what doesn’t—and what should be one’s primary goal in life.
Achievement in any field—everything from music to neuroscience to carpentry—takes discipline and hard work. Associates in major law firms on Wall Street work like slaves to become partners. The mental and physical rigors prospective Seal Team members in the Navy undergo are extraordinary. Many fields are demanding.
The arts have a peculiar way, however, of divinizing achievement. Do you want to be an American Idol? To contribute work that lasts for generations, if not centuries, as your memory remains a cultural lodestar? To be translated into the heavens like the Pleiades? The type of god that Bird represents for Fletcher?
Many do, and it’s more than a little common for people in entertainment who have achieved success to act like it—we’ll talk more about that later.
Music & Culture exists because I’ve thought for a lifetime about my calling to the arts, the various influences on my life and thinking, the people I’ve known and loved, and the effect of the decisions I have made upon those people. The emerging musicians we’ve worked with at Scenes over the past six years (some 1,800 and counting) have added to the urgency of these reflections, as their aspirations and progress are so engaging. They are more important than many of them know, if for reasons that are not much on offer in today’s culture.
In my life, I’ve had my own Terence Fletchers, mentors who both cared deeply about what’s transcendent in art and found in it an excuse to indulge the darker aspects of their natures.
In Part 2 I’ll start by telling a couple of “out-of-school” stories as a means of bringing home the defining spirit—the zeitgeist—that has long dominated the arts and entertainment.
Know any Terence Fletchers? Would love to hear from you.
Share this post