Whiplash PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Whiplash PDF

Description

Whiplash 1-Summarize the plot with your own words. This film is about Andrew Neiman, a nineteen year old drummer of jazz music, who recently joined the best music school of the country “Shaffer conservatory”. He is quickly spotted by Terence Fletcher, the conductor of the Shaffer orchestra. Terence Fletcher is vicious and abusive with his students and makes that under the fact he wants them to be perfect. At a jazz competition, by the force of circumstances, Andrew played “Whiplash” by heart without music sheet; it was very successful and makes the band win. So Fletcher promotes Andrew the first drummer. But shortly after, for no reason, Fletcher hired Connolly, another student, to be at Andrew’s place. So Andrew practiced again and again until his hands bleed and finally got his first place drummer back. On the way to another important jazz competition, Andrew had public transports issues so he decided to rent a car, but he arrived late plus, he forgot his drumsticks at the rental office. So he decided to go back but on his way back from the rental office, he had a car accident. But he was determined so he still went on stage to play with the others members of the band but he was injured and bloody and he physically couldn’t play. Fletcher was very mad at him and fires him. So Andrew attacked Fletcher in front of the whole audience. Andrew was dismissed from Shaffer Conservatory. Later on, Andrew and his father met an attorney from the parents of an old student from Shaffer who committed suicide, clearly because of Fletcher’s behavior. Andrew agreed to testify anonymously and wanted Fletcher dismissal. A while after, Andrew discovered that Fletcher was playing in a jazz club, and after the performance the two men shared a drink together, it was the moment where Fletcher tried to justify his awful past behavior to Andrew and he finally invited him to play at a jazz festival. But just before the performance Fletcher pranked Andrew and gave him the wrong music sheet to play. However instead of abandoning and going home, Andrew lead the orchestra with his drum game until his fantastic solo, even Fletcher was amazed and start to guide him. They both shared a smile accomplice at the end. 2-Who are the main characters according to you? Explain the hierarchy and relationship between them. According to me, the main characters in this film are Andrew Neiman and Terence Fletcher. They maintain a master/apprentice relationship and it can remind us the theory of the famous philosopher Hegel with is dialectic of master and slave. In his first book “The Phenomenology of the Spirit”, Hegel says that fear and desires are the struggle of consciences. This is indeed the behavior we can analyze between both characters on Whiplash. “Fear” is Fletcher because he is psychologically and physically violent and “Desire” is Andrew because he has this desire to be constantly perfect.

3-What can you say about the construction of the plot? We can say that the more the film is going, the more we can feel the intensity and the pressure that Andrew could feel. At the end, right after Andrew’s solo, we can feel a relief. There are a lot of cuts in this film. We can divide the plot into six “Crescendo” parts. The first one is the encounter between the two main characters and also between Andrew and the rest of the band. Then there is the first jazz competition where Andrew misplaces the music sheet of his colleague Carl. The third part is when Andrew has his car accident, plays with bloody hands, attacks Fletcher and finally is dismissed of the Conservatory. Then we have a key moment when he meet the attorney and denounce Fletcher’s conduct. After there is the scene where they both share a drink and Fletcher invites Andrew to another jazz competition, and the final scene where Fletcher wants to get revenge but Andrew win this fight and succeed marvelously well. 4-What can you say about the visual style of the film? The first thing that we can say about the visual style of the film is that there isn’t so much light. It makes us concentrate on the characters and the music they are playing and also associate with sound track, it creates a good suspense. We could carefully say that it makes a dark and cold atmosphere though pressure of the dialogue. We can also say that the film director Damien Chazelle, made a lot of close-up, it emphasizes the emotional state and it makes the viewer more intimate with the character. For example when Fletcher yells at Andrew that he wants him to say “Louder” “I’m upset”, this close-up makes us feel the need to interfere between them and stop this. 5-What can you say about the sound track? Well, this film is about jazz so there is a lot of great jazz music; we can even say there is only great jazz music. There is a perfect match between the sound and the video. We could really think that the actor is actually a real drummer. 6-What did you think about the film? Justify your opinion with arguments. As far as I am concerned, the performances of the actors Miles Teller and J.K Simmons are very impressive. I also liked the way of filming. I really liked Whiplash because I enjoy jazz music. It reminds me the time when I went on a trip to New Orleans; we could hear jazz everywhere in the city. I must admit that at the beginning of the film this cold and dark staging, the physical and psychological torture, made me uncomfortable even though I wanted to wait and see how far Fletcher was ready to go. But finally this made me understand how far someone, in this case, Andrew, who is committed to music, is ready to go, to endure, to be perfect. This is a very interesting film that I heard about before, and I am very glad to have seen it. I’ll recommend it for sure....