Whiplash Film Reflection

Getting "Whiplash" from the film's story.

Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman and JK Simmons as Professor Terence Fletcher, respectively, in the film Whiplash (2014).

Note: This is an early essay of mine, probably the earliest I'll post on here. It was an assignment for a music theory class I took in 2017. I thought about cleaning or revising this essay/post but thought that the brevity shows how my skills have improved over time. While this isn't my favorite movie by far, I do feel like it is a descent representation of being a music student on a serious professional level, and especially at a high level music college.

The award-winning film Whiplash consists of a plot starting with the main character, Andrew Neiman, going to the fictional Shaffer Conservatory of Music, which is a university focused on majors involving music. Andrew has been an aspiring musician since he was a kid, always striving to become better, no matter the costs. He starts his musical education at the conservatory in what seems to be a regular jazz band until Terence Fletcher, the jazz instructor of the highly praised and advanced jazz band, selects Andrew to proceed into his class. Andrew, being an admirer of this advanced jazz group, feels enlivened to have this opportunity to enhance his jazz performance skills and to pursue his career as a jazz musician. As Andrew arrives at his class, the ensemble plays, and he sees that Fletcher takes music seriously and verbally abuses his students if they aren’t up to code with Fletcher. But before Andrew plays at his first session with Fletcher’s jazz ensemble, Andrew is met by Fletcher himself to not worry about what he saw, and tells him that “You know, Charlie Parker became ‘Bird’ because Jones threw a cymbal at his head.” This sole quote has the basis of the plot and motivation of the antagonist who is Fletcher, seen in the eyes of Andrew. As Andrew plays the piece Whiplash, Andrew is baffled on how Fletcher treats him on what seems to him minor inconsistencies like the tempo on being accurate, so Fletcher throws a chair at Andrew as he’s playing, which is reminiscent of what Fletcher told him outside of class with Charlie Parker and the symbol being thrown at him.

Motivation in the craft is the entire story in Whiplash. In the first competition for jazz ensemble with Andrew, he loses the drum part of Whiplash, which in turn, Fletcher lets him play the part for this piece, making Andrew believe his hard work paid off. Andrew trying to succeed to become a musician seems like an offshoot, since odds are drastically against him because of Fletcher’s harsh tone and attitude as a jazz instructor. Andrew wanted the drum part for the second piece Caravan, so worked hard to achieve this to the point of blood, sweat, and tears which are visually shown as Andrew is practicing to give the sense that he is working to the point of his idols like Buddy Rich and Charlie Parker. Barely able to make the part, Caravan, is supposed to be played by Andrew but forgot his drumsticks on the way to the second competition, in which Andrew, suffering from unfortunate issues like anxiety and depression, gets involved in a brutal car accident. Andrew sees this as a setback, even though he’s covered with blood, arrives at the competition with his own drumsticks because he did not want to fail Fletcher and was determined from the beginning that he wants to be a great drummer, no matter the cost. Since Andrew played poorly due to being in an accident, Fletcher stops the band and tells Andrew he is terminated from the ensemble, in which Andrew tackles Fletcher. This shows more of the true dedication Andrew put in preparing for Caravan, so of course he gets furious since he got to the competition right after a car accident and spent countless hours trying to do his part. Fletcher then loses his teaching credentials after Andrew describes the mental abuse to his family lawyer, and a couple of months later, Andrew sees Fletcher playing in a jazz club in which Andrew talks to Fletcher and discovers that he is playing at a competition with the group he has formed. Since Fletcher seems to not know who revoked his teaching credentials, he seems like he isn’t one bit upset with Andrew and tells him to join his group at the competition to play Whiplash and Caravan.

As the competition begins, Fletcher tells the audience and the panel that they are playing a piece called Up Swinging, which Andrew did not get from Fletcher and was sabotaged to look like a fool on stage because the panel and the ones who decide who are the musicians who get signed on to labels, or become professional musicians. After Up Swinging, Andrew walks off-stage frustrated with what Fletcher did to him, since he knew that Andrew was responsible with Fletcher’s teaching credentials being revoked, Andrew decides to not give up and starts playing Caravan, to go against Fletcher, and then cues the ensemble to play with him. As the piece ends, Andrew still plays a solo even with the lights dimming to show Fletcher that he didn’t put his drumming skills to waste after Fletcher got fired. With this lengthy solo, Andrew didn’t want to give up his lifetime goal to become a musician. At first, Fletcher is furious, but then sees that Andrew’s craft has truly gone up since his ensemble at the Shaffer Conservatory of Music. He then proceeds to guide him through his solo, seeing if he’s on par to someone like Buddy Rich, as he teased in their first session when playing Whiplash. Then, Fletcher gives a cue for the rest of the band to end with Andrew’s solo, grinning at Andrew. This being the final scene of the film shows Andrew’s resolution and achieved what he wanted as a musician with seeing Fletcher as an antagonist for the majority of the film, becoming proud of his work, even though it defied him at first. The simple smile at the end of the film gives the audience relief and an idea of Fletcher appreciating Andrew’s musicianship which wasn’t seen as a possibility at the beginning of the film, but because of Andrew’s will of becoming like his idols, succeed, giving to what I thought was the perfect resolution to the film since it gave an ending that you get relief and resolution from, but also leads you to questioning on how Andrew’s life becomes after the panel seeing his solo, and to see what type of professional musician he is, and if he befriended Fletcher, since his harsh tone and attitude was to find the next legend of music. Fletcher’s mental abuse towards his pupils was only for the sake of musicianship, since he figuratively and literally did what Jones did to Charlie Parker to become “Bird.”