‘Whiplash’ Isn’t Merely a Vehicle for J.K. Simmons

When Whiplash, or, more accurately, J.K. Simmons, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as predicted for the several months prior, it seemed possible that the movie would come to be defined by this extremely memorable performance by this immensely talented and dependable actor. The film received a Best Picture nomination as well, but it was widely considered one of the least likely winners in the field. But one of many remarkable things about the Simmons performance is the degree to which it serves the movie; Whiplash is too lean and too driving to turn into a mere actor’s vehicle. Simmons remains an impressive part of an impressive whole.

He plays Fletcher, an exacting and often sadistic jazz conductor at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory, a music school in New York attended by Andrew (Miles Teller). Fletcher is essentially the second lead in the movie, and looms over it, but, remarkably, Simmons doesn’t overpower his costar. He didn’t win a supporting award for a secret lead. Teller’s Andrew strives to be “one of the greats”, and thinks he’s caught a break when Fletcher invites him to join his studio band. The experience turns into a struggle of wills between the two, as Andrew lets his merest suggestion of a personal life drop away on a mission to impress the swearing, slapping, berating Fletcher. Blood gets on the drumsticks.

Writer-director Damien Chazelle tightens Whiplash like a thriller, unafraid to push the boundaries of believability or good taste. When the film came out last fall, Richard Brody sniffed that the movie bastardizes and misrepresents jazz, but Chazelle, a former teenage jazz drummer himself, doubtless knows when he’s exaggerating for effect — maybe around the time Andrew gets into a car crash and then limps into a performance, bloody and desperate not to be replaced by his alternate, or possibly much earlier than that. I’d wager he also knows that it doesn’t much matter, because Whiplash isn’t much about jazz, or even music, particularly. It’s about the process and cost of achieving artistic greatness, and whether the process and cost Andrew is going through will even necessarily put him on that path. To my eyes, the movie is wonderfully ambiguous about the implications of Fletcher and Andrew, and whether they can or should win each other’s approval, right down to the film’s final, blessedly denouement-free moment.

Fletcher has been compared to a drill instructor, and Simmons, with his pitiless stare and muscles bulging out of a black t-shirt, certainly looks like one, or at least an intimidating personal trainer. But as the movie progresses, he and Andrew sometimes behave more like opponents in a psychological spy picture, engaging in espionage and counter-espionage under cover of darkness. Chazelle, perhaps in part fudging how little of the movie was actually shot in its New York setting, gives Whiplash a nocturnal glow, dark but not murky. Only a handful of scenes take place in daylight; when the movie’s first sustained shot of washed-out sunshine pokes through, it looks strange and bleary.

The movie also won an Oscar for its editing, very possibly on the strength of the showy fast cutting during the performance scenes, particularly the movie’s wild climax. But while those sequences are appropriately showy, Chazelle and editor Tom Cross don’t rely on showmanship alone. Chazelle often holds shots with patience when he needs to, like the scene where Andrew asks out Nicole (Melissa Benoist), who works at his local movie theater, exacerbating the scene’s nervousness by staring it down, rather than adding jittery effects. In the music scenes, the editing also keeps most other members of the band, if not entirely faceless, certainly out of Andrew’s purview, especially when they’re not directly competing with him.

Much of the movie was clearly in place when Chazelle shot his short-film version, which is included on the Blu-ray. The short pushed Whiplash into the Adapted Screenplay category at the Oscars, which struck the filmmakers as inaccurate because the short version was produced as a demo, of sorts, to show Simmons in the Fletcher role. Indeed, the short is really just a scene from the film, nearly verbatim and not far from shot-for-shot. It works reasonably well out of context, but without that context, and without Teller or the charisma he establishes early in the film, it feels more like an exercise — like the calling card it really is.

Teller is also absent on the commentary track, and, as such, much-commented upon by Chazelle and Simmons. They clearly enjoy razzing the kid, implying that he bailed on the recording at the last minute — and that he may share Andrew’s cockiness but not his relentless dedication. Unlike the short, the track works fine without him, largely because Simmons is such an observant, film-watcher, calling attention to particular shots and sequences with real enthusiasm. It’s a role of a lifetime for him, and he spends much of the commentary appreciating Chazelle’s work behind the camera. That may be why Whiplash sparkles through its darkness; radiating just offscreen from Simmons, Teller, and Chazelle is their joy of performance.