Interview: Director And Cast Of 'Whiplash'
Writer/Director- Damien Chazelle, and actors- JK. Simmons, Miles Teller, and Melissa Benoist, talk about making one of the best films of 2014.
Who knew jazz drumming could be such a bloodsport?
For most of us lay folk, it’s nearly impossible to fathom the sheer amount of artistry and masochism required of competitive jazz musicians. Enduring punishing schedules, daily physical pain, and teachers who make Drill Sergeants look like kindergarten teachers, these dedicated artists push themselves to the limit in pursuit of momentary aural perfection.
Filmmaker, Damien Chazelle, knows a thing or two about this way of thinking… he spent his formative years with drumsticks practically glued to his hands, hoping to follow in the footsteps of heroes like Buddy Rich and Sid Catlett. For his first feature film, the visceral Sundance fave, Whiplash, Chazelle offers up a glimpse into this fascinatingly brutal world. Directing J.K Simmons and Miles Teller to career-best performances, he creates an unforgettable experience that is as surprising as it is satisfying. Even better, Chazelle and his dynamite cast (Teller, Simmons, and Melissa Benoist) recently sat down with a group of reporters – myself included- to chat about their incredible film…
Miles, can you talk about the strenuous physical demands of this performances?
Teller: “It’s funny because when I read the script, there was all this talk of, And the blood splatters on the cymbals, and all this stuff… I would come onto set sometimes and I would look at the drum kit and there’s all this blood there. And I literally (would say) to Damien, That’s too much! No way. Let’s get that off. It’s too much blood! And he goes, No, man. When I was playing, all my drumsticks were covered in blood. This is real. This is truthful.”
“So yeah, I started getting some bloody blisters and I was bandaging them up and stuff. Just the nature of filming a movie like this in 19 days with very intense drumming sequences, a lot of that sweat is real and that’s great because you don’t have to act when you’re actually kind of playing to exhaustion.”
Was what we heard in the film all you, or was it sweetened?
Teller: “I guess Damien could talk to you a little bit about that because I was not in the editing room for all of it. I hope it was sweetened a little bit because at the end of the day (my character) Andrew becomes a much better drummer than Miles was, although I have a pretty good skill set with it and it’s something that absolutely through hours of practice I got to a pretty good place with.”
Chazelle: “Certainly we did a lot of work in the editing room. So a lot of it is just sort of raw stuff from on set and a lot of it is from pre-records. But everything that you see in the movie pretty much with the exception of a few shots is (Miles).”
How did you film that incredible drum solo at the end of the movie?
Chazelle: “The big drum solo, we did one kind of master of it and then everything else is so fragmented. I had storyboarded everything out so I knew kind of, Okay, Miles, we’re going to do measures 16 to 18 right now… Okay, cut. Now, we’re going to go to the cymbal and do the coda of the song… Okay, now we’re going to do the bridge twice through from this lower angle. So we kind of played it out that way. But I remember the real trick with the solo for J.K. and for Miles was continuity because we only had extras as audience members in the theater for six hours so everything pointing in that direction had to be done at once.”
Teller: “I’m so glad I didn’t have to think about all that crap that you have to think about when we were doing that. Oh my God. It’s stressing me out just hearing you talk about it.”
Chazelle: “You’d be like, Okay, now we’ve got to do the end of the solo right now, so Miles has to be dripping with sweat. Okay, now we’ve got to go back to like the very beginning of the song so Miles doesn’t have sweat yet. I just have these wonderful images of an entire like posse of makeup people descending on Miles every time we’d re-set up.”
Simmons: “Just one dude with a hose.”
WHIPLASH
In the drum corps world, instructors are often much worse than Fletcher (J.K.’s character)…how important was it to convey the pressure put upon these students?
Chazelle: “It is interesting the different reactions the script would often get. People who hadn’t been drummers or hadn’t been to music school or hadn’t been in that kind of competitive world, the question was always, They can’t…they can’t be like this?… And I remember at the same time I was showing it to drummers, one who was a drummer at Lincoln Center, and he had complained as well, but the complaint was exactly the opposite; it was, It doesn’t go far enough! And, It was worse for me! So, I think what’s fascinating is that there’s this whole side of the world that most people just don’t know about. I had a teacher like J.K., and it made me a better drummer. But I also, as a humanist, can’t condone what he does, and I wanted to make (J.K.’s) character as monstrous as possible so that it’s as hard as possible to condone what he does. But it’s undeniable that this is a big part of jazz and music history– this kind of streak of tyranny leading to great musicianship.”
Simmons: “That kind of pisses me off actually that (other instructors) were worse than me. Especially after I met Miles… I wanted to go further. (Laughter) I think Damien and I have very similar philosophies there, and again, that’s the debate; I love that this movie is inspiring that debate: How far is too far? How much is too much? Is it worth it? From my own perspective, I’d rather have a pretty girlfriend than go work with this guy and my hands bleed all the time. I would’ve made a different choice.”
Damien, how did your experience growing up as a drummer inform who you are as a man—and channel its way into this film?
Chazelle: “I think the one gendered idea I had that informed some events was-as a musician or artist of any stripe growing up –versus the athletes around you – you are immediately made to feel less masculine. So everything kind of stemmed from that. Andrew and a lot of jazz musicians of his ilk are people who are giving their heart and soul to an endeavor that is not really appreciated in the outside world, and so I think a lot of this self-hatred and hatred of other people, and cruelty and emasculation kind of stems from that.
But the only way it applied to me as a masculine thing – because I think there are so many equivalences for women – was this idea of music, of jazz especially, being sissy. It’s like you’re already not doing rock and roll, let alone football.”
Benoist: “My dad was a jazz drummer and he would actually carry his drumsticks in his cowboy boots in case of an altercation back in Texas.”
Teller: “It’s good when your instrument doubles as a weapon.”
Simmons: “In case somebody said that traditional grip is for losers…”
(Laughter)
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You mention jazz not being nearly as appreciated – certainly by teens – as say playing sports or rock and roll music, and perhaps this has a lot to do with its esoteric entry point… It’s not an art in which the average person can easily discern quality and or skill level. With this in mind, how do you show Andrew’s virtuosity?
Chazelle: “It makes it tricky to make a movie where the point of the movie is to become really good at something. I want to make sure that we didn’t cut to the audience at the end and see them go, Whoa – the way that some movies tell you that somebody’s good. You know, the single clap that builds and builds…”
Teller: “We didn’t have enough extras for that.”
Chazelle: “My dad’s a mathematician and I grew up on the same street with Andrew Wiles who (proved) this game changing (Theorem) in math. I remember when the headlines about this proof were coming out – this 200-page proof that only five or six people, and I’m not exaggerating, could understand. This is literally one of the greatest achievements in human history that only five or six people can understand. That’s the extreme of it. I was always fascinated by it– How do you judge what is good based on that?”
“There’s a little bit of that when it comes to any sort of pursuit, especially artistic. But, with Andrew, there’s different types of drumming and it was a decision early on that Buddy Rich would be the style of drumming he’d play. There is a lot of jazz drummers who are more subtle, whose greatness is a little harder to get. If you listen to Sid Catlett, who drummed with Louis Armstrong, it sounds very simple at first, but you listen for a while and realize the genius he is. But Buddy Rich’s genius is right there, immediately, and for the case of this movie, that’s the type of drumming we had to go for. We thought a lot about how to communicate that greatness– not through the music, but how it’s shot at the end. You should be able to watch the final scene silent and realize he’s an amazing drummer.”
Simmons: “By the way, that mathematical proof, I thought it was total bullshit. You can poke so many holes in it… “
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Andrew’s journey, though harrowing, is also categorized by his singular purpose. In this Internet age when everyone is expected to be their own publicist, manager, agent, etc. can an artist ever really just make their art? Is that something you each think about or want?
Benoist: “I definitely think, for me the whole digital technology age is really overwhelming and kind of a terrifying thing, so I hope there is a way to remain an artist and to not have to publicize yourself on so many fronts.”
Simmons: “Yeah, the art/commerce line definitely gets blurred. But as far as modern…I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or any of that just because I’m a dinosaur and I’m lazy.”
Teller: “But you have started DJ-ing.”
(Laughter)
Simmons: “Oh, yeah, I’ve been doing that a lot… Me and my 15-year-old…”
Teller: “Have you been pressured to get on Twitter and all that stuff?”
Simmons: “Just by Twitter.”
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