#*whiplash

[ingridbergman]

If you want the fucking part, earn it!

WHIPLASH (2014) dir. Damien Chazelle

[sonnywortzik]

so there’s a whiplash gifset of andrew when he’s confronted by his father and a lawyer to talk about fletcher’s behavior and andrew says “why would you do this to me”

but it keeps getting reblogged w/ this added tag meta saying that this scene — andrew eventually choosing to talk about what happened — is andrew “becoming fletcher” and how andrew has “no sense of justice” and speaking out is just andrew’s way of spitefully getting back at fletcher

and every time i see those tags i feel sick. because i’ve been where andrew is, where a teacher has hurt you physically and otherwise, but that teacher is in such good standing in the community that you feel like maybe you’re just imagining it and that by complaining you’re being a pussy, that maybe you should just accept the honor of having studied under this brilliant mentor no matter how they hurt you. 

and andrew’s response, his kind of seemingly cool, detached resentment at being pressured to talk about what fletcher did and therefore admit to being a victim, is absolutely standard of people who have been abused. 

and to see that moment going around w/ this commentary that andrew — a nineteen year old kid who was terrorized and physically assaulted by his teacher — is just morphing into another version of that teacher by virtue of reporting his abuse? 

just. fuck you.

[the-yennefer]

I will gouge out your eyes, you motherfucker.

[sonnywortzik]

inside llewyn davis and whiplash only w/ the musical genres switched

fletcher screams at andrew that’s he’s not strumming his acoustic guitar gently enough

meanwhile llewyn is pretty much the same just more insufferable 

[sonnywortzik]

and i mean. i don't say that fletcher was the first person to truly see andrew's potential as a credit to fletcher. it's not a benevolent acknowledgement on fletcher's part. more like. the precision with which manipulators read people.

fletcher has terrible, amazing instincts coupled with a brutally rational sense of strategy. instincts that told him to tap andrew, to put johnny utah in studio band as an incentive, to ask after andrew's family so he can spend the rest of their time together reminding andrew that his mom left and his father is a kind but ultimately feeble man. fletcher has predatory instincts so he deals in fear, and andrew was especially susceptible because of the singularity of his passion. his passion — both the intensity and focus (like. nowadays how many people are really gonna sympathize w/ someone w/ a soul deep dedication to jazz drumming) of it — is what isolated him. it's the blood in the water. 

[sonnywortzik]

the video of the kid making beats out of the washing machine. is that not whiplash tho?

i would be lying if i said my first instinct upon seeing that video wasn’t to make a whiplash joke but your friendly anonymous message has given me an excuse to talk about a thing in whiplash that i like, which is:

andrew is not a naturally amazing drummer. he wasn’t a naturally amazing drummer as a child. he isn’t a naturally amazing drummer at the beginning of the story. fletcher didn’t walk into a practice room and see a prodigy, he walked into a practice room and saw a teenager and a capable drummer with a well of passion that was theretofore mostly untapped. a teenager with drive.

i think there’s a heft leant to the story by andrew’s ordinariness. it wouldn’t have been as interesting or as transformative a movie if andrew was an established genius, because like. to what end would fletcher want to bring this boy under his power — to encompass and push and carve him into a Real Artist™ — if andrew started the movie off as the fuckin drumming mozart?

this is reflected in everyone else’s reactions to andrew throughout the story. his dad’s lackluster suggestion of there still being “other options” for andrew (seriously? the kid is nineteen and in his first year of study, stop acting like he should be gearing up to settle), his family’s general dismissal of musicianship. the nassau band certainly didn’t hold him in any kind of esteem. horribly, fletcher seems to be the first person in andrew’s life that looked at him and genuinely thought “yeah. he wants this. he could be great.”

[sonnywortzik]

his name's andrew, he's a fucking psycho. i heard he fucking broke two of fletcher's ribs so they kicked him out

[sonnywortzik]

students at shaffer talking about that quiet kid who moved his mattress into his fucking practice room