Performance art: where virtue and vice trade places

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2015)

Thank goodness the makers of this film denouncing mediocrity did not produce a mediocre film! I watched Whiplash twice, in part because the music component appealed to me greatly, having been trained as a classical pianist who enjoyed the mentorship of a teacher who forced me to play the Bach Inventions backwards until I burst into tears. I was in the third grade when I quit taking lessons from him. Anyway, quite a bit later on, I ended up deciding that performance was not for me, in part for some of the very reasons highlighted in this film: that excellence in this realm requires obsessive compulsive concern with audience reception, aka: fame. This is a very different aspiration than the quest to produce something beautiful or great, which is its own reward, whether or not anyone ever finds out that it has been done.
Whiplash echoes some of the themes touched on in Black Swan, another story about a performance artist driven to the edge. Here it's a fellow with bloody fingers; there it's a neurotic young woman with bloody toes. Both films exalt the strive for "greatness" while simultaneously highlighting that performance artists are in some ways incredibly insecure, even pathetic, always seeking to gain the favor of their mentors--whoever they are, and no matter how vicious they may be.
Performing musicians and dancers may be closer to athletes than to composers or writers, though in some cases they, too, become obsessed with critical reception. The mentors of some performance artists are tantamount to sadistic coaches or military commanders who impel their pupils to be better through the use of fear, shame and humiliation. Performers, like athletes, seek to push their bodies to their physical limits, as is well illustrated in both Whiplash and Black Swan. Is it great to be considered great by throngs of (mediocre) concert goers or sports enthusiasts? In a relative sense, yes. But the noblest quest would seem to be the desire to produce something perfect, which the makers of Whiplash certainly aspired to, with close attention to every detail.
The acting of the two principal players, J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller, was superlative. No surprise that this film garnered three Oscars. The use of color was gorgeous, and the cinematography more generally excellent. I am wondering why Simmons was considered a supporting actor, not a lead. In any case, he was perfect for the role, having spent years practicing the fine art of anger expression while acting as a neo-Nazi white supremacist in the television series Oz. Very convincing performance indeed, of a person driven by ideals which in one case are considered misguided and in the other laudable, but pursued ruthlessly, with no concern for the bodies left in his wake.
All in all, this film offers a very compelling and thought-provoking examination of how the petty and in some ways ignoble desire to become remembered as "great" may drive performers to excel--if it does not kill them first.