The genius in Andrew can even vanquish the monstrous tyrant

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2015)

In this film we have a professor-conductor, Terence Fletcher, in Manhattan's music conservatory teaching jazz in some rather small big band formation (around twenty musicians). He wants to be and remain the best, at least he wants his band to be and remain the best, at least even more he wants his reputation to remain the best. To do that he must constantly recruit new musicians arriving in the school and he must train them and that's where the gist lies (both "is situated" and "tells a lie," the two "giving the lie to Fletcher"). Fletcher is a terror, absolutely feared to the point of total psychological deconstruction because he demands absolute submission to his own judgment and his own judgment is only targeting his sole objective: bring the daemonic genius out of the student for his (Fletcher's) sole interest.
The point is that he fails over and over again because he tries to break the standard student he has in front of him with violence if necessary, throwing a chair at the student, and especially setting him in competition with people who are even at times less good that the concerned student is, putting these less good subjects in the student's place to make him earn that place though Fletcher will deny he has earned anything in the process. The question is why does this procedure fail? It is bound to fail because it is nothing but a slave-breaking procedure inspired from the infamous Willie Lynch. He should use his position to enter the student's mind and emotions and to push the student's pride and desire to become the best as an emotion that can develop in the student's mind and not as a tool for the professor to impose a dominating will power that comes exclusively from the professor.
That's the absolute mistake that is done in most teaching positions and institutions by the few who mix up good intentions and power. Sooner or later anyway the concerned professors are marginalized and then expelled because they do not fit the standard definition and procedural methods. There will always be one who will complain, especially one who will have failed the attempt of becoming the best.
Strangely enough in this film Andrew will be able to reach that point of excellence and excellent creativity, beyond all tempos or tempi, scores and conducting, let alone conductors. Andrew will find the energy to do it in two emotional successful failures, and I have to insist on that oxymoron because the best among us are always governed by contradictory emotions. With his one time girl friend he had broken off with, when he embarked on his second musical chance and wanted to patch it up with her – a second chance given by Fletcher himself several months after Andrew's failure and his own being fired from the conservatory – he then tries to invite her for the concert he is going to be part of and he discovers she has a boyfriend who is maybe is not in jazz. And after a first piece on that concert that did not work that well because he did not have the score and had not been told ahead of time by Fletcher about that piece: he had to improvise and Fletcher became obnoxious. Andrew then leaves and finds his father in the corridor who wants to take him home instead of rebuilding his pride. And that is the second emotional failure: his father did not understand his positive frustration and did not support the positive side of it and did not send him back on stage.
Andrew will in fact and on his own lightning decision go back on stage and take over the performance, I mean, become the one who is leading the whole band. Details about the taming of the shrewish Fletcher by the finally revealed Andrew is a piece of absolute bliss for anyone who believes in education and in stepping over the line of perfection to reach the never ending road to creativity, best-hood. And all that is only expressed in music.
To conclude on the school system that destroys students more than bring them to excellence, perfection and creativity, just listen to what Miles Teller has to say about one of these monster-teachers: "My second grade teacher told me I would never graduate high school. That I was going to be a juvenile delinquent." If the second grade was the sophomore high school year, this remark was de-motivating and absurd. If the second grade was the second grade of grade school, hence the second year of elementary school that remark was just criminal. Some education "specialists" were defending under Richard Nixon, and I guess are still defending, that any future delinquent could be picked as soon as 5, 6 or 7 years of age. We are not far from such a situation. And I can guarantee you such criminal teachers exist and that the majority of the teachers are just trying to teach to everyone a standard gruel called "subject X, Y or Z" considering it is the responsibility of the students to do the best they can with it, and that's just the point if they can.
What is the alternative to Fletcher? It is to make a student target the highest point he can imagine but with his emotions, his psyche, his mind and the teacher has to articulate himself on these emotions, psyche and mind, in order to vitalize and amplify these emotions, this psyche and this mind. That's a lot more difficult. It takes more time, but it is bound to be successful, even with the most reluctant who might at first protest, but we all know "The lady protests too much."
A marvelous film we should see over and over again. Not one minute is wasted in useless smooching.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU