choose skill and elitism over life - sincerely from Harvard

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2015)

Damien Chazelle , the writer/director of Whiplash is a Harvard graduate.
If you keep in mind this trivia , while watching the movie , things can be explained better.
Representing his directorial debut , he chose to create a film where the notion that getting good at something , having a career , conquer the greatest skill , is what counts most in life. It counts more than human interactions and socializing , friends and family. More than life itself.
This is the message he felt like sharing with us in his first feature.
Such a wrong " life meaning" can only be shown via a questionable and improbable sequence of shots. In other words , what this movie basically is , all in all.
The movie fails strictly and only because of the story. I can overlook all other parts but not the ludicrous story chosen to be presented.
First of it is an ugly story .
I've never seen a film depicting rise to greatness in an uglier manner , unless some film about Hitler perhaps.
And even if i skip its ugliness , we don't really see that much stuff about anything.
The plot says its about the relationship between teacher/student ?
What relationship? There was no depth and progress , development of some kind at all human interactions shown in the film. Some started to build , but then they stopped.
I thought how Karate Kid ( the original ) showed in a beautiful way a relationship of teacher/student ,and boy-likes girl.
Expect no such development quality in Whiplash.
There is no depth in this film. Its all in your face. The same sentence over and over " i want greatness" .
As far as the music goes , don't expect learning much about music through this supposedly " film about a jazz drummer " .
I cant recall a single soundtrack , and no music information but for some quick words on Buddy Rich , one of the greatest jazz drummers.
We see no relationship of any kind. Family , girl , friends , and even the teacher , there are just a few scenes ... nothing that would remotely be adequate to show a nice progression , for us the viewers to get involved and feel for the characters.
The teacher character , as mentioned in other comments , suits more as an army general , but even then he'd be unrealistic and just wrong.
The guy is just mean , beyond reality.
It is mind-blowing that the people involved even allowed such a character in this kind of film.
The Miles Teller character is okay in many ways. But for the vital one , that he chooses the superficial greatness over life , which is throughout the movie , the only topic adequately shown .
At first i was waiting for the movie to get somewhere , it did start good , i wanted steady development , i wanted the character to learn , to share , to give to others his views , get better in life.
Some good moral , you know. Chazelle didn't feel for a good moral though.
He felt like introducing to us , meaningless , superficial characters that never learn. That would be okay if the ultimate film's point was that this is a wrong path , as any person with his head on his shoulders would think.
But no , instead we get a savage film of selfishness and sadism. And that this is the road to take. There is no turn , no twist in this part.
You can tell the direction comes from a guy who just started making films.
Too many steady shots.
The acting is alright. Nothing great , just fine though.
I do hope that the one guy who learns something about life is the Director/writer of this film. Not the viewers.