Semi-Decent Drama Undermined by a False Understanding of Artistic Excellence

Rating: 6/10 (2 May 2019)

Of course, it would be naive to read Whiplash as a simple endorsement of Terrence Fletcher's cutthroat, oppressive, and terroristic pedagogical methods (although many unfortunately see it as one). The film refrains from moralization, but instead aims to show the audience the price one supposedly has to pay to achieve artistic excellence. The film is telling us - this is what it takes to produce a great artist. By doing so, it sets up a neat and simple opposition - society's prevailing paradigm of gentle nurturing and guidance, and Fetcher's relentless and ruthless methods of pushing his students to their breaking point.
But this opposition is based on a profoundly superficial understanding of what it means to be a great artist. That is to say, the great crime of this film is to reduce artistic excellence down to nothing more than technical perfection. It is then not surprising that it chooses drumming, the most "athletic" instrument, as its prime example.
Great art is obviously more than technical perfection. Originality, sensibility, aesthetics, and intellectuality are all important measurements of artistic merit. But addressing these issues would complicate and diminish the film's rather simplistic message.
Sure, Whiplash can be read as a morally ambiguous story of hard-work, overcoming self-complacency, and achieving excellence, but the very way in which the problem is proposed and framed betrays a thoroughly technicist understanding of art and aesthetics.