‘Whiplash’: Brutality, flying instruments and all that jazz

ASPEN – Damien Chazelle has given up drumming as a serious pursuit to focus on filmmaking. He majored in film at Harvard; now living in Los Angeles, he works often as a writer for hire.

But the memories of his musical past remain vivid, and perhaps that’s because they aren’t entirely pleasant. In his public high school in Princeton, N.J., the music program was renowned and competitive, led by a driven instructor. Chazelle recalls his teacher as well-intentioned and inspiring, but he also remembers sleepless nights following rehearsals, being kept awake by rhythm anxiety.

“This intangible thing, those tempos, this clock you had to aspire to – that’s what kept me up at night, a fear of screwing it up,” Chazelle said, adding that rhythm didn’t seem to come naturally to him.

“Whiplash,” which shows in Saturday’s 8:45 p.m. program at Aspen Shortsfest, draws directly on those experiences. Set in the tight confines of a high school band room, the 17-minute film stars TK Simmons as a music director whose thermometer runs many degrees hotter than Chazelle’s real-lfe teacher. Simmons taunts, demeans and even physically threatens his collection of aspiring musicians. The performance, centered around the teacher’s relationship with one unfortunate newcomer, a drummer named Nieman, is a rare instance of out-and-out star power in the realm of short films, with Simmons really turning up the volume vocally.

“He can be equally funny or scary, depending on how he modulates” his voice, the 28-year-old Chazelle said. “He’s done a lot of comedy lately, so it’s funny to use his persona for terror. And there’s something scary not just about his voice, but his eyes. You catch it right, there’s a glint of terror. It’s fun to pull the mask off and scare people.”

Chazelle is at work on making a feature-length version of “Whiplash.” (His credits include a previous feature, 2009’s “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” a black-and-white, old-fashioned musical shot like a documentary.) Assisting him on “Whiplash” is Jason Reitman, who credits his attendance at Aspen Shortsfest for several years with much of his education in filmmaking, and who served as executive producer of the “Whiplash” short. Among Reitman’s films as director is “Juno,” which featured Simmons as the understanding but realist dad and HVAC wiz, Mac McGuff.

While “Whiplash” is grounded in the personal, it also ties into bigger histories. One is the story of jazz which is filled with myths, particularly of the artist torturing himself to attain artistic heights.

“Jazz isn’t a very old art form, but it’s sure got its mythology, It might as well be Hercules and Theseus,” Chazelle, who has a deep knowledge of the music, said. “These stories are so rooted in the soil of jazz.”

“Whiplash” includes a reference to the legend – or perhaps true-life tale – of drummer “Philly” Joe Jones throwing a cymbal at the young saxophonist Charlie Parker. In the telling, this is the incident that pushed Parker to greatness, perhaps even helped him create the bebop style. It might also have had some tie to Parker’s drug addiction, and his death at the age of 34. “A lot of jazz stories are about those guys being vicious to one another,” Chazelle said.

The question raised in “Whiplash”: Is it worth it? In the film, the students are demeaned, but they are also disciplined, ambitious and playing at a high level. Chazelle is skeptical, but he and his film leave some room to explore the question.

“A lot of great music, great art comes out of it,” Chazelle, who made another short, set in Boston music conservatories, said. “Even if it makes great music, is that kind of pain really worth it? Is it necessary? These mind games make you question your very essence, not just as a musician, but as a person. It’s not life and death, but they treat it like life and death. You go into these band rooms, these conservatories, and it feels like war.”

Another history “Whiplash” taps into is the inspirational-teacher genre. Chazelle of course, twists the genre completely, even as he cites “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” the ultimate in uplifting music-teacher films, as a big favorite of his childhood.

“It can be great or it can be annoying. But it’s such a codified genre – a teacher who pushes his students to do well,” said Chazelle, who has studied up on films about music, going back to two-reelers from the 1930s about Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. “Here, instead of getting there by being nice or hip of funny, he gets there by being a tyrant. You want to get at the grit of that experience and not Disneyfy it too much.”

Chazelle also drew on a whole different genre of movie, stories about combat, competition and megalomania.

“The tyrannical leader, drilling his followers, sticking young, mostly male, hyper-competitive but also super-insecure people in a room together and watching the sparks fly,” he said. “You see that in ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ ‘Mean Streets’ – just letting them go at each other. It’s like watching dogs go at a piece of meat. I like that dynamic, that vernacular.”

stewart@aspentimes.com