CineSocial, the Olney Film Club, is screening Whiplash on Sunday (July 19) at The Olney Centre, Milton Keynes, starting 6:30pm.
Seats are £7 each - reserve yours by emailing: cinesocialuk@gmail.com
Film review
Whiplash (2014)
Director: Damien Chazelle.
Synopsis
Andrew (Miles Teller) is an aspiring drummer at a prestigious American conservatoire. Determined to impress his tyrannical conductor Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), he goes to extreme lengths, including ditching his girlfriend and practising until his hands bleed. As a battle of wills breaks out between the two men, will his efforts be enough?
What I thought of the film, by Jason Day
Writer/director Damien Chazelle switches from the classical music world of previous pupil/teacher films like The Seventh Veil to the jazz world, no less a hot bed of ambition, determination and questionable teaching methods.
Here, the high-brow music conservatory is clearly and thoroughly compared to a military academy, appropriate given the intense, Full Metal Jacket drill-sergeant conjured up to tease, taunt and torment the pupils thrust upon him and whom he must physically and emotionally annihilate in order to discover the one true genius amongst them.
In this role, Simmons (a supporting character actor most noted for his part as the newspaper editor in the Spiderman films) bristles with the diabolical determination of a musical Mephistopheles. It is the role of a lifetime for him and he grabs it with the confidence and conviction of a conductor helming the whole of Covent Garden's Opera season.
Teller's sweat-drenched, bloodied-but-not-beaten drum prodigy encapsulates how music can be so tightly wound within one's DNA during their memorable sparring sessions.
Cast & credits
Producers: Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, David Lancaster, Michel Litvak. Writer: Damien Chazelle. Camera: Sharone Meir. Music: Justin Hurwitz. Sets: Hunter Brown.
Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist, Austin Stowell, Nate Lang, Chris Mulkey, Damon Gupton.
