Why don’t filmmakers get jazz?
Why do most feature films miss the meaning of the music in attempting to depict it?
Why is the original American art form apparently so elusive on screen?
Two new films shed light on these mysteries, one peddling unfortunate misconceptions on jazz, the other offering something closer to reality.
The much-touted feature “Whiplash” – about a conservatory jazz student striving for greatness – gives filmgoers plenty of melodrama to chew on. A villainous, sadistic teacher terrorizes young musicians with his cruel humiliations in the rehearsal room and on stage, often bringing his students to tears and worse. Our hero, a 19-year-old drummer, predictably buckles under this brutality at first but eventually fights back in absurd and ultimately laughable ways.
Without giving away too much, let’s just agree that showdowns between obscure students and brilliant bandleaders in Carnegie Hall – before an audience of make-or-break talent agents and record executives – do not happen very often in jazz. The very premise that careers ride on a single performance of a newly formed band, such as the one in “Whiplash,” says more about the filmmakers’ narrative needs than it does about how the real world functions.
In jazz, careers build or decline gradually, over time – decades, really – since jazz artists don’t strike it rich on a hit or two (at least not these days). The virtuosity, musicianship, knowledge and experience required to create a life in jazz are long in the making. “Whiplash,” by contrast, hinges on a young artist preposterously attempting a David-vs.-Goliath knockout punch against an evil master of his art. Among the student’s many obstacles along the way: He survives a collision with a truck only to hurry on to the next performance, never mind his bloodied suit.
What we have here is not a serious look at music but, alas, “Rocky” for jazz. Or, more accurately, for director-screenwriter Damien Chazelle’s fantasy of what jazz is.
But even if you’re willing to look past such silliness, there’s a much worse cliche at the heart of “Whiplash”: the notion of artist as manic obsessive. The student, played by Miles Teller, declares to his svelte and beautiful girlfriend, “I want to be great. I want to be one of the greats.” Then he promptly breaks up with her, so he can bleed for his art. Literally. There’s enough red gushing onto his drums to make you wonder if the kid is on blood thinners.
The spectacle of musicians bleeding on – and for – their instruments has been a pulpy Hollywood device since at least 1945, when Cornel Wilde coughed the stuff onto the keyboard portraying a sickly Frederic Chopin in “A Song to Remember.” The tack was campy back then, and it’s not a lot fresher nearly 70 years later.
Essentially, “Whiplash” simply follows in a long line of films presenting jazz musicians as maniacs, for ostensibly dramatic effect. Consider Forest Whitaker’s buffoonish-but-obsessed Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s unintentionally comical “Bird” (1988), Kirk Douglas’ alcoholic-but-obsessed Bix Beiderbecke knock-off in “Young Man With a Horn” (1950) or Robert De Niro’s loutish-but-obsessed fictional saxophonist Jimmy Doyle in “New York, New York” (1977). None feels like a real person. Each serves merely as a vehicle for glib drama in jazz.
At least in “New York, New York,” however, De Niro turned in a stunning impersonation of a jazz instrumentalist at work, mimicking a tenor saxophonist’s mannerisms with aplomb. The great Douglas glamorized a trumpeter’s life in “Young Man With a Horn,” but there was no denying the beauty of his silhouette cast against radiantly backlit nightclub scenes.
None of that applies in “Whiplash,” actor Teller’s body far more tense, taut and wound up than any student drummer I’ve ever seen (and that’s quite a few). That rigid stance would make it physically impossible to achieve bona fide swing rhythm, which requires a looseness of gesture rarely encountered in this film. Even worse, student and teacher (portrayed by J.K. Simmons) are obsessed with faster and louder. Then faster and louder still.
And the filmmakers think that’s jazz? What about phrase, color, mood, tone, improvisation, music, art? All absent in “Whiplash.” That the student’s climactic solo amounts to little more than a long decrescendo and deceleration following by a huge crescendo and acceleration – while the teacher-bandleader looms over the performance like some kind of jazz Svengali – tells you a great deal about the degree of understanding this film brings to the art form.
A new documentary, Alan Hicks’ “Keep on Keepin’ On,” provides a considerably more muted, nuanced and human view of jazz, though it won’t receive a fraction of the publicity of “Whiplash.” Nevertheless, this haunting film shows how the art of jazz really is transmitted from master to student, focusing on one of the legends of the music, trumpeter Clark Terry.
The film traces the past few years of Terry’s life, in which the nonagenarian coaches a blind, up-and-coming pianist named Justin Kauflin. The two build a friendship not only through music but through adversity: Kauflin struggles to launch a career despite his disability, and Terry battles diabetes as he loses his sight and, eventually, his legs.
In one scene after another, we encounter a frail Terry – either in his wheelchair or in bed – inspiring the young musician. Terry’s raspy voice and whispered conversation may be difficult for us to understand (hence the use of subtitles), but they’re enough to coax Kauflin into new insights at the keyboard.
At one point, Kauflin asks Terry, “What’s the difference between amateurs and masters?”
Terry, whose first student was a 12-year-old Quincy Jones and who was idolized by a young Miles Davis, among others, is uniquely positioned to answer.
“One thing is desire,” says Terry. “Desire to excel. You gotta’ want to play better than everybody. You gotta try hard, see?”
No histrionics from Terry, no bleeding from Kauflin. Just the sacred transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. As the film proceeds, we see Terry becoming increasingly sick and Kauflin finding his voice. Cycles of life and art continue. There’s more veracity in poignant scenes of Terry fighting to survive or Kauflin collapsing in a big-league jazz competition than in all of “Whiplash.”
The truth doesn’t have to shout to be heard. In the great jazz films – such as “‘Round Midnight” (1986), “Chico & Rita” (2010) and “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” (1959) – the music tells the story. No blood or hyperbole needed.
Twitter @howardreich
“Portraits in Jazz”: Howard Reich’s e-book collects his exclusive interviews with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and others, as well as profiles of early jazz masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. Get “Portraits in Jazz” at chicagotribune.com/ebooks.