Review of the film Whiplash

"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.”*

    

     Whiplash is a firework of a film — speeding and crackling upwards, aiming at that single explosive end note. It’s an exhilarating 106 minutes. Set at a movie world stand-in for Juliard Conservatory, the story centers on a 19 years old aspiring drummer and his relationship with the demanding conductor of the school’s top big jazz band. The young musician, Andrew (Miles Teller), finds himself called up to this esteemed group where he quickly discovers the nature of pressure. Insults are thrown, chairs hurled, and sloppy tears provoked in an unpredictable storm — controlled by precisionist maestro Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), wildly oscillating between a menacing simmer and a boiling rage. He towers over his musicians by instilling the ultimate fear of failure — in his eyes. 

     Andrew quickly becomes obsessed with proving to this man that he can perform to the unyieldingly high expectations that have been set. While practicing for endless swaths of time, the student pushes himself to the point of exhaustion, sweat weeping from his body and blood oozing from the blisters that line his palms and fingers. The performance, and Fletcher’s always receding approval, become Andrew’s obsession — the only thing he can see through his tunnel vision aimed at perfection. The sliver of a barrier between breakdown and breakthrough lives in the tension of every second as he pushes and pushes towards an apex. The conductor’s shadow looms constantly.

     This film is a strange experience — wholly engrossing and entertaining, while also being mystifyingly uncomfortable. Perhaps the latter is that the power dynamic playing out between these two men seems on the edge of insanity. One could see Fletcher as purely a villain in the story, but there is something in Andrew’s character that borders on malignantly vainglorious too. Perhaps this is what the quest for genius looks like.

     In the final scene — one of the most entertaining and astounding film scenes I’ve ever witnessed — the two men are finally, for a moment, on equal footing. They face off eye to eye over the drum kit, their supreme battleground. And even though no fists fly or chairs are thrown, each is giving the other absolutely every piece of spitting fight that resides within. One will rise to that pinnacle edge of breakthrough. And there will be not a single witness to this explosion of a performance who would ever think to utter the words, “Good job.” 

Stunned silence will do. 

Catch your breath.

*dialogue from the film

Review of the film Selma

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”     
                          - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

     There are so many angles a review of Selma could take. The timeliness of a film centered on the American Civil Rights Movement is undeniable. Race is at the forefront of discussions all over our national media. And names like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Renisha McBride, and Eric Gardner sound like echoes of those that resonated so loudly in the country’s ears nearly 50 years ago. This story is uncannily familiar in our current cultural moment. It could seem like we have come so far since the 60s in regards to civil rights, yet it is blatantly apparent that there is still very far to go. 

     Following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he works with other dedicated and passionate black activists, the film focuses its lens on a few weeks of time during the movement. This short period was the lead-up to that historical protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama that precluded President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Director Ava DuVernay chooses this angle instead of the usual biographic tactic of attempting to provide a neat narrative arch to an entire life. It is a fruitful choice, as it gives the proceedings a streamlined intensity. It also allows for more shaded depth to the supporting players, who were each significant individuals in their own right. Giving nuance to all those interwoven in this historical moment does not sully the message — King and his allies were marked with imperfections and personal struggles as all human beings are — rather, this strategy proves how profoundly personal the political can be and vice versa. And among these strongly depicted characters are those very real women who populated the movement. DuVernay places them on equal footing with the often more recognizable male figures surrounding King, and this serves the film’s theme extremely well.

     That theme of the personal being political is also on display within each of the many differing levels of bureaucracy in which Dr. King is enmeshed as he works towards the movement’s goals. He steers himself with grace and determination — from the highest office of political power, verbally sparring and negotiating with the president of the United States — to the pews of a Selma, Alabama church, where he speaks in hushed tones with his fellow activists as they flex and step towards something that could resemble grassroots consensus. It is through these transitions that we also see Dr. King the fallible and resilient man right alongside the shining iconic figure of history. The two identities are not separate, and we watch this human being radiating an inner power and nearly unwavering sense of personal and political agency. This voice that spoke so loudly — that grew out of so much support and tenacity from so many who surrounded him in moments of high and low alike.

     There also have been a lot of high and low controversies following this film around. The ones that stand out the most to me are that of certain voices and groups calling out historical inaccuracies within Selma’s narrative. Specifically, the supposed alteration of President Johnson’s role in the negotiations leading up to the Voting Rights Act and that of the exclusion of Rabbi Abraham Heschel from the ranks of those who march with Dr. King. In looking at historical inaccuracies in the Hollywood film universe overall, it seems especially telling that there is so much outrage over these particular figures. In my mind, it almost reads like a kind of knee-jerk protest against the racial make-up of those protagonists on most prominent display throughout the story. Those we are asked to identify with most strongly are black, proud, and complete agents of their own destiny in the midst of the movement. That so many viewers of such a film — who also happen to be mostly white — are crying foul because of the reduction of white historical characters on the screen should be suspect. I don’t mean to shame anyone’s experience, but I do think that one should question these kinds of quick reactions to what is a moving and emotionally honest portrayal of an important moment in American history. It’s not ever easy to look at cultural errors without also feeling defensive towards our own role in them. We all share guilt in some way, but that is the nature of history. To pick on this film for those reasons is somewhat naive and altogether faulty — especially in terms of the message of such a film as Selma.

     We should be able to identify with those who do not always look, sound, and act like ourselves. That doesn’t mean that it’s always easy and that we don’t have to examine our first, second, third and ongoing reactions when presented with difficult cultural and historical messages. But the more stories we seek out and share are not simply a matter of diversity — they are a mandate for reality. Selma is a mighty and artful piece of that reality.

"If you are a person ... that has a human spirit looking to be enlarged, you cannot do that staying in the same room with the same people...It's not about diversity. It's not about even inclusion or representation. It's about reality."                                                                                                                   
                                                                            - Selma Director Ava DuVernay

"What happens when a man stands up...says enough is enough?”                                                            
                                - lyrics from the song “Glory” by Common & John Legend

Review of the film Birdman

"You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it."*

     Birdman plays with the idea of the status afforded to so many white men — their apparently seamless cultural privilege. Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is an aging actor grasping onto the last bits of celebrity he garnered by donning the cape of a movie superhero. That franchise ended decades ago, along with any artistic credibility he had possessed beforehand. 

     He is viewed raging against his current insignificance. In this tantrum of self-importance, Riggan is mounting a play based on a Raymond Carver piece that he has adapted, is directing, and is also starring in. The film takes place in the few days leading up to the opening night on Broadway. It is a last ditch effort; all his energy, celebrity connections, fortune, and sanity are buried in this process. Birdman illustrates this delusional drive to matter to the world — Riggan's world — to rise above commonality and be something grander. It’s a crazy notion, and it’s also megalomania, and we see it so much among men like him.

     Despite his status — his treasure trove of privilege — there is pain there and there is struggle. It’s interesting to think on this narrative as a that of a man with his back against the wall, his sanity on a razor’s edge. He is balancing between two extremes — that of stubbornly believing himself the center of the world, and that of realizing how tiny and unimportant he is amidst the whole of existence. And we watch Riggan oscillate between the two. He wildly fumbles and protests against the pigeonhole life has given him to fill, an identity he had a lot to do with carving out. It’s an exhilarating process to observe, so strange and so funny. There’s something so wonderfully refreshing about a film that bears witness to its own insignificance in the realm of the universe. A tiny blip on the radar screen of eternity.

*dialogue from the film

Review of the film Boyhood

“You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kind of thinking it's the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us.”*

     Director Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a film built upon the moments — be they dramatically significant, ordinarily mundane, or those that fall somewhere on the spectrum in between — that illustrate a life. And populate a childhood with seeds of memories that will take root and grow into shapes that ultimately depend upon those future moments yet unknown. It is a story that finds it structure simply and quietly. The weight of its impressive force does not always register until later, when the screen is dark again. Then the fragments and bits of what a viewer recalls begin to gather definition, clarity, and depth.

     What emerges will vary for every viewer, but there will always be that boy at the center, growing up in suburban Texas. At first, Mason is a mere 8 years old, but he quickly ages before our eyes until 18 and on the brink of striding out of boyhood into life as an adult. The trick of the movie is that it develops as Mason does — Linklater spent a few days every now and again for 12 years with the same actors filming scenes, thereby adding on to the narrative. And thus the film always exists in the present tense. There are no flashbacks or forwards. And it is amazing to watch the moments unfold at the same time as they do for the characters.  

     For Mason, these moments nearly always involve his family. Not one of them is a perfect figure. Rather, each member of this boy’s world — be it his fast-talking sister, his distant yet kind father, his many and varied childhood friends, or the multiple teachers and authority figures — is nuanced and shaded with imperfections. His devoted mother (Patricia Arquette) is the cornerstone of his life. She may have questionable taste in men and often does not possess the answer to life’s myriad of quandaries. But throughout the film’s 12 years, she is always there, attempting to help him navigate his world with sensitivity and courage. It is the relationship between these two that is captured so eloquently by the present tense nature of Boyhood. Though they are constantly changing and being re-shaped by their surroundings and time, these two will always have each other. She will make sure of that. And he will always benefit from each and every moment. 

*dialogue from film.