173. US director Damien Chazelle’s second feature film “Whiplash” (2014): The ultimate Svengali levelled

“ I saw a drive in him” — Terence Fletcher in Whiplash, referring to his former student Sean Casey “ The next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged ” —Terence Fletcher in Whiplash A quick assessment of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash would be that the film is about a music student carving out a drumming career in a jazz band. Another would be classifying the film as a tale of a musician’s long and winding journey to acquire recognition by the critics who matter. Others would only remember the film as one that forces the viewer to hate and cringe at the actions of an inhuman mentor, a perfectionist, who wrecks the lives of young creative diligent minds by physical and verbal abuse, all for his own goal in life. While all these are justifiable perceptions of the film, young Damien Chazelle’s script and film offers more than the obvious. The film’s opening sequence is of the camera (the viewer’s point of view) entering a darkened corridor at the end of which the student Andrew ...