From the beginning of the movie where Fletcher watches Andrew in practice and invites him to join his jazz band to the end where Andrew plays one of the best solos of Whiplash, the film is focused mainly on the confrontation between a driven student and a demanding perfectionist instructor, who both share the same dream but have different ways of achieving it. Terence Fletcher doesn’t hesitate to use his own technique of racial, religious, and gay slurs, throwing chairs, and playing degrading psychological game to “motivate” his students and Andrew Neyman doesn’t hesitate to back down and use it to push himself beyond physical and psychological limits. In the last scene of the movie where Andrew is playing the song Whiplash and plays it in
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One scene Fletcher stops the band and yells that someone has lost their tune and to identify themselves. After moments of silence, head bows and Fletcher’s beady eyes he singles out a heavy-set boy and begins to pressure him to admit it was him. When the boy claims it was him Fletcher dismisses him from the band. He then tells the class the boy wasn’t out of beat but if he can’t tell it wasn’t him he didn’t deserve that spot. In another scene Fletcher is playing a song for the class. In the scene it shows him getting a little emotional as he goes on to tell a story of a recent student. He explains how great of a player he was, almost comparable to Charlie Parker until he was killed in car accident. In this scene viewers can see that it was a reputation saver cover up story behind Fletcher pushing a student so far it is implied the boy commits suicide. His justification for his actions is that hard work pays off, laughingly citing the story of how Jo Jones, a musical instructor, threw a cymbal at Charlie Parkers’ head motivating him to practice harder and become the great jazz musician he was. Close up shots of Terence Fletcher show every line contour on his face including his scowl, wrinkles and each drop of sweat. Other shots show Fletcher wearing tight all black clothing showing the broadness of his posture and reflecting his “no emotion”
One scene Fletcher stops the band and yells that someone has lost their tune and to identify themselves. After moments of silence, head bows and Fletcher’s beady eyes he singles out a heavy-set boy and begins to pressure him to admit it was him. When the boy claims it was him Fletcher dismisses him from the band. He then tells the class the boy wasn’t out of beat but if he can’t tell it wasn’t him he didn’t deserve that spot. In another scene Fletcher is playing a song for the class. In the scene it shows him getting a little emotional as he goes on to tell a story of a recent student. He explains how great of a player he was, almost comparable to Charlie Parker until he was killed in car accident. In this scene viewers can see that it was a reputation saver cover up story behind Fletcher pushing a student so far it is implied the boy commits suicide. His justification for his actions is that hard work pays off, laughingly citing the story of how Jo Jones, a musical instructor, threw a cymbal at Charlie Parkers’ head motivating him to practice harder and become the great jazz musician he was. Close up shots of Terence Fletcher show every line contour on his face including his scowl, wrinkles and each drop of sweat. Other shots show Fletcher wearing tight all black clothing showing the broadness of his posture and reflecting his “no emotion”