I do think there's something to be said for not coddling people and demanding
greatness from them and pushing them. You don't just roll out of bed and
become Charlie Parker you work for it. The whole idea of originality and art I
think is really sort of overrated. I think a lot of times movies are too
narrative focused I think in a weird way.
So I moved straight out to LA after Harvard and you know it was kind of as a
whim I never lived on I never been to the west coast really and so I started
writing spec scripts thriller scripts sort of Hitchcockian style stuff
I sold a spec script that got me a rewrite job and and I got or got me a
writing assignment and once I got into the right of it I tried to make it
something I could be proud of artistically but the initial impetus was
just as crass as what is hot right now I got to write something because I got a I
got to pay rent I was struggling with another script than like just sort of
flailing about with something that just you know was not really getting off the
page and wasn't really working and and in a moment of frustration I don't know
exactly what the what the trajectory was but my mind flashed back as it often did
too because I still have like monthly nightmares about being on stage and
being you know not knowing the chart or losing the temporal you know missing the
beat or slowing down rushing or dragging and it occurred to me that you know that
there might be a subject for a movie there about you know hopefully not just
about jazz drumming but about that kind of power dynamic and whether it can ever
be justified so then I was like thinking and and and you know I was like okay to
hell with this project that's not you know this script that it's not going
anywhere let me just see if I can sit down and
write something about this let's see if I can just take this one very specific
experience I had there's the most personal thing I'd ever written the most
embarrassing in that sense as well it's just kind of like it sounds very cliche
to say this but was definitely not kind of pouring out on the page sort of thing
and wrote it very quickly and then kind of put it in a drawer and was too like
embarrassed to show it to anyone for a while because I didn't like what it said
about myself so whiplash was written a little bit out of pragmatism the idea of
you know can I write something that's small and contained enough takes place
in a few rooms is about a world I know intimately it's something I know
something I haven't seen before something I can do for a price and
something that I could convince people that I'm the one who
should direct it cause it's my life I look back now and it was just a very
formative time for me very emotional I still have nightmares about it and it's
it's and talking to musicians mean it's it's it's it's something that all
musicians I think have a kind of version of that they've been through so I just I
just felt like it was a side of becoming a musician that hadn't really been
focused on in a while the movie was gonna be about a drummer so you
literally open with a guy drumming and and the story itself is really about the
drummer's relationship with the teacher so that's what the first scene had to be
it had to introduce the drummer the teacher and tell you exactly what that
relationship was gonna be and then the rest of the movie could basically just
very you know riff on that theme but I like the idea of basically having an
entire movie within the opening scene of a movie my little and my little kind of
joke that I don't know if people get is yeah his actual name is naming but uh
Fletcher just decides to Neiman which is just to me it's like it's that further
tiny way of just seeing our Neiman sounds a little more a little more
reductive a little more small something to call you Neiman what's your name
and your name is Sir we got a squeaker today people Neiman 19 years old his
knee q I think especially also because it's a world that most people reading
the script didn't know weren't familiar with there was a lot more explanation
that was kind of needed on the page then we wound up needing in the script and
there's also often you know these kind of questions whenever you have movies
about people who are sort of driven to to do something you know it's you often
get the question of well why are they you know why does someone want to be the
greatest this or why someone wanted everyone I've always found those
questions kind of silly because it's it's it's so impossible to reduce you
know down to sort of you know there used to be stuff I used to try to write stuff
of like Andrew seen some like some drummer playing and like giving a speech
about how like how it moved him and all this sort of stuff and it's just it just
read so phony you know it it's I knew I knew myself as either a
filmmaker as a drummer and I don't like it's just I as a movie maker I don't
remember ever not wanting to make movies so I can't tell you what when I actually
serve changed and as a drummer it actually felt all incredibly arbitrary
in a way it felt like it was a product with the environment I was in that made
me want to be a great drummer so that's I think a lot of it just kind of wound
up getting cut for that I try to die drunk broke at 34 and have people at a
dinner table talk about me then live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody
remember who I was beginning in the end of the movie we're always pretty much
like I knew exactly the first image in the movie and I knew what the last image
the movie would be they're they're running they're bookend images they're
the same things it's a push in on an tree drumming and then everything in
between I think sort of wound up wound up taking shape as I wrote it's hard to
begin a script without knowing exactly what the ending is going to be not just
in and not just in broad sort of structural strokes X Y Z will happen but
literally what the last image is gonna be what the last sound in the movie is
gonna be what literally what the feeling you want in the theater when it cuts to
black is gonna be it's more interesting to me to kind of find ways to resolve
storytelling beats without words and through through other forms whether it's
just images or just music so I knew that you know I knew I wanted to make a movie
that would end with more or less 15 20 minutes of nothing but music and then I
worked backwards from there there are no two words in the English language more
harmful than good job the first draft of the script was
probably like 130 pages or something and and then it was about really honing it
down really sort of figuring out what the heart that was at the heart that was
about these two these two people their relationship and what the music means to
them came about shedding pages and tightening and figuring out what the
heart of it was and getting down to you know about 90 or 100 pages which is what
we shot and then we cut it even further in the editing room but it's it's a it
was definitely a process of winnowing down to the core that ultimately was the
biggest question for me that you know I wanted to try to try to grapple with in
the movie as to what extent to the ends justify the means to what extent are we
willing to kind of put up with monstrous behavior in the name of something we
believe in like the drum solo at the end you know at what point does that
outweigh the costs you know and so that's why I was very important you know
both in the moment with the dad but also everything leading out in a way the
entire movie had to lead up to those last moments at the end it had to all be
kind of a prelude to that and it had to be a very kind of blunt sort of totally
unflinching look at the costs of what sort of you know of what that moment at
the end was because otherwise it's it's otherwise I think it it is too sweet a
victory and I wanted it to be as unsweet a victory as possible what is the price
of success worth and how do you even define what success is is success
leading a happy healthy life and being a good person or a success kind of leaving
something behind for people who never knew you to appreciate there's a sort of
dinner table scene in the middle of the movie that kind of was my sort of
attempt to hash out sort of almost vocally that kind of argument in both
sides of it I think it's clear the didn't air until a scene where I fall
but uh but I also wanted to make sure that the movie itself went enough to the
extreme that that it made even that decision a tough one to swallow so
Fletcher's methods I think missed the point to an extent but they sometimes
work in a limited context and so that to me was the dilemma was are we willing to
put up with the ugliness in order to achieve that fleeting moment of beauty I
do think there's something to be said for not coddling people and and
demanding greatness from them and pushing them I just think I think
Fletcher's philosophy is is very compelling I think it's his it's
his methods that I think make the difference and and that I don't agree
with necessarily one two three one two three or dragging Russia so you do know
the difference it's funny how much compliments you can get by thoroughly
ripping a director off and I've always been a big believer and to me Scorsese
is the great example of this that it's okay to rip off that that you know that
you you got to rip it off though you can't just borrow you can't just you
can't just try different clothes on it's fine to plunder people's houses but but
steal it for yourself and steal it don't don't don't give it back
certainly I came to movies through a love of movies so the movie buff in me
informs informs the movies that I want to pillage from I think a lot of people
sometimes have a problem with that kind of approach to filmmaking it seems
like a film students approach or it seems like a you know and and scooped
Scorsese early in his career he's not the only one to have sort of gotten
flack for that kind of approach but the whole idea of originality and art I
think is really sort of overrated I think it's a it's a kind of a post 19th
century idea to me the great you know the greatest art is and actually jazz is
a great example of this it's taken pre-existing art and and adding your
spend to it it's updating it would you want to go out with me please go away
I knew there'd be three three sequences with with Nicole with with this
character and and that Andrew would be in a very different spot in each three
sequences and the first sequence is is Andrew the beginning the movie who is
again the sort of wide-eyed child who is just needing approval and is naive and
the second scene is is Andrews now at a moment where he's he's he's starting to
gain a certain bit more of confidence but there's still a lot of humanity to
him you know and so it's maybe a moment where they
can actually kind of meet in the middle it's like the most hopeful scene of the
movie I think and it really does represent the road that he could take
that the sort of looks they give each other at the very end to me is sort of
that's what I was kind of hoping to communicate is that there's there there
is a door open from there if he chooses to go through it but then by the time
we're at the third scene he's become a mini Fletcher
you know he's essentially I mean I really do believe that you know bullies
beget bullies and abuse but gets abuse and that Andrew winds up carrying out
the same exactly the same without even realizing it subconsciously carrying out
exactly the same behavior that's been targeted at him onto not just Nicole but
his dad and everyone who cares about him I think a lot of times movies are to
kind of work to narrative focused I think in a weird way on when it comes to
movies and if you go see an opera if you go see Don Giovanni or something if
you're sitting there kind of you know really thinking about spending all your
time thinking about the the plot points you're missing literally the music which
is the point and I think I think in film there should be stuff where film just
becomes film and and hopefully the story supports that the story gives you
certainly I think the end of the movie wouldn't work without it's just a music
video without the without the kind of narrative apparatus but to me narrative
is a means to an end it's a means to kind of give you those sort of cathartic
moments where it just becomes about image and sound I wanted to make a movie
here where this kids not a genius at the outset and he's not necessarily going to
be a great musician at the outset and we just see him really put in the work and
you know whether it pays off for now that's really kind of up for us to
decide because certainly there's a cost involved but but it's it's I think it's
important to show work you know that that I think that's something that that
movies don't always show you don't just roll out of bed and become Charlie
Parker you you work for it
hey this is the Amaya Jourdan the creator of behind the curtain if you'd
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