Whiplash is a 2014 movie drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It tells the story of Andrew Neiman, a talented young drummer who is attending a prestigious conservatory and studying jazz. He is taken under the wing of a brilliant and admired professor who is respected but abusive; despite this extreme abuse, the two form a strange but strong relationship as the professor pushes him to achieve his goal of becoming "one of the greats." The atmosphere of abuse created by Professor Fletcher also creates a "survival of the fittest" mentality within the members of the music program and within Fletcher's band in particular. Andrew comes to understand that Fletcher's expectations for his students extend way beyond their musical talents and that his exacting standards are for the purpose of seeing his students excel.
Whiplash is Damien Chazelle's second movie. It started as an eighteen-minute short film, and exactly one year later, Chazelle made a full-length version. The movie was shot in just nineteen days. The film built momentum gradually, and eventually grossed 49 million dollars. At the 87th Academy Awards it won three awards including Best Supporting Actor for J.K. Simmons. In his review of the film, Brian Tallerico wrote, "Damien Chazelle has taken a relatively staid subject like the relationship between a music student and his teacher and turned it into a thriller built on a brilliant undercurrent of social commentary about what it takes to make it in an increasingly competitive and cutthroat world."
