NYFF: J.K. Simmons brings the fury in 'Whiplash'

Whiplash

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

Starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons

J.K. Simmons loves yelling at people. (He said so during a post-screening Q&A.) But his intensity transcends mere volume; at his best, he gets at something deeper and darker, the brutality lurking in the darkest kind of humor. 

He first garnered serious attention for his role as a frighteningly serene neo-Nazi inmate in HBO's seminal hour-long drama series Oz (seriously underrated by pretty much everyone except Matt Zoller Seitz). Playing opposite a coterie of frankly less-than-stellar performers, as well as a few genuine talents (Ernie Hudson makes everything better, always), Simmons suffused each of his scenes with tangible if imperceivable menace. You could feel the tension, even as he cooed kindly to his next "girlfriend" (read: rape victim). With a wry grin and soft, caressing tone, Simmons inflicted terror never before seen on cable television. 

In Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, Simmons plays the volatile, violently neurotic newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson, a man who loathes Spider-Man as much as he loathes objective reporting. With ravished glee, Simmons  makes Jameson, perhaps the most cartoonish character in the first two Raimi films, as fiery a nemesis for Spidey as any of the maniacal madmen. Simmons isn't always all spittle-spraying fury, of course. He plays it cool as the titular character's father in Jason Reitman's acclaimed (and subsequently derided) Juno, and he lent an air of sorrow to his brief scene with George Clooney in Reitman's Up in the Air (similarly heralded and then hated).

Whiplash presents something else entirely. Neither entirely unhinged nor completely calm, his furious turn in Damien Chazelle's hugely impressive musical melodrama is the finest work of Simmons' career. For the first time he really conjures a character of copious layers, whose motivations and affinities are nebulous in the best way.

Touted by PR gurus as "Full Metal Jacket goes to Julliard" (one of the very few times a PR team has actually been accurate), Whiplash stands out among this year's New York Film Festival Main Slate, which is rife with good and great films. But nothing has this much energy, this much fervor. Chazelle, as a formalist and a raconteur, announces his presence with a choral swell. Miles Teller plays Andrew Neyman, a young prodigious jazz drummer who aspires to be the next Buddy Rich (notice that Rich is equally known for his dexterity as well as his intemperate, sometimes violent perfectionism). Andrew is a freshmen at the top-ranked musical academy in the country (it's a stand-in for Julliard). While practicing one night, he's interrupted by Terrence Fletcher, the brilliant conductor of the school's studio band. Fletcher makes good musicians into great musicians, and he tolerates nothing less than perfection. To get in Fletcher's good graces is at once an opulent opportunity for one's career, as well as a serious threat to one's mental health.

Andrew initially disappoints Fletcher, so he hits the practice room, pounding away until his hands are raw and the drum kit mottled with blood. When Andrew is invited into the studio band (all that practice having paid off), Fletcher greets him with a pons asinorum, asking him to play a brazenly difficult song Andrew's never practiced. With authoritative control, Simmons gradually amps up the intensity as Andrew tries futilely to match the tempo. Fletcher begins with, "It's okay, just try your best," but as the drumming grows more torrid, Simmons sheds the affable veneer and reveals the monstrous maestro's true nature. He tells Andrew about a time when Joe Jones, the famous drummer, threw a cymbal at Charlie Parker's head because Parker messed up. Parker, according to Fletcher's rendition of the story, consequently became great because Jones almost decapitated him.

Then Fletcher throws a chair at Andrew's head.

Andrew and Fletcher quickly develop an internecine relationship, with Fletcher hurling insults and inanimate objects at Andrew, and Andrew calling into question Fletcher's authority. Simmons spews insults with relish and ravished precision, and Teller matches him note-for-note; the way he extrapolates Andrew's veiled anguish while beating the skins at the same time is incredible. It's the kind of performance that goes under-appreciated because a) it's not as loud as Simmons', and b) it's remarkably subtle in its complexity. We genuinely like Andrew, awkwardness and all, which adds freight to the difficult decisions he has to make. 

Lively shot in 2.35, Whiplash is at once pugnacious yet deceptively cognitive. While the precise editing and wildly oscillating camerawork are almost sudorific in their intensity, Chazelle poses some pretty demanding questions regarding artistry and ethics. Miles is a good kid at the beginning of the film. That's not even a question: he still sees movies with his dad, and he's shy, almost niddering, as he asks out the cute girl who works at the movie theater popcorn bar (she says yes, after a pump-fake rejection). When he thinks he bombed his would-be audition for Fletcher, he looks genuinely upset, not angry or resentful. Instead of brooding or giving up, he works hard, spilling blood on pretty much everything he touches by the end of the film. But Whiplash ends on a syncopated note--that moment when Andrew decides, unequivocally, that he wants to be a great drummer, luxating his friends, his girlfriend, possibly even his father in order to appeal to that brilliant bully Fletcher. Fletcher finds his Charlie Parker, and Andrew finds his Joe Jones.

NYFF: '71

'71

99 minutes

Written by Gregory Burke

Directed by Yann Demange

Starring Jack O'Connell, some other people

Jack O'Connell is having a helluva year. Having already received much well-deserved praise for his staggering turn in Starred Up, O'Connell now shows what he can do in a role so underwritten he barely qualifies as a character. Using those deft facial muscles and his piercing eyes, he manages to turn a cipher into a captivating victim of misfortune, taking the lack of material and turning that nothingness into emptiness.

It's 1971 and Ireland is tearing itself apart. The military is called in to pretend they're doing something as citizens become militants and diurnal responsibilities give way to civil destruction. Private Gary (O'Connell) is thrust into the clusterfuck known as Northern Ireland in the wake of Bloody Suday. Protestants and Catholics are blowing each other up and the military wants to project a veneer of helpfulness. It's a no-win situation, but the military has to appear like they matter. When young boys greet them by tossing balloons full of pee, the soldiers respond by laughing, as they wonder aloud about the purportedly unstable situation.

Soon a crowd forms and the angry villagers proliferate. Soldiers, sans riot gear (riot gear might make them look too militant), try to calm the riotous crowd and squelch the brooding hostility, but a young boy snags a rifle from a soldier who's been knocked unconscious by an aerial rock. The boy takes off running, and Gary and his soldier friend (whose name I didn't catch) run after the boy; but the duo are knocked down by the angry mob, the friend gets shot in the face, and Gary is beaten bloody. Soon Gary is alone and lost in what his superiors passively refer to as "a confused situation." 

His character is given virtually no personality (I had to look up his name after the film ended because I couldn't remember it, and it never really mattered much), but O'Connell makes us care about Gary simply because he's so good at doing things with his face. He puts up that stoic visage required for all military types, but there's that subtle hint of something else, something hiding behind those jittering eyes. As the city around him burns and piss-filled balloons give way to rocks and bullets, the stoic facade crumbles and outright fear takes over. We know nothing about Gary, but we care about him--that's how good Jack O'Connell is in an empty role.

There's some stuff about his younger brother/son (I might have missed that detail, or else it was left ambiguous), and we do see Gary having a tender moment with the boy. This early scene leads to perhaps the only moment of genuine human warmth in the film, but it's so fleeting a moment that the constant barrage of action quickly terminates any residual emotion the scene might have engendered.

Writing for The Dissolve earlier this year, David Ehrlich called Gareth Edwards' Godzilla the first "post-human" action film. '71 arguably falls into this new non-genre, as writer Gregory Burke and director Yann Demange (making his debut at the helm of a feature film) jettison the creation of any sympathetic characters, and choose to forgo personalities all together. They rely on Jack O'Connell's dexterous face and director of photography Scott Kevan's uneasy camerawork to sustain tension. It works: the camera wavers and shakes an awful lot, but it never feels out of control or lazy; Demange immerses us in the smoldering ruins and dark of Ireland circa 1972. The air is thick with chalky remains of obliterated buildings and bodies and the echoes of bombs. Demange is also ineffably aided by some sharp, smart editing, which keeps things from getting too chaotic. The sound editing is particularly keen and deep, with bullets whizzing through the air, missing their target, becoming embedded in the still-standing brick walls, and the clattering of concrete carrion falling into piles, sending whorls of dust in the air.

As good as Demange and Kevan are at the shaky-cam chaos, they're actually better at the aftermath. (Which is odd, given the lack of character progression, but whatever.) Gary, winded and wounded, sits alone in a sordid shed, enveloped by darkness as his pursers lurk outside; O'Connell has no dialog but he sits and pants and his face contorts into this ineffably pained mess, all dirt and blood and dry salty tears. The camera lingers on him for a few long moments and, as the visceral tension thins, the emotional tension swells.

The scene that packs the headiest, heaviest visceral gut-punch, and the one that would probably adorn Demange's theoretical resume, is a one-take Steadicam shot of the mishandling of a bomb that turns a bar into an inferno and the bar's patrons into charred meat. Eschewing the usual slow-mo, quick-cut, multi-angle pandemonium of actin flicks, Demange keeps the focus on Gary, who's slow to get up (understandably), and then follows him as the freight of the situation hits him, as he enters the burning building and carries out the body of his young friend, cradling him, the music brooding and the air growing hazy. The camera keeps following Gary, the novelty of a long Steadicam shot never becoming gimmick or intrusive or distracting. After the ferocious tremors of the earlier scenes, this long unbroken connection is deeply upsetting, almost intimate.

David Holmes' score acts as consort to the action and never usurps Demange's work. Varied but consistently apt, the music goes from halcyon notes shimmer like dying lights at night to thick, gauzy bass thumps and gently-picked guitar arpeggios. Sometimes it sounds like Explosions in the Sky-lite, but the lack of distinct aural personality kind of works in the film's favor. Identities are nebulous entities here, so why should the music be any different?

As '71 goes on it develops into a sort of espionage thriller, replete with long desolate halls where someone is always lurking around the corner. The dauntless camera is tranquilized, the music almost serene. Something resembling a plot gradually emerges, as Gary unknowingly ends up in an entwinement of treachery. The notions of terrorism, loyalty, and morality are nebulous at best. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys," just so many victims willing to shoot a friend in the back of the head in order to stay alive. It doesn't really come together as a coherent whole, but Jack O'Connell's performance and the aesthetic dexterity on display make '71 better than average.

3.5 / 5

'71 is playing as part of NYFF's main slate on Saturday, Sept 27 at 6:00 pm and Sunday, sept 28 at 6:00 pm

NYFF: Misunderstood

Misunderstood (Incompresa)

2014

103 minutes

Written and Directed by Asia Argento

Starring Giulia Salerno, Charlotte Gainsburg, Gabriel Garko, Alice Pea

 

It's difficult to talk about Aria Argento without mentioning her cult-icon father, Dario, master of technicolor massacre and progenitor of giallo. I don't want to always talk about Dario when I'm talking about Asia--as with Sofia Coppola, certain bitter parties will always use accusations of nepotism to knock a young, ambitious female filmmaker down a peg or two, and that's definitely not what I''m trying to do here; but diiscussing Dario, however briefly, is pretty much necessary with Misunderstood. It's a film about Asia and her father, or rather a film about Asia's memories of childhood. Asia Argento transcribes her youth with lyrical energy, and a welcome disregard for realism; we experience a world of barbarous adults and drug-addled parties via the precocious Aria (Giulia Salerno, who has the innocent stare thing down to a science), a 9-year-old whose parents couldn't care less about her, and whose siblings only acknowledge Aria when they're blaming her for something or tormenting her. Aria finds solace in her black cat, which she names Dac, though he often appears to be plotting his eventual escape (the cat doesn't run away, alas, the film can only heave so many emotional trauma upon poor Aria). When Aria writes an award-winning essay about her cat being her only friend, her parents don't show up for the ceremony.

Misunderstood, while highly stylized and feverish in its depiction of neglectful adults, feels like creative non-fiction. With brazen passion and a deft display of tonal mania, Aria Argento conjures a fleeting, fiery fantasy of emotional abuse and loneliness in the form of a young girl and her awful life: her father (Gabriel Gerko, who certainly appears to be having fun), a rich and famous actor (he looks more like a sexy young Val Kilmer than Dario Argento), and her mother (Charlotte Gainsburg, always enthralling), whose penchant for inebriation is apparently only equaled by her penchant for men. Aria's father is highly superstitious and puts his career so far before his family it's beyond comical. Instead of creating characters who have running jokes, Argento creates characters that are defined by their running joke, boiling them down to the essence that a 9-year-old would most likely remember. Argento threads every obscene moment of filial abuse with dry, tar-black humor. Every time you think the father is the worse parent, you''re reminded that the mother is similarly awful: she does little to alleviate Aria's swelling emotional anxiety, and a constantly revolving cast of men of varying ages, appearances, and cultural identities weave in and out of her house (the interior decorations change aptly with each new ephemeral partner). 

Everything and everyone here is a caricature save for Aria, but there are moments of searing beauty strewn about like so many discarded toys or garments in a messy room: Aria offers her own understanding of love and sex with Barbie dolls in a scene stricken with youthful ignorance. Aided by sharp editing and creative use of practical effects, she shows the dolls meeting, courting, and making love, the latter of which swiftly turns into a rape fantasy consorted by lighting flashes and ominous music. It takes less than a minute total, but the scene so wonderfully captures Aria's long-corrupted innocence, and juxtaposes with the horrors of her reality. There's arguably more love present in the doll rape scene than any moment in Aria's life.

It's not for all tastes and it suffers from lapses in identity, but Misunderstood has an an abundance of passion. Like last year's little-seen NYFF selection My Name is Hmmm... the film is an unflinching and stylish look at childhood malaise. But Misunderstood is also a far less insufferable film than My Name is Hmmm..., more self-aware, if similarly unrestrained. Argento certainly has a distinct, discernible vision here, as well as the aesthetic tastes to match: colors erupt on screen (the one undeniable stylistic similarity she shares with her father), and the score, a surging selection of New Wave and punk-inflicted rock, is stellar. The squalor of distorted guitars and the steady pulse of '80s-derived synth lines work well with the post-punk attitude in which Argento steeps her film. Misunderstood is hip and sultry, a manic display of childhood terror filtered through the desperately lonely eyes of youth, and it doesn't really hit a false note until the final moment, when Aria stares the viewer straight in the face and asks us to be nicer. It's a poor-me scene that would send Livia Soprano into hysterics. Just try to ignore that final minute.   

3.5 / 5

Misunderstood has its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival Saturday, Sept 27, 12 p.m.