oscars Archives — Kyle A. Massa

I somehow made it through awards season without seeing many of the Academy Award Nominated films. Maybe I’ve been playing too much Fire Emblem: Awakening with the shades drawn. Anyway, I’ve gradually started to see more of them. Last night, Whiplash became the latest.

The film stars Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman, an ambitious jazz drummer at a competitive music conservatory, and J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher, an emotionally abusive music teacher. The film centers on the relationship between Neiman and Fletcher, examining Neiman’s thirst for greatness that is only swollen by Fletcher’s search for extraordinary talent.

Though Teller delivers an excellent performance, Simmons really steals the show (I mean, he did win the Oscar). Anyone can yell and scream obscenities, but Simmons balances those scenes with kind, almost touching moments of humanity. In one scene, for example, Neiman glimpses his teacher meeting with a friend and his daughter backstage before a show. Fletcher says to his friend’s daughter, “I’m so sorry, can I have your autograph?” And then later, “What do you say, you ready for Carnegie Hall?” It’s not said with the biting sarcasm he uses elsewhere in the film, though; it’s a surprisingly sweet scene.

Simmons’s Terence Fletcher is certainly a villain; there’s no questioning that. But, like any truly good villain, he’s still a person.

There’s another telling scene toward the end of the film in which Fletcher reveals his teaching style to Neiman. He says, “…it’s about pushing people beyond what’s expected of them. And I believe that is a necessity. Because without it you’re depriving the world of its next Armstrong. Its next Parker.” And then comes the line that probably encapsulates the character best: “There are no two words more harmful in the entire English language than ‘good job.'”

It’s an amazing scene because Fletcher justifies his aggressive teaching style. And though we as the audience probably didn’t understand him before (when he was slapping students, hurling chairs at them, and forcing them to play into the late hours of the morning), we might understand him now. This is the mark of an excellent fictional villain: one who commits reprehensible acts, yet reasonably justifies her/his actions.

Now I don’t want to diss the classic evil dude archetype. The Anton Chigurhs, Saurons, and Freddy Kruegers of film and literature are often just as awesome as their more rounded counterparts. But that sort of villain is seen less and less in modern stories. Filmgoers and readers seem far more interested in villains like Terence Fletcher, speaking generally. Guys like The Joker, Jaime Lannister, and Hans Landa are popular villains for a reason. It’s because people seem to be looking for villains with well-rounded psychologies and compelling motives for their evil acts.

Whiplash certainly doesn’t pass judgment on Fletcher’s actions either way. In fact, at the end of the film, Neiman does become Fletcher’s greatest student.

And when the villain helps the hero achieve his dreams, you’ve got to admit…that’s a new (and pretty cool) kind of villain.

Martin Luther King Jr.

“Do you love me?”

You might not remember this scene from Ava DuVerney’s Selma, but it certainly stuck with me. Coretta Scott King (played by Carmen Ejogo) confronts her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo) with this very question. King responds with a quick, “Yes.”

“Do you love any of the others?” Coretta asks. Dr. King’s eyes bounce around the room nervously, and a painfully long silence passes before he croaks, “No.” Coretta leaves the room, and the scene ends.

It’s a powerful moment that’s well-acted on both sides. But what really struck me about that scene, and really most of the film, was this: how much of it is actually accurate to history?

There have been plenty of articles written on this very subject, many of which express disappointment over “historical inaccuracies” in the film. A lot of people are specifically upset about the depiction of President Lyndon B. Johnson. For context, in Selma, Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson) is portrayed as a mostly unwilling participant in the equal rights movement, preferring instead to focus upon other issues and push King’s agenda back to the following year. Joseph A. Califano Jr., Johnson’s Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, claimed that the filmmakers felt “free to fill the screen with falsehoods, immune from any responsibility to the dead, just because they thought it made for a better story.”

I agree with Mr. Califano in one respect at least. It did make for a better story.

When it comes to adaptations of any kind, many people seem to be so preoccupied with what happened. It seems like every historical fiction film or novel that comes out has people complaining that it’s not accurate, or that the artist changed too much. But that’s what it’s called historical fiction. As Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his afterword to Lolita, “It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author.” In other words, don’t consume fiction and expect to learn any facts about anything.

Let’s say Selma did not portray the King/Johnson relationship with such strong conflict. Let’s imagine a film in which Johnson is fully on board with Dr. King’s plans. That’s a story without conflict, and, without conflict, you don’t have much of a story.

I suppose I understand why people close to the issue might be so upset. Indeed, there’s sometimes a certain presumptive quality to a piece of historical fiction, an unspoken suggestion that this was the way it really happened. But writer/director Ava DuVerney addressed the topic thusly, and I couldn’t agree more: “[Selma is] not a documentary. I’m not a historian. I’m a storyteller.”

Indeed, Selma is not a documentary. It is historical fiction. Perhaps we should remember that fiction is meant to entertain, to tell a compelling story, to make the audience think, and to make the audience feel. Even if a work of fiction is based on real-life occurrences, the artists allegiance should not lie with absolute truth; it should lie with the story.

Tag: oscars

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