Watched: Whiplash (2014).
I like that this film largely reserved judgment of Terence Fletcher, the acerbic, unhinged and utterly unpleasant conductor and bandleader played by J. K. Simmons. A worse version of this film would have taken the final scene - where Andrew (Miles Teller), suffering onstage humiliation, goes back out and performs the set of his life while mouthing fuck you at Fletcher, only to have Fletcher give in and follow his lead - and made it considerably more prescriptive in terms of viewer perception. Instead, at the end of the piece, the screen cuts to black, and the credits roll. And you’re floored, even though you’re not sure why, yet.
As for what it has to say about “cultivating art”, here’s my take: the relationship that’s displayed here, which largely consists of Fletcher displaying immense hostility to ensure only those who can never be discouraged stick around, is definitely one way of producing great artists, but I think the film reserves judgment in making any grand declarations about how great artists are produced on a more general level. I think the film wants us to find Fletcher interesting, and fascinating, and capable of extracting greatness, but I don’t think it necessarily wants us to buy that his method (as he declares) is something that can be applied as a general rule. The world that Andrew and Terence inhabit is not a happy one. There is an edge and a ferocity to their work, but edge and ferocity aren’t the only modes of artistic expression.
I think what I’m trying to say is that Terence Fletcher would make a really shitty creative writing instructor. And that he holds some views about gay people and women that belong firmly in the 1970s.