Character Analysis: Terence Fletcher
By Chantal Chabla Urgiles ('24)
The movie Whiplash is a 2014 movie that won a multitude of awards for its great music, acting, and cinematography. The cast is filled with incredible actors, specifically, J.K. Simmons, who plays one of the most important characters; Terence Fletcher, the antagonist in the movie. Arguably one of the most important characters is Terence Fletcher; without him there would be no Whiplash. Let me explain. Fletcher is the villainous maestro or conductor in the Shaffer Conservatory's competing studio band in New York City. Throughout the movie we see Fletcher openly humiliate his students in order to make them bend to his will. He justifies this behavior with his reasoning being that he tries to get his students to be the best version of themselves and although it works, his methods to achieve this are quite concerning.
On the other side, the protagonist Andrew Neiman is an ambitious young music student who dreams of becoming the greatest jazz drummer in the world, just like Buddy Rich. He ends up being part of the conductor competing studio band run by Terence Fletcher. When Andrew gets invited to join the studio band by Fletcher,. In an early opening move in Fletcher's attempts to bend Neiman to his will, he tells him to show up to rehearsal at 6:00 A.M even though rehearsals didn't even begin until 9:00 A.M. Later on, We catch our first glimpse of Terence Fletcher using abusive tactics when he intimidates a student into a false confession of being out of tune. After humiliating the student and kicking him out of the band, he says that knowing whether or not one was out of tune wasn’t that big of a deal. This situation is similar to one of Terence Fletcher's methods of establishing his dominance over Neiman before putting him on the drums to see what he can do.
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Without any ties to the music industry, Fletcher understands that Neiman is solely relying on his approval alone to achieve what he wants, thus giving Fletcher the chance to assert a position of total authority over his career trajectory. Fletcher continues on with his dominance as in one scene, Neiman plays out of tempo while playing the drums, causing Fletcher to get annoyed. He then proceeds to stop Neiman from playing and tries to get him at the right tempo. Neiman starts playing again and tries to achieve the right tempo but Fletchers stops him again.
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This goes back and forth for a while until Fletcher, angered by Neiman's inability to play the drums at the correct tempo, throws a chair at Neiman's head. Fletcher asks Neiman why he assumed that he threw a chair at his head and Neiman supposes it's the tempo. In an attempt to escape his responsibility of taking the blame for throwing the chair at Neiman, Fletcher starts screaming "look what you made me do'. A now-stunned Neiman begins to stutter, sweat, and become completely and utterly nerve-racked. To worsen the situation, Fletcher begins slapping Neiman in front of the entire ensemble. The whole scene is extremely baffling as a 50-year-old man is showcased beating his tempo into this 19-year-old's psyche while screaming in his face.
The next tactic Fletcher uses against Neiman is Humiliation. And when he finally begins crying, Fletcher knows he has succeeded at what he intended to do in the first place, which was to completely and utterly break his student down to tears and then embarrass him in front of the entire ensemble before removing him from the drums. By doing so, Fletcher achieves his goal of stripping Neiman of his humanity to mold him into the type of musician he wants him to be, rather than the type of musician he actually is.
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The next time Neiman is showcased to the audience, he is utterly broken and devastated as he practices the drums until his hands begin to bleed. This scene shows the theme of the "no pain, no gain" mentality. Similarly in the artistic and athletic field as well, there seems to be a theme in these fields that a person must be broken down before proceeding with their career in order to achieve greatness. Whiplash takes this theme to extreme levels, the movie tries to tell that this idea can have lasting impacts on a person, as seen through the character of Neiman.
After Terence Fletcher's assault, we observe Andrew Neiman's downward spiral into a pattern of unhealthy behaviors that end up separating him from his family, friends, and romantic pursuits throughout the movie. Fletcher decides to bring another drummer in to compete for Neiman's spot on the band, forcing three different drummers to play for hours, until the studio drum set is soaked in blood. He puts so much pressure and anxiety onto Andrew that at one point he leaves a scene of a serious car accident in which he was severely injured, just to make it to a performance on time.
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Terence Fletcher is a truly terrifying character. He is a sadistic perfectionist, who uses verbal, mental, and physical abuse on young musicians for them to do exactly what he wants and turn them into puppets of his own. JK Simmons delivers a great performance and makes a great choice incorporating Terence Fletcher into the movie. Although, JK Simmons could have made Terence Fletcher come off as being stereotypical, his decisions while building up Fletcher’s character brings layers as the more the audience sees Fletcher's eye movements and facial tics the more they begin to see the inner workings of a maniac play out through the cover of a passionate teacher. In the mind of Terence Fletcher, all of his abuse and manipulation are justified because he's trying to inspire greatness.
He abuses Neiman to the point of breaking him, his abuse pushes Neiman to his limits. At the end of the movie, we see Fletcher finally achieve what he has been longing for this whole movie, to make Neiman the best drummer he could possibly be. Although his methods of making his students great musicians are terrible, he sees progress through them, which is why he most likely would never think of another way of achieving these goals. Terrence Fletcher was such an important character in Whiplash as without him the events that occurred like pushing Neiman to become the best drummer he could become would have never happened and Whiplash would be just another boring movie.
Whiplash is just one of the many great movies in the drama and music genre, a recent movie from this genre came out in 2022 named Tár. Tár's film synopsis reads, ¨Renowned musician Lydia Tár is days away from recording the symphony that will elevate her career. When all elements seem to conspire against her, Lydia's adopted daughter Petra becomes an integral emotional support for her struggling mother." Tár has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and has won many of the major critics' awards. Although I have yet to see it, I look forward to watching it soon!
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