Are you willing to drink and take drugs, break up your family at the age of 34, and become the topic of conversation at other people's dinner tables, or live to the age of 90 with a red face, but no one remembers you?
For 19-year-old Andrew Neiman, he would rather have his family broken than be left in obscurity.
In order to be able to become a great, legendary jazz drummer, practicing drumming every day is a must.
The Emperor's heavens paid off. His nightly practice finally caught the attention of Fletcher, the school's top jazz orchestra instructor.
The story of "Burst Drummer" also begins here.
It is the second feature film of the youngest Oscar winner for Best Director to date, Damien Chazere.
Like Nolan, Damien Chazere had a black-and-white film that was almost single-handedly completed before he officially left the mountain.
He was already working with Justin Hévíz, one for filming, one for the soundtrack, and his debut film "Guy and Madeleine on the Park Bench" in 2009 was the prototype of the later "Philharmonic City".
The early films were all about music because Damien Chazere was a music player in high school.
He indulged in jazz drums, practiced hard, and upgraded all the way.
Originally, when he entered the university, he had a good chance to enter a professional conservatory, but at the end of his musical career, he chose to give up and pursue a major in visual and environmental studies.
Admitted to Harvard University.
"Burst Drummer" explains why he chose to give up the music path, and after working in the film and television industry for a few days, he decided to make this script into a long film.
Because of his shallow qualifications and poor market prospects for music films, he could not get investment, so he first made a short film, and when he got the award, he had the capital to achieve his goal.
The story of "The Burst Drummer" is the story of Damien Chazere, and Andrew is the Damien Chazere who was obsessed with drumming in high school.
It's a semi-autobiographical film.
Referring to damien Chazere's experience, we can see that this is not a cliché, inspirational film that teaches people to bravely pursue their dreams.
In an interview, Damien Chazere revealed that in addition to his own experience, Darren Aronofsky's "The King of Wrestling" and "Black Swan" also inspired him.
(Black Swan, 2010)
Randy, Nina, Andrew, the three protagonists in the pursuit of their dreams, are crazy, persistent, they are derailed from real life, fully immersed in the project they love.
They all ended up with a perfect show, bearing the physical and mental limits.
When watching "Wrestling King", the audience should mostly recognize Randy's desperate fall, because he tried to return to real life before coming to the ultimate realization of "born for wrestling, died for wrestling".
When watching "Black Swan", for Nina's "fire into the magic", the recognition and opposition may be half of them. After all, the end of the movie is a tragedy, is it worth paying for a show?
When watching "Burst Drummer", there is no doubt that most people's answer is that the human world is not worth it.
Because of the presence of Fletcher, the devil's teacher, all of Andrew's efforts seemed worthless, and the process of pursuing his dreams overflowed with pain and torment.
The short and feature film versions of Fletcher are played by J. K. Simmons, this kind of strong role that is too intimidating to be able to move is too suitable for him, the newspaper owner in the old version of "Spider-Man" is just a small test, this time he was able to release all his passion and take away the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in one fell swoop.
Fletcher's serial rant may seem a bit of a raucous, but without his frightening power of shock, the power of the film would have been greatly diminished, and Andrew's short-term transformation arc would not have been so convincing.
Both of the plot branches arranged by Damien Chazere shaped Andrew very well.
As can be seen from the family line, Andrew has his own pursuits and does not want others to look down on him. If he doesn't care about the eyes of others, he won't be excited to refute at all, "exposing" his great ambitions and making himself look different from everyone here.
As can be seen from the love line, Andrew is a relatively introverted and shy boy.
When he and Nicole were dating, he didn't know how to start a topic, and both times it was Nicole who broke the awkward silence.
Incidentally, Melissa Bennoy, who plays Nicole, has become a superwoman in the DC series.
Nicole said he was always staring at the floor, and his dad said he didn't know how to make eye contact with people, which confirmed that he wasn't good at dealing with people, didn't have any friends, let alone bubble girls.
Note that Andrew made the appointment request immediately after being promoted by Fletcher. It may be that Damien Chazere is suggesting that Andrew was encouraged and self-confident to do so.
He is a boy who needs the affirmation and encouragement of others.
However, Fletcher was not a mentor who liked to use incentive policies.
He felt that self-satisfaction would wear down a person's fighting spirit, so when Andrew was triumphant after receiving two praises, he deliberately made it difficult and scolded him.
It's not that the rhythm is wrong, it's that he feels good about himself.
A dream teenager who longs for recognition and needs encouragement meets a devil teacher who only knows how to fight and insult, which is bound to be a tragedy.
Watching Andrew spend every day in anxiety and fear, and not even smiling much when dating the girl he likes, you can probably see why Damien Chazere chose to give up.
Do what you like, you should enjoy, enjoy it, no matter how boring and hard the training is, grit your teeth and hold on, you can also have a feeling of relief.
After Andrew met Fletcher, the jazz drums could no longer be his enjoyment, but instead became a nightmare.
He has obviously worked hard to the extreme, but in exchange for "failure" again and again.
Just like playing games repeatedly without passing the level, people are in adversity for a long time, often prone to becoming irritable and irritable, and need to vent their anger by smashing the keyboard.
Andrew, who was originally shy and talked little, gradually began to become grumpy, and in addition to playing drums, he also cultivated Fletcher's intimidating skills.
A good boy was tortured with a twisted personality, and Fletcher was naturally considered to be the culprit.
On Douban, comments that insulted Fletcher's ideas received high praise.
There are even bad reviews because they feel that the values of the film are distorted and insult jazz.
It can only be said that because of the problem of ideological concepts, the audience who feel that the film is in favor of Fletcher, and the audience who gives a bad review, is caused by a deviation in understanding.
The audience's understanding of deviations is not necessarily the audience's problem, but more often because of the director.
For Fletcher, Damien Chazerre believes that his philosophy is not all wrong, and for competing, Fletcher's way of educating is easier to achieve results.
So he did not specifically criticize Fletcher and turn Fletcher into a facial villain, but gave him a human side. Present the story as objectively as possible and provide space for reflection.
Fletcher and Andrew meet again at the bar, a passage that reinforces Fletcher and serves as a thematic discussion.
Fletcher told Andrew the story of Charlie Parker and explained his teaching philosophy.
He is not completely unreasonable, and the person who can never give up in the face of adversity is more likely to complete self-transcendence. It is human nature to seek comfort, and it is difficult to break through the limit without forcing yourself.
"I will never apologize for how hard I tried."
This slightly inspirational line shows that he never felt that he was wrong. For the "accident" of his students, although he felt guilty, he refused to apologize.
It was in the extreme environment where there was no way back that Andrew finally completed his self-transcendence.
From Fletcher's point of view, "Burst Drummer" is not a tragedy.
He had always longed for him to be able to train the next Charlie Parker, and Andrew, like Charlie Parker, completed the best performance of his life after countless setbacks.
He helped Andrew hold up the shelf, which meant that he let go of his hatred, and the two completed the concerto artistically, and he gained his own Charlie Parker.
It's just that for Andrew, even if he lets go of his hatred, the shadow that Fletcher brings is lingering.
This is also the shadow in damien Chazere's mind.
The shadow that led him to abandon music and embark on the path of directing.
As some critics have said, jazz was ruined, not by the film, but by Fletcher's pathological ideas in the play.
Music is not a sports competition, it is okay to go to hell training and improve the proficiency of the instrument, but to improve artistic achievement, you need to combine your own experience and feelings.
The job of the performer is not to play the score with an instrument, but to integrate emotion into every note. Instruments without souls, playing are not called music, only sounds.
Andrew did technically complete his self-transcendence in the end, but he lost himself.
He forgot what he was playing for.
He was humiliated by Fletcher, and he felt angry and depressed. He was unwilling, for the sake of his own face, in order to give out a bad breath, he opened up and let go of himself.
Fletcher's way of education is utilitarian, practicing musical instruments is to achieve a certain goal, which is the same thing as learning for the sake of scores, all day long only know to be the best, but forget that the fundamental purpose of going to school is actually to learn knowledge.
In order to meet Fletcher's requirements, Andrew gradually forgot his original love of music. Fletcher subtly obliterated his original soul of love of music, he no longer played for music, he only played to satisfy Fletcher, for the so-called merit.
For Damien Chazere, who truly loves music, and his audience, "The Drummer" is a complete tragedy.