Summary
In the practice room, the pianist tells Andrew not to touch his folder, implying that they all think Andrew stole the other drummer’s folder in order to get the opportunity to play. Shrugging it off, Andrew takes his seat beside the drummer who tells him, “Do not touch this kit.” When Fletcher enters, he tells the drummer that he is now Andrew’s alternate. The drummer, whose name is Tanner, looks horrified as Andrew takes his place. Andrew smirks as they begin to play.
Later, on a bus, Andrew watches a drumming video on his phone. He gets a text message from Nicole telling him to call her when he’s back. At his dad’s house, Andrew tells his dad that Studio Band is going well and that Fletcher likes him more now. “His opinion means a lot to you,” says his dad, and Andrew agrees.
Andrew sits around the dinner table with his dad and some family friends. When his aunt asks him how drumming is going, he announces that he’s the new core drummer at school. His good news is overshadowed by the arrival of one of his cousins. When he repeats that he’s the new core drummer at his school, and the youngest member of his band, his cousin asks if the evaluations at his school are “subjective.” “No,” says Andrew, simply, and everyone seems lukewarm in their support. When everyone praises his cousin’s accomplishments as an athlete, Andrew points out that his team is in a lower division.
“Do you have any friends, Andy?” his uncle asks, and Andrew tells him that he doesn’t because he “never really saw the use.” When his uncle questions it, Andrew tells him, “Charlie Parker didn’t know anybody till Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head.” When his uncle questions whether that’s a road to success, Andrew talks back, telling him that Charlie Parker was the greatest musician of the 20th century, and that even though Parker had a tragic life, at least he didn’t die in obscurity. “Is that what this is about? You think you’re better than us?” his cousin asks. Andrew continues to argue with them, but his dad tries to bring him down to earth by mentioning that Andrew hasn’t gotten a job offer from Lincoln Center yet.
We see Andrew playing with the Studio Band. After rehearsal, Fletcher asks to speak to Andrew alone. He shows him some music with a double-time swing. “That’s what got you in here, right?” he asks Andrew, and Andrew agrees. Abruptly Fletcher tells Andrew he heard another young person practicing late at night and decided to give him a shot. Ryan, from Andrew’s former band, pops his head in and says hello.
Fletcher tells the two boys he’s going to give them each a chance at the chart to see who’s better, before instructing Andrew to sit down at the drum set. Andrew begins to play, but Fletcher stops him, telling him he’s not on the right tempo. He then invites Ryan to take a stab at it, despite Andrew’s desire to try again. Ryan plays it perfectly and Fletcher offers for him to be the new core drummer. Andrew yells, “That shit?!” indignantly, and Fletcher leaves the room to take a call.
Following Fletcher into his office, Andrew tells him he can play the charts, but Fletcher screams at him, “Not now! If you want the part, earn it.” Andrew leaves in a huff.
The scene shifts and we see Andrew and Nicole at a diner. He tells her that he cannot see her anymore, that he foresees that he will get too committed to drumming and neglect their relationship. “For those reasons I’d rather just break it off clean, 'cause I want to be great,” he says. “And I would stop you from doing that?” she asks. “Yeah,” he replies coldly. Nicole begins to get angry, saying, “And when I do see you, you'd treat me like shit because I'm just some girl who doesn't know what she wants. And you have a path, and you're gonna be great, and I'm going to be forgotten, and therefore you won't be able to give me the time of day because you have bigger things to pursue?” He agrees with this assessment, and Nicole leaves angrily.
Andrew practices the song “Caravan” at night. At one point, he grows so angry that he punches through his drum and his hand bleeds. He submerges his bloody hand in ice water, which quickly becomes red. As he drums, he yells abusive things at his drum set.
The next day, Fletcher introduces Ryan to the band, before telling everyone to put their instruments down. He puts a CD on and asks everyone to listen, before launching into a monologue about his experience plucking young players to be in Studio Band. He talks about one student who was discouraged by other faculty members, but in whom Fletcher believed, and who went on to become a great jazz musician at Lincoln Center. That’s the CD they’re listening to, and the musician’s name is Sean Casey. Fletcher appears teary-eyed as he announces to the class that Sean died the previous day in a car accident. “I want you guys to know he was a beautiful player,” says Fletcher, weeping.
The band plays “Caravan,” but Ryan screws up early, so Fletcher subs in Andrew. When Andrew doesn’t do it correctly either, Fletcher subs in Tanner, who also screws up. Fletcher screams and puts Ryan back on the drums. “We’ll stay here as long as it takes until one of you faggots can play in time,” Fletcher says. Ryan and Andrew both fail, when Fletcher tells everyone to take ten while he waits for someone to get the drum part right.
Later in the night, we see Fletcher coaching Andrew through playing. “No wonder mommy ran out on you, get off the fucking kit,” he says. After making several homophobic comments about Andrew, Fletcher invites Tanner to try, but he fails too. They all keep failing, when Andrew tries his hand. Fletcher yells at him to keep up the tempo as Andrew plays furiously. Eventually, Fletcher throws a drum against the wall, yelling “Faster!” Andrew plays and plays until Fletcher cuts him off. Deeming Andrew’s playing sufficient, Fletcher invites the other players in. It’s almost 2 in the morning.
The players leave late at night and Fletcher tells them to be at the competition at 5PM the following day. Andrew looks defeated as he walks home through the shadows.
The next day, the day of the Dunellen Competition, we see Andrew on the bus looking at his chart and preparing. Suddenly, the bus gets a flat tire and they are delayed. Standing on the side of the road, Andrew looks anxiously at his phone. He tries to get a cab, but it will take him longer than he expects, so he rents a car. On his way, one of his bandmates calls and asks where he is. Andrew tells him he’s almost there as he speeds down the road, screaming into the phone and slamming down on the accelerator.
Analysis
In this section of the film, we see the ways that Andrew feels like a “black sheep” in his family, and the ways they don’t appreciate his talents. As they sit around the dinner table, his aunt and uncle ask him about his accomplishments at school, but seem less than impressed. Rather, they are relieved that he is doing well in school. His cousins, on the other hand, are jocks and scholars, whose accomplishments are easier to measure. The tension between Andrew’s skills and the skills of his more popular and “normal” cousins is epitomized by the moment when his cousin asks him if his teacher’s evaluations of his skills are “subjective” or not, suggesting that he thinks less of non-objective evaluations.
As unappreciative as his family is, Andrew does little to try and reach through and connect with them. In fact, as the conversation unfolds, Andrew postures with a certain amount of arrogance, and suggests that he is better and nobler than his family members because he has ambitions to become the greatest. In making the comparison between Charlier Parker—an iconic jazz musician who died of a drug addiction—and his cousins, who he imagines will die in obscurity, Andrew reveals that being “great” is more important to him than connecting with others. His love of music, mixed with the recognition he is beginning to receive from the abusive Fletcher, is corrupting him against his family members. He sees accomplishments before he sees people.
Andrew’s arrogance is affected by the arrival of Ryan, a drummer who might take his place in Studio Band. Having recently begun to feel like he has a more stable position in the band, Andrew is especially deflated to see just how replaceable he is. When Fletcher has Andrew and Ryan each play not even a measure of music after rehearsal, deciding that Ryan is the superior player, Andrew becomes incensed, yelling at him for manipulating them. Rather than feel intimidated or hurt by the hyper-competitiveness of the band, Andrew fights back, screaming and fighting with his teacher with a kind of animal ferocity that one senses Fletcher perversely enjoys.
Not only does Andrew’s arrogance and ambition taint his relationship to his family members, but it also leads him to rather coldly dissolve his relationship with Nicole. His manner seems all the colder because Nicole seemed to bring out a warmth and a sociability in the antisocial drummer. His reasons for wanting to break up mirror his attitude towards his family, as he tells her that he cares about being “one of the greats” more than he cares about their relationship. Additionally, Nicole points out that Andrew doesn’t respect her because she herself has trouble knowing what she wants. Not only is Andrew singleminded and maniacal in his pursuit of becoming “one of the greats,” but he looks down contemptuously on people who do not share this ambition.
Director Damien Chazelle uses many different visual cues to show the ways that Andrew’s ambition is becoming more and more untenable and destructive. Particularly, the image of his bleeding hands in the pitcher of ice water shows how Andrew’s passion has turned into a crazed kind of violence. Like a boxer or a workman, Andrew works at the drums to the point of bleeding. His ferocity is so untamed that the band-aids on his hands can barely contain the pain he is causing his body. His bleeding hands represent all of the pressure he is putting himself under, his masochistic desire for success and recognition. For one moment, we see his tension relieved when he puts his hand in the ice, but the water soon turns red, symbolizing the ways that his intensity and tunnel vision are infecting every element of his life. He may be becoming a great drummer, but at what cost?
