Whiplash & Black Swan
Cost of Perfection
Films come and go. Today, there will be a blockbuster that smashes the box office, and a couple of years later, another will rise to claim the throne. It is a vicious cycle, where especially old films have to withstand the test of time. This is not about a film from 1953. This is, about two films, from 2010 and 2014. Whiplash and Black Swan are essentially, sister films. They are unpredictable and bellicose, discussing the frightening prospect of ambition and self-conception. In exchange for perfection, the different artists descend towards the same insanity, until their changes are evident. At the hands of their mentors, they are encouraged, but even more driven towards their sole objective. Perfection.
The films are comparable to thrillers, even horror. The relative chronology of the scenes, even if the characters are from different artistic backgrounds, guide them far into unmapped waters. No one is perfect, that much everyone knows. Underneath all that marauding madness and tentative achievements, lies two people, so pent-up with ambition but also self-contempt. It is a turmoil, filled with emotional abuse and even worse, physical violence. Perfection is always fancied, yet how much of it is feasibly human? How much of sacrifice is required to attain it?
Perfection is more than just scoring 100 on a test. For Andrew and Nina, Whiplash and Black Swan respectively, it refers to ascendency from the planes of normal, to the realm of excellence, or commonly known as perfection. It is equivalent to Cristina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy, who practically only knew career. In Andrew, it is the need to be remembered for his greatness. He talks on and on about a certain Charlie Parker, and aspires to become as renowned as the saxophonist. In Nina, it is the challenge of dancing the black swan, something wildly unimaginable. A lot of their choices stem from family influences. No, they are not tiger parents expecting greatness from their children. Rather, Andrew’s father can be considered mediocre at best. On the other hand, Nina’s mother valued family over career and smothers Nina with pink walls and plush toys. The main characters are both cautious of what could parallel them to their parents, who were slowly forgotten because not enough effort was put into the pursuit of perfection. After all, their children are what matter. The measures of success are directly proportional to their children’s achievements, not necessarily true, and definitely not condoned by Andrew and Nina. Their terrifying metamorphoses are attributed to more than just personal failures, extending to the fear of following the wrong examples.
Then, come the pushes the two are desperately hoping for. Fletcher and Thomas represent more than just mentors doing their paid jobs. These are industrial icons, the opportunities to ascend, get closer to any semblance of perfection. Through them, Andrew and Nina can move beyond vapid drums and jejune ballet recitals, into a greater realm. Gone are the cosseting days, now replaced by demanding parental figures. And yet, brilliance does not come from the mentors.
The only person getting in the way is you.
Fletcher and Thomas can only carry them so far. It is Andrew and Nina who eventually have to make the final performance, and therefore, the artistic ceilings have to be broken. This is a unanimous decision; you get what you earn. The mentors themselves admit that they are tough to please, and still, there is acknowledgement in the ways they bring out the best in their students. The important question here is, to what extent is it enough? The protagonists each make decisions more drastic than another, in the name of success, pushing them beyond their capacities, day in and day out. There is a Chinese idiom called “废寝忘食”, to be so wrapped up in one’s work that sleep and food are neglected. That is the state the two are in.
Given the incredibly rare opportunity by Fletcher, Andrew is elated. And given that Andrew is the newest kid in the jazz band, he is given a violent dose of reality by Fletcher. A chair is flung in his direction. The audience recount the traumatic interrogation. Then, it all subsides into a nauseating wave of self-examination.
Rushing or dragging?
The other students in the band stay quiet. It is difficult to tell if they are smirking at Andrew’s tomfoolery, or if they feel bad for the new kid being grilled for his relative incompetency. Regardless, they know, and we know, Fletcher is used to doing this.
The instructors and parents are not just the only factors at play here. Perfection is not a plate of eugenics. Jealousy is an evil monster that no one can tame, and in the end, it is also a powerful push. Nina’s challenge is having to harness both sides of ballet, the white and the black swan. As the white swan, Nina is impeccable; she embodies the very thing she is dancing, full of fear, vulnerability and the explication of postmartial sex. She is timid and annoyingly perky. The source of jealousy, comes in the near-satanic form of Lily. Literally everything about Lily is a polar opposite of Nina. Outside of ballet, she is outgoing, and frequents bars. Inside the studio, she is confident, untrammelled and sexy. Yes, it is objectively correct to describe Lily as the better black swan, the epitome of it even.
The truth is when I look at you all I see is the white swan. Yes you’re beautiful, fearful, and fragile…In four years every time you dance I see you obsessed getting each and every move perfectly right but I never see you lose yourself. Ever! All that discipline for what?
I just want want to be perfect.
Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence! Very few have it in them.
These two segments are what trigger the changes. It is time to let go of what they think they know, and enforce a stricter regime in order to become perfect.
But then again, we are cautioned by two suicides, former students of the instructors. The suicides come as a direct result of the sky-high expectations and pressure, effectively the same routes that Andrew and Nina choose. Of course, they believe themselves to be better than their predecessors, Casey and Beth. It’s not like the protagonists would follow in the savage climaxes, would they?
Andrew’s end is the more optimistic of the two. Even though his transformation is less extreme as Nina’s patent, he is still tormented by physical and emotional violence. There is a visible difference in his personality, and Ryan, Lily’s equivalent in Whiplash, stirs the pot some more. More and more is compromised, hands are bloodied, fiendish practice sessions, Andrew stumbles at the final hurdle. A car crash, a tragic performance, an attacked launched against Fletcher on stage, and the expulsion from Shaffer Academy. He loses everything, on the same journey to gaining everything.
Nina certainly undergoes the more sinister lobotomy. The once innocent girl, is now experimenting sexually, doing a 180 on her entirety, not just her personality, and probably in need of psychiatric help. Hallucinations boggle her mind, where she begins to see a different version of herself; the more pertinent version. It is distressing, made monstrous by theories that Lily was probably just a figment of her imagination conjured to force improvement. Finally, the abomination that is a blood-stained and black-feathered creature, leaving Lily in a pool of her own blood (allegedly), and the suicide of the Nina we used to know. Now, she is the desired “confident, untrammelled and sexy” black swan.
It’s my turn!
How Whiplash and Black Swan differ, is the way they end the stories of their protagonists. It is a blunt realization of the stereotypical “protagonist journey”. By the end, their lives are forever changed by the inimical elements put onto their shoulders. Andrew manages to escape the harsh circus. He understands the necessity for perfection, is nowhere as important as the transcendence of his own limits. On an artistic value, it is indeed Nina, that is perfect. Nina, who spurned the tragic fables of Casey and Beth, now joins them, in a memoriam of perfect failures.
If there is a cautionary tale here, Black Swan is the better candidate. The overwhelmingly arrogant pessimism to it is justified, delivering a cruel depiction of the unrealistic pursuit of perfection. Nobody is perfect, this is more than just about scoring full marks on a test. How much of the imperfect self has to be pedicured for the perfect new? Perfection is what we crave, and yet, it is also the thing we should arguably run away from. Humans are drawn to what they cannot have, and the two films warn that opening Pandora’s box can be lethal. Nevertheless, we continue our search.
