Damien Chazelle
Damien Chazelle
Damien Sayre Chazelleis an American film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with the musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. In 2014, he wrote and directed his second feature film Whiplash, based on his award-winning short film Whiplash. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and went on receiving 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Chazelle received an individual nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth19 January 1985
CityProvidence, RI
CountryUnited States of America
First time that I cried at a work of art was at a drum solo that I saw. A drummer named Winard Harper, part of the Billy Taylor Trio, gave back in - I would have been in high school - 2005 or something.
I was really trying to sell to people who hate jazz: to make a case for the art form as youthful and energetic, not the sort of rarified intellectual activity it's painted as.
One interesting thing about jazz, or art in general, but jazz especially is such an individual art form in the sense that improvisation is such a big part of it, so it feels like it should be less soldiers in an army and more like free spirits melding. And yet, big band jazz has a real military side to it.
My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical to what art should be.
People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal drummer. I mean, they're playing with the same amount of ferocity. It's not to say all jazz is like that.
I guess art itself is insane. Its actual function is rarely clear, and yet people give their hearts and souls and lives to it, and have for all of history.
In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.
What's great about musicals is their energy and go-for-brokeness - stopping the story to sing and dance. How can you not love that?
There's something very particular about the kind of rage you feel when you're alone in a practice room by yourself, unable to master a simple thing like a rudiment.
Practicing is not normally fun. Sometimes people say they're practicing, but they're really just enjoying themselves and the instrument. That's not real practice.
I've always wanted to make movies that are fever dreams.
I've always, especially through old Hollywood musicals, loved just to watch tap dancing; I adore it. I think it's fantastic.
I was a writer for hire. I wrote to pay the bills.
'Whiplash' was always the song I hated the most because it's a song designed to screw with drummers.