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
If you're an artist, you want to draw from real life; you want to draw from experiences, emotion, and it's something that a lot of musicians juggle with. I've always found it so fascinating.
Mozart was born Mozart. Charlie Parker was born Charlie Parker.
I love the idea of using film language similarly to how musicians use music - combining images and sounds in a way that they create an emotional effect.
I had seen a lot of music movies that celebrated music or that showed the kind of joys from playing music, which is a big part of it of course, and not something that I would want to deny.
I hadn't seen that many movies that really go deep enough into the fears of playing music or the language that musicians can use to treat each other or, like, the way that you can see it dehumanize and the way that it can feel like boot camp.
I like the idea of working my way up. I don't feel impatient to immediately jump into something that could literally bring down a studio if I don't do it well.
I remember being inspired myself when smaller films, whether it's 'Beasts' or 'Winter's Bone,' wound up in the Oscars lineup.
Nothing is guaranteed to last, so you should just enjoy it as it happens.
I didn't have traditional stage fright. If there was 500 people in the audience or three people in the audience, it didn't really make a difference. What made a difference was the conductor. Everything that I was scared about as a drummer was him.
It was only through getting interested in more out-there and avant-garde forms that the musical suddenly seemed like such a wonderful genre to me.
It's a weird thing where, especially in jazz, you have to totally mention cutting sessions and people one-upping each other and people being super, super tough on each other. And out of it emerge these genius musicians.
My hands were constantly blistered or bloody; my ears were always ringing. I tore through drumheads and drumsticks like there was no tomorrow.
I remember when I first met Jason Reitman with the 'Whiplash' script; he quickly became a mentor figure who guided me through the process and also protected me and made sure that when it came time to actually make 'Whiplash,' I was able to make exactly the movie I wanted to make.
I do truly believe that the smallest stories can wind up being the biggest because it's through the specific that a writer can best access the universal.