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" As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain. "
Damien Chazelle
Fighting
Always
You
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Damien Chazelle
Musicians
Deep
Language
" 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. "
Damien Chazelle
Looking
Music
Look
" If you're on the varsity team, the responsibilities are a lot bigger and there's more stress, but you also walk around feeling probably like you can hold your head high. "
Damien Chazelle
Feeling
Head
Stress
" It's certainly no coincidence that big bands became the entertainment of the army in WWI and WWII, and that jazz drumming style is very military influenced. The snare drum comes from the military and becomes the core kind of sound of jazz drums. "
Damien Chazelle
Coincidence
Kind
Style
" Nothing is guaranteed to last, so you should just enjoy it as it happens. "
Damien Chazelle
Nothing
Happens
Last
" There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion. "
Damien Chazelle
Life
Passion
My Life
" I was always pretty decent at fast stick work or doing stuff that seems impressive that's not really; I was pretty tasteful and had good ideas musically. But I had a terrible sense of tempo, which is like being a blind painter. "
Damien Chazelle
Fast
Doing
Ideas
" I find L.A. kind of romantic, actually. As a movie junkie, it's a city that was built by the movies. There's something really weird and surreal about it that I find energizing. "
Damien Chazelle
Romantic
City
Movies
" When you're trying to paint a portrait of a very specific world, you're trying to show what makes the world different. So, sometimes it means exaggerating certain kind of aspects, but I don't think it's that important or it's that much of an issue as long as you get an emotional truth across. "
Damien Chazelle
You
Long
Portrait
" The end result of my personal story is that I became a really good drummer, and I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't have without this really tough conductor and this really cutthroat hostile environment I was in. "
Damien Chazelle
End
Story
Myself
" It's easy to show terrible people's behavior on screen, and we all just kind of nod and go, 'Isn't that terrible.' It's more interesting when you can show terrible behavior in the interest of something good. "
Damien Chazelle
You
Behavior
Good
" I was a jazz drummer, and it was my life for a while: what I lived and breathed every day. "
Damien Chazelle
Life
Every Day
Day
" I don't think of 'Macbeth' as the villain. I don't think of 'King Lear' as the villain. I don't think of 'Hamlet' as the villain. I don't think of 'Travis Bickle' as the villain. "
Damien Chazelle
Villain
King Lear
Hamlet
" The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the most in movies are characters that are often thought of as despicable. "
Damien Chazelle
Weird
Problem
Movies
" My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical to what art should be. "
Damien Chazelle
Drummer
Fear
Motivation
" I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies, and music was a detour, almost. "
Damien Chazelle
Music
Almost
Wanting
" 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. "
Damien Chazelle
History
Hearts
Art
" I love being in the editing room and playing with tempo and with the rhythm of shots. "
Damien Chazelle
Playing
Room
Rhythm
" If you look at 'West Side Story,' a lot of those numbers are actually pretty cutty, but the cuts are always musically motivated. "
Damien Chazelle
Side
Look
Always
" By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue it. "
Damien Chazelle
Music
Moment
High School
" The greatest thing has been that projects that were pipe dreams before 'Whiplash' are now feeling more realistic. "
Damien Chazelle
Now
More
Greatest
" I was a kid living in New Jersey, who - I'd wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn't even really into jazz that much. "
Damien Chazelle
Movies
Music
Me
" 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. "
Damien Chazelle
You
Life
Artist