Damien Chazelle Biography

Damien Sayre Chazelle (born January 19, 1985) is an American film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with the musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009). In 2014, he wrote and directed his second feature film Whiplash, based on his award-winning short film Whiplash (2013). The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Chazelle received an individual nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Personal life

Chazelle was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on January 19, 1985. He is the son of Celia Martin, a writer and professor, and Bernard Chazelle, a French-born computer scientist at Princeton University. Filmmaking was his earliest ambition, but he subsequently wanted to be a musician, and struggled to make it as a jazz drummer in high school at Princeton High School. Chazelle has said he had an intense music teacher, who was the inspiration for the character of Terence Fletcher in Chazelle's breakout film, Whiplash. Unlike the film's protagonist Andrew Neiman, however, Chazelle stated that he knew instinctively he never had the talent to be a great musician, and after high school, pursued filmmaking again, describing it as his first love. He studied filmmaking in the Visual and Environmental Studies department at Harvard University and graduated in 2007.

Career

Chazelle's debut as a writer and director was the film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. He shared screenplay credit with director Ed Gass-Donnelly on The Last Exorcism Part II, 2013. He is also credited as the screenwriter on 2013's Grand Piano, a thriller that has an anxious pianist dealing with a death threat during a concert. Chazelle has stated in interviews that he was working as a 'writer for hire' but had the ambition to direct his own script. Chazelle described Whiplash as a writing reaction to being stuck on another script. 'I just thought, that's not working, let me put it away and write this thing about being a jazz drummer in high school.' He stated he initially did not want to show the script around, as it felt too personal, and "I put it in a drawer."

Whiplash gained interest from producers, but nobody initially wanted to make the film. Chazelle's 85 page script was featured on Black List in 2012 as one of the best unmade films of that year; it was eventually picked up by producers, including Helen Estabrook, who suggested J. K. Simmons for the role of the teacher, Terence Fletcher. A short film, made as proof of concept, was accepted at the Sundance Film Festival 2013; financing was raised for the film, and in 2014 it was released to an overwhelmingly positive critical reaction.

Whiplash won the Sundance Film Festival Short Prize in 2013 as a short and in 2014 the top audience and grand jury awards in the U.S. dramatic competition as a full-length feature film. The film also took the grand prize and the audience award for favorite film at the 40th Deauville American Film Festival. On January 15, 2015, Whiplash received 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Chazelle. It won three of them, Best Supporting Actor for Simmons, Best Achievement in Film Editing and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, on February 22, 2015.

Chazelle co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was released on March 11, 2016. Chazelle was brought in by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions to re-write a draft, with the intention of Chazelle directing. However, Chazelle ultimately chose to direct Whiplash instead. His upcoming musical, La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, will be released on December 16, 2016. On June 17, 2016, La La Land was selected to open the Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2016.

Filmography

Feature films

• Beeswax (2009) - post-production assistant
• Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009) - director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, soundtrack lyricist
• The Last Exorcism Part II (2013) - writer
• He's Way More Famous Than You (2013) - special thanks
• Grand Piano (2013) - writer
• Cold Comes the Night (2014) - special thanks
• Whiplash (2014) - director, writer
• 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) - writer
• La La Land (2016) - director, writer

Short films

• Whiplash (2013) - director, writer