Art School Confidential

I know this is an odd choice of a film to expand on in its own post, but I've been interested in art lately, so, I might as well write about it.

Ebert's review starts off with one of the foundational lies of western culture: "I am not sure you can learn to be an artist. Artists are born, not made". It's a lie films like this sometimes give some play to, though the confusion may arise somewhere else. Great artists are most certainly not born - art requires skills that you don't pick up without training. One might ask how useful college is to artists, though. But Clowes and Zwigoff are mocking the conceptualism of art school, the theorizing, the emphasis on ideas over skills - that is, they are attacking the results of thinking that you can be an artist by being clever, not by executing certain physical actions particularly well, in a way that moves other people.

It's a disappointing film - which is different than just being bad. It is bad, I have to reiterate that - the stories (Jerome chasing the girl; the serial killer stuff) are dreadful. Cliches wrapped in gimmicks... the whole thing loses momentum, sinks down into tedium and whining and everything interesting disappears.... But the world is full of bad films: the world is less full of bad films that should have been good films, and this one should have. It started well enough - it sets itself up to have a great deal of fun, taking some shots at art school, the art world, probably the comics and film world while you're in there, Clowes and Zwigoff generally being up for self-criticism...

I liked that it didn't make anyone perfect, perfectly good or bad. Almost everyone is a target for the satire - and almost everyone has something to offer, or gets some kind of moment of grace. Take Malkovich - he's cynical, a careerist, bitter, and even his better moments tend to come in the service of his cruising - but he has some connection to the kids, and what he says - particularly his advice to Jerome - "you're 18 years old - what do you want with a style?" - is pretty much dead on. Jerome has skills - he doesn't have much personality - he shouldn't be thinking about what he has to say, he should stick to perfectly his abilities. The rest, if it's going to come, will come. And Malkovich isn't the only one like that - Broadbent, obviously, is not a good person - he's a dark cave of nihilism, a miserable failure indeed - but he's funny; he punctures the pretensions of the other artists; and he isn't half bad as an artist himself. (I pass in silence over the rest of it - I wish the movie had passed in silence as well - he worked quite well as a poisonous Charles Crumb figure - tarting that up was stupid.)

And of course, Jerome. The story betrays him, turns him into a stock figure indeed - but he's an interesting character while it lasts. It is to the film's credit that he is not all that interesting an artist - he's good, he's got skills, I say, maybe more than his classmates - but he doesn't have much personality, his art is nice, but doesn't stand out. He makes it worse by constantly trying to define himself, to please others, and denigrate them for not being him. If he could do his thing, perfect it? or if he took Malkovich's advice, and applied his abilities to every style he could think of, without worrying too much about doing anything unique? he might be all right... This, along with his squabbles with the class, and their personalities, gives the film its kick - an odd, muted kick - but... it is interesting to think about: Jerome takes positions - he's more willing to attack his classmates (which invites them to go after him) - the dynamics are fascinating, and recognizable. It makes it more interesting to think that Jerome might not be all that good - might not really know what he is talking about. He's presented as if he's the voice of reason in the film, but he doesn't seem all that better off than the rest of them - especially as the film goes on, he seems to counter their groupthink with his own unthinking reaction. His judgment isn't all that convincing - and though he's the POV character, I'm not sure how much the film really takes his POV.

All of this leads us around to the other maverick aspiring artist in the film, Jonah. Jonah's big colorful cars and tanks play an interesting role in the film. Jerome invests them with everything he says is wrong with art school, and Zwigoff and Clowes let Jerome get the last word - the rest of the kids sound like the sheep they are talking about Jonah's art. But there are the pictures on the screen - and to be honest, there's nothing else in the film half as good as those paintings. They aren't original, obviously - but they aren't junk, and (despite the clamor of the kids), they aren't really naive either. Unless this is a world without Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein. And they jump off the screen at you - the moment when Jonah's car appears on the screen is the first, and one of the few, moments when art in the film really catches your eye. (Broadbent's art has that too, even without its plot significance.) I don't know how important it is that Jonah's paintings are credited to Dan Clowes - probably not irrelevant.

This also brings us back to Ebert: Jonah is the closest to the demonstration of the great lie - he's untutored, natural, and he does, indeed, make the best art in the class. At least everyone says so - but that's the point, and what might have been very worthwhile in the film: what if everyone in the film was right about Jonah? Yes the film is set up to make Jonah's art seem bad and Jerome's good. But why not? why not make a film that uses narrative conventions - the lead character is right; the lead is the best artist (in a film about artists), his judgments are right; the maverick, the one who goes against the group is right - why not use those conventions, but counter them? The popular kid, the villain in any standard high school film, turns out to be, first, the real outsider - second, the real genius, the one who has real talent - why not? That's the most interesting idea the filmmakers came up with - assuming they actually came up with it. I'd guess the odds are pretty good, actually.