Fogey disses
May. 9th, 2006 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
I saw Art School Confidential last night. Although I snorted with amusement at a lot of the jokes, I was somewhat annoyed by the film. First of all, by its dyspeptic misanthropy, its "moronic cynicism". The film is posited on the idea that everybody in the world it portrays is a delusional asshole. And yet this isn't a film driven by character. It's a film driven by situational punchlines, by a neat and silly plot about a serial killer, and by an underlying philosophy of life which wallows in misanthropy. Whenever these needs conflict with the need to keep characters consistent or plausible, plot, punchline and people-hatred win and character consistency is discarded.Fictions which diss a microworld can range from the inspired ("Nathan Barley") to the clunky (Altman's "Pret-a-Porter"), but their biggest weakness is -- paradox! -- the naivete of their cynicism. There's necessarily a certain datedness and ignorance to them. Even if the directors and writers of these "diss fictions" once went to art school, or were once in the fashion world, or were once hipsters (and even that isn't a given), they've since been "cured" of the delusions prevalent in these worlds, and are now able to satirize them from their new nest in the more populist film or television business. That means they're outsiders to the worlds they're satirizing, no longer able to enter the forcefield of fantasy which sustains these bubble worlds, unable to explain the particular appeal, the magic which makes people give their lives to something for the most part unremunerative. Their fingers are far from the pulse, so it's hardly surprising they so often portray the patient as dead.
And so, in "Art School Confidential" (ASC), we see the disillusionment without the "illusionment" -- the enchantment which lures people into these worlds in the first place. Max Minghella plays Jerome, a young man who "wants to be Picasso". And that sets the tone. Sure, Picasso's name is still on the lips of hedge fund managers, especially when a painting of his sells for $95 million. But Picasso means very little to the art students of 2006. We're just not living in that cultural era. We're also not living in the era in which art students "experiment" by recreating Yves Klein's actionist art from the 1960s, dipping their naked bodies in paint and hurling themselves against canvasses (a sight gag you can see in the trailer).Wikipedia tells us that scriptwriter Daniel Clowes went to art school in the 1970s at Pratt in Brooklyn, which is presumably the model for the school we see in the film (but where's the process art? The conceptual art?). He "unsuccessfully attempted to find work in New York as an illustrator" after gaining his BFA, and then found success with comics, one of which (the one which provides the basis for this film) settled scores with the world of art which had, apparently, rejected him. Comics as a form are less "elitist", less mystificatory, less marginal, less enchanted, more narrative than art. As Clowes has demonstrated, the narrative and comedy elements in comics can lead you to Hollywood. There you can betray the high little world of art, using the power of the low big world of film. Hurrah! Scores settled, etc! Revenge is sweet!
And yet there's an oddly fusty atmosphere in this film. Zwigoff (and yes, I saw "Ghost World" too, and "Crumb") shares with David Lynch a certain 1950s fixation; with Lynch, even if you're ostensibly in the present, you're in a permanent 1940s, 1950s of the soul. Zwigoff formerly made a documentary about Robert Crumb, and seems to share Crumb's out-of-time fogey-ish style. I suspect that Clowes shares it too; his drawing style, for instance, is oddly retro. In this film we're far from the 21st century. The jokes at art's expense could almost come from Tony Hancock's 1960 film "The Rebel". One of the girls Jerome dates in ASC is a highly-wrought "beatnik girl". Not even a Goth, but a beatnik! In The Rebel (according to Screen Online's blurb) "there is a kind of lazy shorthand at work that conflates artists with Paris, existentialism, angry young men, beatniks and beat poets", but at least, in 1960, that "lazy shorthand" was only a couple of years out of date. Here it's four or five decades wide of the mark.
Now, sure, the film's title is a wink in the direction of "High School Confidential" (1958), so this may well be 80s-style retro pomo rather than simply being out of date. A salute to the art of the past, a repackaging of media cliches about media cliches. Yet it's odd how much of the style of the American subculture does have this retro pomo feel, this clinging to the mid-decades of the 20th century, and this implicit betrayal of the 21st century, contemporaneity or hipness. I picked up the same thing in "Lost in Translation", which satirizes the modernity of Toyko (and also hipsters), juxtaposing it against a peculiarly old-fashioned American "unlikely couple" who want to "break out of this place". You can also see it in the retro sets and atmosphere of "The Life Aquatic".So why has the American alternative world become a sort of bile-fuelled fogey, hating on everything and everyone? Is it comforting to both reject the modern world, tarring everyone as an asshole, and evoke a long-vanished world of beatniks, berets and Picasso, a world in which you understood art well enough to laugh it out of the living room? Alas, the only thing 21st century about "Art School Confidential" may be that famous emotional tone colour picked up by American Environics: the "atomized, rage-filled outlook" summed up here by Jimmy, an alcoholic old failed artist and (possibly) murderer, and summed up in the film's recurring motto and leitmotif: "The entire human race should be wiped off the earth".
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Moronic Cynicism
Date: 2006-05-10 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-11 05:56 pm (UTC)There's a lot I differ with you on, but I'm with you on the whole moronic cynicism thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 09:57 pm (UTC)Login : shoben
Password : *****
Ftp open > shitetalke
Ajax upcom router > a n t a shobenkusai
File open >
Momus the musical
(The curtains rise on an empty stage, bar a single wooden table laden with literary works aside is a small rickety wooden chair. A disembodied voiceover informs us it’s a cohabiting flat in the granite city of Aberdeen circa 1978.
A khaki trousered and burgundy loose fitting sweater wearing young Momus enters the stage left in visible, student angst
A spotlight scans across the audience before singling out Momus who turns surprised to the camera,Brahms “Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben” begins slowly in the background, Momus begins to recite)
“Another day, studying literature, so much knowledge and musings in my mind by yet…”
lowly breaks into song
“why does nobody like me me me? because I’m Paisley born pikey ? –ey –ey –ey ”
(Momus leans over his shoulder in a sympathy seeking manner)
“or is it because of my gammy eye ? natsume soseki never had this to TRY (as crescendo builds) him him him
Login : shoben
Password : *****
Ftp open > shitetalke
Ajax upcom router > a n t a shobenkusai
File open >
Momus the musical
(The curtains rise on an empty stage, bar a single wooden table laden with literary works aside is a small rickety wooden chair. A disembodied voiceover informs us it’s a cohabiting flat in the granite city of Aberdeen circa 1978.
A khaki trousered and burgundy loose fitting sweater wearing young Momus enters the stage left in visible, student angst
A spotlight scans across the audience before singling out Momus who turns surprised to the camera,Brahms “Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben” begins slowly in the background, Momus begins to recite)
“Another day, studying literature, so much knowledge and musings in my mind by yet…”
lowly breaks into song
“why does nobody like me me me? <echoing> because I’m Paisley born pikey ? –ey –ey –ey <echoing> ”
(Momus leans over his shoulder in a sympathy seeking manner)
“or is it because of my gammy eye ? natsume soseki never had this to TRY (as crescendo builds) him him him <echoing as chords fade, a slight ballet – esque manover is awkardly attempted…>
Momus pulling a challenging cowl hoodie top over his head in menace, glancing to his books
“like my masters before me, I will suceed, their successes and efforts are mine to feed, to feed ,to feed <echoing>
“then the girls at the union bar, will feel the need, the need, the need <echoing> FOR ME !”
(A stereo delayed echo rises to crescendo to peak on FOR ME, Momus crashes into the wooden table angrily casting aside his studies,the music strikes into “Handals Messiah” by Wendy Carlos as the stage is swathed in strobelight, “momaiah” enters from above, singling in a vocoder angelic voice atuned to the harmony )
“Japan awaites thee chosen one, misreporting form land of sun, thine calling of mixed matephor, to finance your futahhhh…. with apple product galore !”
(A myriad of ipod nanos, ibooks, isofa’s (patent pending) whirl past student Momus on wire strings like temptation exiting stage left “en gloria”, the music darkens…Alan Mcgee appears stage right waving a huge black rubber dildo, singing in baritone)
“but first you become my art school goma suri whooooore !”
(Momus turns in a frightened forever fulfilling networking leech faustian pact glance)
“does he really mean thine sooooooooo, surely make my once-touched holes, soooooore” <to semitone>
<scene closes with blood red curtains, only to open once more on silken white screens…>
next scene highlights : Flash back to 1970, an athens beach with a 9 yr old Momus being kiddy fiddled by an aging greek fisherman named bacchus behind an aging old wooden boat painted vermillion, Momus’ mother watches on (black vieled) thinking of Sylvia Plath)
Art School Confidential
Date: 2006-05-14 04:31 pm (UTC)I saw Art School Confidential right after meeting you on your tour. Your review is right on (or is that too "60's" a term??-- i can't think of a 21st century equivalent... awesome? doesn't convey the sense of solidarity...)
One aspect of the film that pissed me off was the product placement. The very name of the school--Strathmore-- and the oft repeated shots of the covers of the Strathmore sketchpads. In the art schools I went to (Pratt, Brooklyn Museum, Art Students League albeit in the 50s and 60s) or lectured at (SVA, Chicago ARt Institute, SF Art Institute, Cal Arts in the 70s, 80s, 90s) those covers were either ripped off or at the very least drawn over pretty quick. I never saw them looking as shiny and "product placed" as they are in that film.
And you are right: No student I ever saw in one of those august institutions ever had Picasso as a model. However, I did see quite a bit of "body printing". I guess now that impulse has migrated to web blogs.
Not that art school isn't ripe for satire. As you point out, it's the misanthropy that is the worst aspect of this film. Maybe Stania and Harry could take it on.
xx
dd
www.deedeehalleck.org (site made by one of my art school students!)
Re: Art School Confidential
Date: 2006-05-15 06:33 pm (UTC)Well, that may have been the case when you were lecturing, but I'm a first-year here at SCAD and I see Strathmore drawing pad covers all the time, along with other brands of assorted art paper. The thing about those covers is that its better to leave them on because it protects the first page in the book, who cares if its got product stuff on it, at least your work is safe. The only thing I ever see on them are names or some charcoal handprints. This is especially true with first-year students (which the main character was) who often need those large drawing pads for thier first classes. It's a real part of freshman art school and I thought it was a jab at the organization of the first semester that slowly goes downhill as thier college education progresses.
Sorry for the correction.
-Burger
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-15 06:24 pm (UTC)Why does this movie have to compare to Ghost World? Yes, Clowes wrote Ghost World and ASC and Zwigoff made both films but the only relation they have is the cynicism and that there are humans in it. Neither film is exactly like the comic, Steve Buscemi's character in Ghost World is only hardly mentioned and in ASC, there really is not main character or plot, that was made for the film but both comics were very good in two completely different ways. Both films are also, in my opinion, good films in completely different ways.
I guess if you went into this movie expecting something that would change your life, then you might be disappointed. Also, if you went into this movie thinking "this better be as good as ghost world..." you would also be disappointed. It's like comparing apples and shag carpeting, you just shouldn't be able to.
-Burger
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-16 03:07 am (UTC)Pleased to make your accquaintance.
Date: 2006-05-16 12:39 pm (UTC)As a former art student and art history instructor, I'm pretty giddy to see this. The original comic is something I'd passed around the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (much to the delight of the professors) and I've gotten to the point where I can quote it near verbatim.
While I haven't seen the film yet, I feel as if I may get a bit of personal glee from the whole thing. If one still from a film could sum up my entire art school experience, this (http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/image/article/699/699884/art-school-confidential-20060403050633180.jpg) would be it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-19 02:17 am (UTC)