Fogey disses

[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".

Comments

movies, school, and style...

[meganfinley.livejournal.com]

It would be so easy it seems to make a real art-insider comedy film about art school. Concept, fluxus, and performance art are funny naturally. Some presentations I've witnessed have taught me how to hide bursts of laughter.Some things I've read as an art history student have brought fits and tears in their descriptions of events. That's why it's my major, I am really happythese people have a desire to put it all on the line and that they manage to do it, despite other's narrow preconceptions. Behind my laughter is a deep seated respect and understanding.

Always, there is a great ambition which subsides with the realization that one must just settle and turn it in already. I loath this compromise, but it is a necessar lesson in mediocrity for survival.
Lost In Translation, I liked very much- especially the out-takes. One of the films I'd love to own. I like that they did it without a Japanese film making permit, supposedly. I felt the relationship was somewhat forced but whatever, it's the visuals that blew me away- the music, atmosphere, and I feel there are just not enough films that explore the immersion into a new culture anyway.

If you want to try a real retro film the other by Sophia Coppola is Virgin Suicides. Not only do I love Euginides' novels- but this movie has become my favorite. I love to introduce it to people and watch afterward as they become totally weirded and thoughtful. I love it because I feel like the girls in it are perfectly portrayed for their ages, maybe other women feel this way, but I feel that at some point I've been every one of those girls. In some private way I still am.
Ghost World: Steve Bushimi is charming as always, the girls seemed unnecessarily cruel. I had no sympathy for them and the art outrage at the gallery was contrived. On a positive note: I recognize the title.

Crumb: Yes, quite good. Surprising in what it was allowed to portray, for example his stalker brother. I left with the distinct impression that Crumb's daughter makes David Lynch's daughter's life seem wholesome by comparison. It gave the audience what it paid for. When I was a teen in SF, CA I wanted to be a feminist R. Crumb and drew accordingly. That part is still lurking somewhere...waiting to be un-PC.

I don't know if it is really well done but Comic Book Confidential must get the honorary mention, especially for the interview with Zippy the Pinhead's creator.

Retro USA: There's something conforting about the 70's for Americans, and I think many people equate the political landscape with that time: oil and fuel shortage, a war against vigilantes, a confused batch of protestors who don't draw strength from numbers. We look with nostalgia on the retro of 70's as a time where family, friends, and intimate relationships took precedence over politics- an ideal to strive for.
The 80's had resurgence of the 50's (LaBamaba), the 90's were according to Wavy Gravy the 60's turned on it's head, of course next comes the 70's.
As for styles to come and their late appearance... I feel postmodernism is now a dirty word because there is a feeling of betrayl in its premature climax that wasn't felt. The government arguments about sampling and the limits for musical experimentation, the corporatizing of radio took a great toll... What matters in starting a couter-culture movement in the US is music, but the larger society is still fragmented back there with Tipper Gore's censorship outcry. We just don't have the cozy relationship between designers and corporations that Japan apparently does.
When will something big come? Maybe soon. We all hope so, but it's a big bite to take for anyone. Who has the education, the mind, the desire? It is so very, very big in America and the world.

I applaud you, whoever you are, for reading thus far. Now- what 180 degree turn will momus take tomorrow? Something light I'll reason.
nighty night, Megan

Re: movies, school, and style...

[kementari2.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you see the idea of the 70s in the US as comforting for Americans. Granted, I didn't live through them, but to me the 70s are permeated with, above all, an estrangement from nature. Vinyl and polyester; an era of dirt without justification between the late 60s hippies and the 80s punks; and environmental crises like Love Canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal) - these are the things that dominate my impressions of the time.

Re: movies, school, and style...

[meganfinley.livejournal.com]

thank you for responding- I find your impressions food for thought. -m.