In the mid 90's, I attended University of the Arts, an art school in Philly, and one of my most distinct memories was taking a drawing class. Not only did we have nude models to sketch, we also had to judge our works in front of the class and offer our insights. Insights ran from tepid to just plain dumb because how does one account for the meaning behind an assigned Picasso attempt to a painting that features a lot of brushstrokes in the Jackson Pollock manner? My major was not drawing but Filmmaking with a 16mm Bolex camera. Watching "Art School Confidential" brought all those memories back and I will say on record that "Art School Confidential" is the most accurate picture of art school you will probably ever see. If it had stayed focused on that alone along with its adrift protagonist, I might have declared it Terry Zwigoff's newest masterpiece. A subplot kind of ruins such high marks despite what it is trying to say versus what it actually says.
Jerome (Max Minghella) is the adrift protagonist, an excellent sketch artist who can make his profiles come alive through subtle nuances and a deep understanding of the human body and facial characteristics. In other words, the students in the drawing class do not care for him or his accurate insights into other people's work. The students seems to favor non-traditional and non-specific over nuance and style, as in one student's painting of a car on a canvas that could've been painted by a three-year-old. Oh, yes, the lack of clear dimensional characteristics give it some apparent heft. Ugh, I don't think such paintings would've been even attempted by any of the students when I went but maybe things have spiraled since the 90's (and of course of this is slightly satirical though not by much).
Jerome probably should have walked out of this school, a fictional one named Strathmore, in the first ten minutes of this movie but he is eager to become "the greatest artist of the 21st century." He is also eager to please Audrey (Sophia Myles), a nude model who is supposedly interested in any guy that attracts attention with alleged artistic merit. That guy would be the one who painted the car, Jonah (Matt Keeslar), who is actually an undercover police officer and attracts attention including from the professor (John Malkovich, a fabulous performance).
When "Art School Confidential" sticks to the mechanics and close observation of the art school world, it is both hilarious and kind of sad. We know there are people who go to art school who have no talent along with teachers who may have even less. The details of what is considered art and how one goes above and beyond kissing a teacher's ass - how to get their work shown in a hallway gallery or a gallery across the street from the school (known as Broadway Bob's) that at least serves great coffee - are all richly layered and acute observations. It is only when the film dovetails to an investigation on the Strathmore Strangler who is killing university students that the film falls a little apart. And when the film shifts to gleaning insight from what separates the art from the artist, I found that the insight needed to be made yet the approach by way of this silly subplot crushes the film a tad.
"Art School Confidential" has fairly persuasive performances by Max Minghella, Sophia Myles and John Malkovich, not to mention colorful support from Steve Buscemi as Broadway Bob and Ethan Suplee as an anxious filmmaker who has to find his personal side. I read a comment from an anonymous user that the Strathmore Strangler is necessary to the story because art school is about life and death and being strangled by it. I think all this is covered beautifully by writer Daniel Clowes and director Zwigoff without the intrusion of a killer subplot. Let's just say that a tragic accident makes us question Jerome's inclinations if not his morality yielding consequences that don't make sense - suffice to say, it did not need to be there. "Art School Confidential" is 3/4 of a great film and one quarter of it is as one art student puts it: "Has the singularity of outsider art, though the conscious rejection of spatial dynamics could only come from an intimacy with the conventions of picture-making." Something like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment