‘Art School Confidential’

The casting is superb in this send-up of the art scene directed by Terry Zwigoff and written by Daniel Clowes.

By: Bob Brown
   Art student Jerome (Max Minghella) is a round-peg, square-hole kind of guy. He’s the typical a-heroic "hero" that Dan Clowes gravitates toward. As the central character of Clowes’ screenplay Art School Confidential, Jerome follows in the vein of the disaffected high school graduate Enid and her record-obsessed friend Seymour from Ghost World, another Clowes creation.
   Not coincidentally, both of these stories were interpreted for the big screen by director Terry Zwigoff and produced by John Malkovich’s group, Mr. Mudd. It’s a happy band of like-minded artists who explore fringe characters in the shadows, people who are invisible to mass-culture consumers.
   Think of artist Robert Crumb, creator of "Mr. Natural," and the unauthorized spokes-cartoonist of hippiedom way back when. An acquaintance of Zwigoff, Crumb was the subject of his second documentary. When Crumb gained pop-culture status and (horrors!) fans, he fled to France, where he could maintain the purity of his misanthropy. Through Crumb, the director met Clowes and found another avenue into the lives of those who are under the radar.
   As Zwigoff explains in production notes to this film, "I’m usually attracted to characters outside of the mainstream, because the mainstream is so predictable, boring and generic."
   That sounds like something Ghost World’s Enid might say. Enid wears her world-weary ennui on whatever sleeve she has. Then she meets Seymour and discovers the blues and 78 rpm records. In some ways Jerome is the opposite. He is trying to make a major contribution to the world and isn’t aware that he’s world-weary until he enters Strathmore (actually a brand of art supplies) to become "the greatest artist of the 21st century." Then he sees the pretentious, deeply phony art-school scene for what it is. Still, he wants to pour his passion into his art as if she’s a mistress and he’s Picasso. Only that’s tough for a virgin to imagine.
   The irony is that in this film, art school pressures its matriculants to provoke rather than to paint. Ideas rather than craft are the only touchstone to greatness. If it’s not "different" it’s not art.
   The first half of the movie is a somewhat tepid send-up of this art scene, where the jokes are broad and the targets, despite Zwigoff’s aversion, predictable. It’s the standard indictment of orthodoxy, a naked-emperor exposure of valuation for valuation’s sake. Every age has its academy and every academy creates its own renegades. Jerome, the guy who can draw and has a passion to paint realistically about his feelings, is the oddball.
   So, representational artists were unfashionable when abstract expressionism reigned. Melodic composers were disparaged when a-melodic 12-tone composition was the dominant paradigm. What’s new? Like Enid, Jerome must find an object for his passion, and he does in the person of Audrey (English actress Sophia Myles). She is a mysterious model who is in the middle of the art world, and yet apart from it because she knows too much.
   Jerome would give anything to have Audrey for himself, even his artistic integrity. But his competition is Jonah (Matt Keeslar), a hunky art student. Jonah also happens to be such a naively bad painter, it’s as if he has been untouched by the entire history of Western art. Of course, that also makes him the most exciting find. "Where have you been all my life!" exclaims Professor Sandiford (John Malkovich) on seeing his first primitive execution of what appears to be a Ford Mustang.
   To further complicate things, there’s a murder mystery. The Strathmore Strangler is on the loose and anyone may be next or, for that matter, may be the strangler. Is it Jonah? Is it Professor Sandiford? Is it that stumblebum cynic, that Strathmore dropout, that wasted bag of human flesh, Jimmy (Jim Broadbent), whom Jerome’s pal Bardo (Joel David Moore) introduced him to just for laughs? Jimmy is the core Clowes anti-hero, the guy that Jerome really is way down inside, the guy who’s too honest and talented for the world to appreciate, the guy who would let himself go down in flames rather than compromise.
   If at first Jerome seems too naive and mild-mannered, the screw turns after his connection with Jimmy and the plot picks up its heels. The soft Jerome is transformed into a more interesting character.
   Whatever else its merits, the film’s main casting is superb. Minghella’s sensitive performance will no doubt propel him to greater roles. This is his breakout film. Myles, who calls to mind a younger Kate Winslet, was already on deck in Tristan & Isolde. Truly brilliant, however, is Broadbent, who takes a small pivotal character and creates magic. The film is worth seeing almost for him alone.
   In the end, Zwigoff and Clowes troll the tributaries of the mainstream to find central characters with a sentimental sweetness. Their misfitness, while painful on some levels, is also comforting, and right. They’re the kind of people we’d like to think we have the courage to be in the face of conformity. If only we could draw.
Rated R for language (including sexual references), nudity and a scene of violence.