I like Daniel Clowes’ work like I like Starbucks Frappacinos. It’s delicious and evil, and too much of it makes you sick to your stomach and gives you a jittery heart. Ghost World was one of those movies wherein you can learn everything you need to know about a person by their opinion of the movie. If the person didn’t watch it because they hate shit like that, you know this a person who’s top three films contain a Tom Cruise movie that’s not Magnolia, they only listen to rap metal, and on at least more than one occasion have cheated on their significant other. If a person hated this movie because of one of the actresses or because of how it cheapened comic books/indie rock, they are a hipster and you should fire a boot to the ovary/testie in order to save society from overpopulation by irony. If this is someone’s FAVORITE film of all time, then they have dyed their hair some form of pastel crayon color or midnight black, they only shop at thrift stores, and they own a bag with some form of obscure cartoon character or Hello Kitty. They are what we refer to as “kitten hipsters”, they are more annoying than dangerous, and your best bet is to tell them they’re fat and run away when they are crying or screaming.
Anyway, Art School Confidential is full of kitten hipsteria. Much like a college poetry reading, it plies a wonderful message in a terrible, boring way. It’s the story of a talent sketcher trying to become a famous artist. Take out art and replace it with music, or theatre, or music and this could easily be any movie of the struggling artist in a commercial narcissistic world. Or replace it with dance and it could be Step Up 3: How She Move 2.
When it works, it works beautifully. The movie does a brilliant job of skewering the atypical arrogance associated whenever you gather any group of artistes. The shitslinging, the bullshit intellectualism, the mindless fawning. The obsessiveness over art and artists. It’s the same reason why I had a hard time watching movies or DVDs around classmates in film school. Because they have to prove, on a constant basis, that they know so much about film, and that they know so much more than YOU. The same quirks that prompt people to gape in horror and shriek, “Oh, my GAWD! You’ve never seen a Goddard film!” And pass out like you just McFarted in a crowded elevator. Knife them while they sleep.
It’s obvious Daniel Clowes has spent a lot of time with these people. It’s a shame that he’s one of them. And that comes across in his film. He’s making fun of the very people he represents. It’s too smug in it’s self-referencing. He’s taken the camera off the jocks and put it on the geeks, and told the story in their unique geek language.
The film basically gives off the impression that art is all bullshit. You can’t really be taught art, you can’t be made into an artist, and opinions don’t matter because nobody’s are truthful. Chuck Palahniuk said it best in Invisible Monsters: that no one is original, and that you are biproduct of everyone you’ve ever known. The same is true of any art. You aren’t going to change the world, you’re simply going to do your own riff on it.
Which is great. If the movie wasn’t such a middle finger to itself, it would have worked. The biggest problem I had with the movie is that the lead actor, Max Minghella, is so uninteresting and bland, that you have trouble rooting for him or caring what happens to him. In Clowes’ attempt to create an everyman, he essentially filled the role with a blank slate.
