Art School Confidential: Mini-Review

Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential crept onto DVD shelves last week. Having heard impossibly mixed reviews, I went in with relatively low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed this presentation of the art school environment... it came pretty close to my own experience. Granted, I was at art school for graphic design, not painting, and we hardly had the specific "types" that they present (as designers, we have our own types), but the general atmosphere full of inane critiques from classmates, burned out instructors, bad art and BS was right on. One quick-as-lightening moment matter-of-factly handles the should-have-known better pinch of small betrayal that occurs when a trusted teacher casually turns on your work—at some point that has happened to everyone I know, from architect to illustrator and everyone in between.

Sure, the whole thing derails near the end when the Strathmore Strangler plot kicks in, but it was pretty clear about halfway through that there was no way to end a tale of an ordinary art school experience without some sort of departure from reality. Graduating from art school was incredibly anti-climactic—we were all dumped out into the world, half-trained, confused about what makes good design, and confronted with grim job statistics. While the line "only one out of one hundred of you will ever make a living as an artist" is perhaps more relevant to fine artists, there is plenty of hard luck in design as well, and a certain percentage of every class eventually abandons the industry. Presenting a realistic end would have sucked all the fun right out of the film, so they go a little wild. Understandable. At any rate, if you've ever gone to art school, the film is worth a rent.

Art School Confidential: Official Site