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May 05, 2006
Zwigoff, Clowes Explain L.A. 'Confidential'
While the world beats down the latest Terry Zwigoff/Dan Clowes collaboration Art School Confidential ("a curdled mess of self- and other-loathing," David Edelstein seethes in this week's New York Magazine), I stand by my original assessment from the film's Sundance premiere, when the altitude and all the free drinks combined to make me a true, if wobbly, believer.
That said, for a film so relentlessly cynical about the New York art-school racket, there is nothing even remotely authentic about the city represented onscreen. And it transcends satire: Call me picky, but when the West Side's Spring Street subway station has to be production designed all to hell, and winter in the city looks like Hono-fucking-lulu, a viewer has to wonder exactly who was thinking what during pre-production and if the responsible party rightly lost his or her job.
I asked Zwigoff and Clowes about this on their recent visit to New York. Zwigoff shrugged before explaining that, indeed, Art School Confidential is a product of Los Angeles. His budget did not allow him the luxury of filming on location in Gotham. "A lot of it was just where we couldn't shoot," he told me, referring to his search for a site that resembled Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. "We tried to find a campus in Los Angeles that would seem more like a New York campus."
"All the campuses were palm tree-lined--" Clowes said.
"And expansive--" Zwigoff interrupted.
"We were literally finding little corners of each campus that would possibly pass for Brooklyn," Zwigoff said. "Of course, we shot a lot in downtown L.A., which is more like New York than New York at this point, I think."
"We shot a day on the Paramount lot, where we had a big subway entrance--" Clowes said.
"And that's where it sort of looks like New York."
"Brownstones."
"It was not easy to replicate that."
"But we could never afford, like, snow," Zwigoff said. "So Dan came up with this idea for when you see that newspaper headline of 'STRANGLER STRIKES AGAIN,' there's also, like, the lead story in the New York Post--is that what it is?"
"Yeah," Clowes replied. "It's like, 'Global warming'--"
" 'GLOBAL WARMING!' " Zwigoff shouted. "It's supposed to be winter in New York and there's no snow on the ground."
"At the end, it's supposed to be the end of December and these two cops are like staking out the guy with their windows rolled down in their suitcoats. It's a very nice day for December in New York."
Ironically, we DID have a few of those balmy days last winter, but such coincidence does not let Confidential off the hook. Instead, I am sticking with a measured lead performance by Max Minghella and the scenery-devouring duel between John Malkovich and Jim Broadbent. Just put on your misanthrope hat and pretend you have never seen New York before; you will like it fine.
Posted by stvanairsdale at May 5, 2006 07:51 AM
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