The Cool School

By Julie Seabaugh

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | 11:56 a.m.

Los Angeles in the ’50s provided no cultural support or art scene to speak of, so from jazz, surfing, custom-car culture and Barney's Beanery residents shaped their own, from the ground up.

It took five years to complete this Jeff Bridges-narrated documentary about the Ferus Gallery, which, in spite of the plethora of colorful characters, takes a surprisingly scholarly approach to its discussion of Abstract Expressionism, assemblage and ceramics. Aside from the curators, dealers and Ferus regulars, Andy Warhol, Frank Gehry, Dean Stockwell and even Dennis Hopper appear, but it’s overwhelmingly the evolution of the gallery and the scene that are the focus here. What’s lost in intimacy is nearly made up for in spirited style (one particularly nice touch is the black-and-white footage allowing a lit cigarette, a bucket of pink paint and a Lichtenstein to spring to full-colored life), though the tone gets decidedly dark as money and fame slowly unravel the community, and death alters it completely.

Such insight as “Art offers the possibility of love with strangers” is gleaned, but particularly when compared to rousing festival-mate Beautiful Losers, The Cool School is overwhelmingly more interested in influencing viewers’ brains than their hearts.