Any GOOD movies about the 'art world'/art schools?

It is hard to translate the excitement of a painting into film. Creating a film from a spectator point of view of a painter's life is not too interesting to watch, unless there is a side show of specticle. That specticle can be intentional, or from an interesting life of fame, affairs, intrigue, and madness. Someone with less than rocket acsention into fame, who lives a fairly even-keeled life but shows up every day at the canvas, is not going to provide a great arc of a story.

However, that is where you engage with the work itself on a more intimate, meditative level.

For some people, specticle IS the medium. Like the strangler....it was not the artwork he made...it was the destruction and chaos that got the community's attention. I liked Art School Confidential, but it gets me down, as it negatively reinforces the part of the "scene" that cares very little about painting itself.

That said, I saw an interestng play between those worlds in a documentary on
Leigh Bowery, a performance artist who was very much into disturbing confrontational faaaabulous specticle, and towards the end of his life a model and muse for Lucian Freud (grandson of Sigmund...but made his own name as one of the world's master contemporary figurative painters.)

Here are some links to the documentary
http://imdb.com/title/tt0354696/board
http://shopping.msn.com/prices/shp/?itemId=2031944

I thought "Pollock" was pretty good. bucket of blood is tooooo amazing.

"Frankie what are you doin' in the wall?"

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"Vérités et mensonges"

"The Shape of Things"

"Art 21" documentary series ESPECIALLY the segment about Trenton Doyle Hancock

"She's all That" if you want an absurd parody of art school. Sadly it's not far from the truth.

Try Six Feet Under. It's not a film but a show and it's not entirely about art, but one of the characters goes to art school as well and it's pretty well depicted. Also, the show is one of the best ever.