Director: Morgan Neville
Script: Morgan Neville, Kristine McKenna
Photography: Morgan Neville, Dylan Robertson, Chris Perkel
Editors: Chris Perkel, Dylan Robertson
Music: Dan Crane
With: Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hopper, Frank O. Gehry, Billy Al Bengston, Irving Blum, Walter Hopps, Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, Ed Moses
Narrator: Jeff Bridges
Producers: Dylan Robertson, Morgan Neville, Kristine McKenna
Executive Producer: Cedd Moses
Production: Tremolo Productions
Distribution: Arthouse Films
Tel: +1 646 290 56 78
Fax: +1 646 241 80 99
arthousefilmsdk@gmail.com
Selected Filmography Morgan Neville: Shotgun Freeway: Drives Thru Lost LA, 1995; Sydney Poitier: The Defiant One, 1996; Gloria Swanson, 1997; John Steinbeck: An American Writer, 1998; Brian Wilson: A Beach Boy's Life, 1999; Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Roch'n'Roll, 2000; Hitmakers: Inside the Brill Building, 2001; American Master: Muddy Waters Can't Be Satisfied, 2003; American Master: Honky Tonk Blues: The Life and Death of Hank Williams, 2004; Hollywood Home Movies, 2004; American Revolution: The Highwaymen, 2005; Hair-Do's and Heartache: The Women of Country Music, 2005.
When, after the Second World War, the USA rose to be the most important nation in modern art, the merit was above all the New York scene's. Los Angeles was a blind spot on the map of modern art until the mid-1950s. It was all due to change in 1957 as Walter Hopps and Edward Kienholz founded Ferus Gallery. Morgan Neville’s documentary "The Cool School" seeks out the beginnings of the L.A. art scene, which, in contrast to the New York scene that was strongly marked by Europeans, created wholly original US art. Neville himself makes virtuosic use of the aesthetics of these years: in its graphic elements, "The Cool School" makes seminal achievements come alive again, such as the look of Saul Bass' celebrated title sequences or the legendary album cover art of the Blue Note label.