Pollock (2000)

The long road to Pollock began when actor Ed Harris received a biography of Jackson Pollock from his father, who noticed that his son bore an uncanny resemblance to the artist. Harris's fascination with Pollock matched his physical similarity; the actor chose to direct and star in this impressive film biography. And his devotion assured a work of singular integrity, honoring the artist's achievement in abstract expressionism while acknowledging that Pollock was a tormented, manic-depressive alcoholic whose death at 44 (in a possibly suicidal car crash) also claimed the life of an innocent woman. The film also suggests that Pollock's success was largely attributable to the devotion of his wife, artist Lee Krasner, played with matching ferocity by Marcia Gay Harden in an Oscar®-winning performance.

In many respects a traditional biopic, Pollock begins in 1941 when Pollock meets Krasner, who encourages him and attracts the attention of supportive critic Clement Greenberg (Jeffrey Tambor) and benefactor Peggy Guggenheim (Amy Madigan). As Pollock rises from obscurity to international acclaim, Harris brings careful balance to his portrayal of a driven creator who found peace during those brief, sober periods when art brought release from his tenacious inner demons. The film offers sympathy without sentiment, appreciation without misguided hagiography. As an acting showcase it's utterly captivating. As a compassionate but unflinching exploration of Jackson Pollock's intimate world, there's no doubt that Harris captured the essence of a man whose life was as torturous as his art was redeeming. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

Very hard to portray a dead artist unless you knew him

personally. That's why these movies really never work. Either by making the addicted artist/actor so saintly he/she practically walks on water, or that their addiction is always someone else's fault. Reminds me of the egyptologists that waste so much money, time, and lives digging up dusty, vermon wrapped "mummies" and raising their bones and housing them in multi-million dollar museums, and from what I read these pharohs had no redeeming qualities, all they did was make everyone that wasen't "royal" miserable. If you want to honor someone make sure they are worth the trouble. Just my opinion. June 30, 2008

Art minus hollywood frills

There is no simple way to label this film any more than there is a an easy way to describe its subject. Pollock was a fascinating person and the movie does an excellent job in describing how his paintings evolved. It's educational, in fact, gloriously so, but the film goes so much farther than that. Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden seem born for their roles (even the Academy Awards acknowledged that) The lives of the artists were quite complicated enough without some ham-handed writer from the factory trying to liven them up. The sensitivity and craftsmanship of everyone involved, from the producers and director on down show deep respect for Pollock and his genius and we get a wonderful dose of Pollock's works from the beginning on. This isn't just a film for art lovers - it'sa great film in itself and I highly recommend it. April 21, 2008

Tormented soul and a brilliant talent

This film, directed by Ed Harris, who also plays the lead role of Jackson Pollock, is a rare, intelligent, thoughtful and courageous work of art in its own right. The film deserves great praise. I say this because many challenges had to be overcome to produce a film that reflects the New York and world art scene of the 1940s and 1950s; reflects on the work of a singular tempestuous genius of that period; explores his talents and his many demons; and maintains a storyline that can be adapted from life experiences to the motion picture screen. I will cover all four of these aspects of the film in this review.

First, however, I think a comment should be made regarding the super job that Ed Harris does at portraying this dark genius. He is brooding, pensive, angry, defeated, overly sensitive, and reclusive and non-communicative. Some of these emotions are easier to portray than others. Harris hits them all perfectly. It is Marcia Gay Harden who emotionally holds the film together, the way Lee Krasner emotionally held Jackson Pollock together. Harden well deserves the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Jeffrey Tambor is perfect as art critic Clement Greenberg and Amy Madigan is great as Peggy Guggenheim. The early scene where Peggy Guggenheim throws a temper tantrum because she had to walk up 5 flights of stairs to see Pollock's studio is a very nice scene, revealing that Pollock was not the only one around who was strung a bit too tight.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the works of Matisse and Picasso dominated the international art world. They are such influential masters that their work still continues to influence after almost 70 years. The dominance of Europe over America in terms of painting had been established for over 100 years and America had never produced artists that could compete for the top positions in the art world. However after the defeat of Europe at the end of World War II, the momentum began to change and an American expressive style began to develop. Of course this movement had its roots in Surrealism, European artists who had migrated to America such as Arshille Gorky and Willem de Kooning, the writings of psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung regarding the working of the unconscious; the art-philosophical writings and paintings of Kandinsky; and the championship of art critics that could articulate the emergence of an American style - powerfully reinvented from the host of influences that swirled behind it. The film is able to tell this story carefully without becoming an art history lesson. Bits of the art history story are interwoven into the script in a careful manner so that there is no sense of lecture but rather of a natural history of social influences acting upon the actors in the art scene of the time.

The film was absolutely honest in showing that Pollock's style did not arise full blown and complete but rather was influenced by the surrealists and the other painters of his era. However he took these influences and combined them with influence from Chinese screen and scroll painting and with an expansiveness that captures the wide spaces of the American experience. Greenberg's theory that paint should only be paint, should only be what it is, not a representation of something else, also influenced the breakthrough that was Pollock's drip canvases. These paintings directed the world of art away from Paris and toward New York City.

Pollock was haunted by demons and an alcoholic. The film does a great job of showing that the alcoholism did not create his genius but rather distracted from his creativity. Lee Krasner struggles to hold her husband together even though he is haunted by some dark unknown sense of failure and remorse paired with suppressed anger. Alcoholism covers the pain and anger only so well before it erupts and creates scenes of deprivation and abject misery and self loathing - which start the cycle downward all over again. It is during his periods of sobriety that he moves toward genius.

The storyline must follow the trajectory of the modern art movement in America but also follow the rocky fifteen year relationship between Pollock and Lee Krasner. He meets her when he is already an alcoholic man of 29 and end when he dies in a car crash at age 44. The period 1941 until 1956 is that period when the momentum for originality shifted from Europe to America and swept up a brilliant cluster of artistic talent onto the stage. A range of actors play Tony Smith, Franz Klein, and others from this period. Val Kilmer plays the handsome Willem de Kooning, the artist that eventually triumphs in this collection of exceptional talent.

In some ways the film is also an excellent reflection on the destruction of alcoholism and it deals with the terrors and shame and destruction of alcoholism like few films have before. Ed Harris produced an exceptional work of art in this film.
February 24, 2008

Best DVD Commentary Remark Ever

This movie is obviously a labor of love for Ed Harris, who spent nearly ten years from when his father gave him a book on Pollock's life to when he finally put it on the screen. Some may argue the genesis of the drip technique is not explored with enough depth, but the movie basically feels like a faithful portrayal of Pollock's obscurity, rise to fame, and tragic end. But the extras are where this movie really comes to life. They include a fun, knockabout interview by Charlie Rose of Harris, and the FUNNIEST EVER comment by a director in Harris' commentary - just listen to what he says during the very first gallery scene. Too much. January 20, 2008

The Art Of Faithful---If Of Necessity Fictionalized---Biography

It wouldn't be fair to let the fact I don't care a lot for this artist detract from the merits of this movie, so I won't go there. I'll just say that Pollack, the film, has quality and intelligence and was obviously a labor of love for the volatile Ed Harris, who shares, I think, some of the inner characteristics of the man he portrays here. As for the story it tells, admirers of this mid-last-century painter will find it sticks relatively faithfully to the grim biographies of the real life figures at its heart, primarily Jackson Pollack and his longsuffering wife Lee Krasner, but with a fluffy Peggy Guggenheim given her due as well. It can also be conceded that the motion picture, Pollack, pulls few punches in its honest depiction of the deterioration of its tormented title figure. Among its cast Jennifer Connelly, as Pollack's mistress Ruth Kligman, convincingly plays a character younger than her real life years, and Marcia Gay Harden's thankless task of bringing onto the screen Lee Krasner's many sacrifices shouldn't be overlooked amid Harris' tactile turn as the self-destructive Pollack. The scene of Harris and the bird in Pollack's garden, while perhaps meant to be symbolic, was actually even at surface level a lovely shot that came off like a delicate haiku in the midst of this otherwise often loud and confrontational motion picture. I didn't find Pollack a great film but I do respect that it stuck to what there was to say about the life and times of Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner. January 3, 2008

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