Pollock

Pollock (2000) There's no question this is a well made film, and based pretty much on truth, and an interesting truth--the life of a great Abstract Expressionist. Some would say the greatest of them all. For myself, this isn't enough, and I know this is me. I'm an art critic and professor of Art in my real life, and I'm never very patient with movies about artists. The reason isn't that there are inaccuracies, but that there is a subtle or not-subtle goal of aggrandizing the subject. This reaches a beautiful but, again, romanticized, peak when Pollock makes his famous break into true gestural, raw work in a large commissioned piece for Peggy Guggenheim (who is portrayed, oddly, as a shy and dull sort, which I've never pictured). Then later he makes his drip works. And then he dies, again over dramatized and made aesthetic, as tragic and ugly as it had to have been in life. If you want to really get into Pollock's head, especially if you aren't already a fan (I love Pollock's work), this is a convincing movie. At the helm as both director and playing the artist is Ed Harris. He is especially believable as a painter, which is something of an important point. This isn't like those movies about musicians where the actor is clearly not playing. Harris actually paints the darned thing, the big masterpiece, on the cusp of the drip works. I don't know if Harris was drinking, too, but he's a good drunk, and of course Pollock was a better drinker than a painter, even. It's a cheap shot to say a movie could have been shorter, but this one sure would have propelled better with less atmosphere, less filler that is meant to create his life but is interesting only as an illustration of historical facts. It wore me thin for those reasons. Again, it might be a matter of how much you can get sucked into the given drama that is Jackson Pollock's life. It was quite a life, crude, untempered, brave, and immensely connected to what matters as an artist.

While this film is flooded with holes in Pollacks short career, we do get a glimpse of his struggle and process. I was sorry that a few other notable artist that were a part of Pollacks art scene were not portrayed during this great period of time. Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson and Robert Motherwell to name a few. Also, Pollack worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for a short time. This environment was partly responsible for exposing him to the dominant European invasion of art in America. I would have liked more in depth insights into why Pollack began painting and why he was so tortured. Ed Harris does a fine job with the material he was working with, but they could have covered more bases in Pollacks life and I know Harris would have stepped up to the plate. In one scene Pollack is pacing back and forth in front of a large blank canvass. It is a stunning scene watching his shadow run along that large white surface waiting for the moment he would begin to paint. Another scene takes us to East Hampton where he is kneeling down out in the salt marshes staring into a tide pool. Just this pose alone suggests a precursor to removing the canvass from the wall and placing it on the floor. There are a few quiet moments that capture the subtle Pollack and I wish they explored more in this direction. In so many of these artist portrayals the essence of the process and inspiration gets lost in the drama of their personalities. However, this movie takes on an ambitious man and an ambitious time in American Art. I was grateful to have seen with my own eyes several Pollack shows over the years and to have studied and experimented myself with Abstract Expressionism. I think Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden should be nominated for their incredible portrayals of these two great artists. Moreover, whether you know a great deal about Pollack, this film will allow you to glimpse into the life of Jackson, but it will also expose you to his wonderful partner, Lee Krasner.

Objectively speaking, POLLOCK is not a bad film. Subjectively speaking, I hated it from the very beginning and couldn't wait for it to end. Throughout, it seems infused with the vitriolic spirit of Jackson Pollock, Stereotypical Alcoholic Artist, creating a work that is rock-hard to warm to. Not only is it tough to watch the sullen, surly, self-aggrandizing character played by actor-director Ed Harris, but his pushy, utterly codependent wife, Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden), is another stomach-turner. `Get your own damn career and stop freeloading off his!' I found myself yelling at the screen. Put these two together and you've got the film's main focalpoint: a blatantly parasitic relationship that monotonously circles the same track, with her lowering her vast black New Yorker eyebrows in scorn and him skulking around with the loquaciousness of a two-toed sloth. Don't these characters ever get to do anything but hype his `genius,' carp and stew-for reasons we're never privy to? Set between 1941 and Pollock's 1956 death, the film both tells too little and tells too much. It presumes knowledge of the artist's career and biography that the uninitiated don't necessarily have. For instance, several times Pollock cops a faraway look that apparently means something to cognoscenti, like, `I can see him composing I'M A DRIP #7 in his head right now.' But the gauzy gazes are never explained, and the audience strains to psych out a character who is so malicious, self-absorbed and boring that it's not worth the effort. On the other hand, screenwriters Barbara Turner and Susan J. Emshwiller struggle to provide historical details about Pollock's shows, business dealings, interviews, etc., making the film stilted in places. They also have an unfortunate need to plug in famous quotes: `I am nature,' `I'm the only painter worth looking at in America,' etc. Using such gack-worthy lines in service of character development is a cheap form of shorthand. I guarantee we could've extrapolated that Lee thought Jack's new splatter style impressive without having her deadpan, `You've done it, Pollock. You've cracked it wide open.' WHAT got cracked open is never revealed. There's nary a whisper of his being the first abstract expressionist, nor a mention of the designation Action Painters (though we do get to watch them guzzle beer together). The film never shares that The Dripper was fascinated with Navajo sandpaintings or the subconscious or anything else, facts that might have imbued him with some intelligence and dimension besides his supposed Neanderthal charm. Characters fall out of the sky without any explanation of who they are or what their import. Clement Greenberg is just `Clem,'--as their farmhand might be `ol' Zeke'-forget that he was one of the era's foremost art critics. When Krasner and her bangs first appear, we have no idea if she's a critic or a painter or just some gal cruising the Village for a drunk to pop. The film also jettisons the talents of several supporting actors. As Pollock's mom, Sada Thompson has sorely little to say, left to express herself with the kind of glares she used to give Buddy on FAMILY, but for reasons that are, again, never explained. Bud Cort, of HAROLD AND MAUDE fame, is a terrific surprise-but in the meagerest role on earth. And Val Kilmer's bleached-out Willem de Kooning looks as if all the sunlamps and hash bars have completely overtaken him. Stay home and read Pollock's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, or tip a few (paint) cans of your own.

Why would anyone care about any of the characters in this movie. They are uninteresting and pathetic and make no progress. The fact that they have art talent is of little interest. The performances of the actors, while commendable, tell a dull and repetitive story. It is a very long two hours to endure.

a good film, though perhaps i was expecting a little more. The psyche of a troubled artist is somewhat predestined these days and maybe it is just that our assumptions are correct as they are all portrayed in a predictable way. If this is how the artist truly was then then Harris could have done nothing different, it just seems a little distant. I didn't feel at one with the artist, i couldn't sympathise with him or feel his pain. The 'intellectual' artistic debates and gendredising continuously used by his wive left me with no sympathy for her. She appears desperate from the first scene pretentiously trying to be involved with the next big thing. The most depressing part of this film is that two people can be stupid enough to waste their lives on each other without searching for the happiness which they truly seek. The emphasis is on Pollock as a man whereas i would like to see more of him as an artist, did his individual paintings have meaning or did he just do them out of hate for the world.... i guess i didn't feel you see his mind and its true agony's, maybe he was just generally mad at the world. Really not a bad film for what it is, just to me it lacked true emotion. sio

Considering the way painter Pollock is portrayed in this movie, I could not feel for him in any way. He was such a "jerk" - especially in the way he behaved towards those who loved him. After a half-hour of this drivel, I just plain didn't care about him any more, and couldn't wait for the movie to end. The only noteworthy things about the film were the acting of Ed Harris (the reason I watched the film), his cooooool car and the acting of Marcia Gay Harding (too bad her terrific performance was stuck in such a boring movie). Only 2 stars out of 10 -thumbs way down. Oh and P.S. - even I can paint as well as Jackson - that must be why I have such a boring life too!!

Ed Harris has taken the biopic to a new level. Although the skeleton of the film is no more than the troubled life of an alcoholic struggling with fame, the power of the acting and sequence of the film take it a step further. The relationship between Krasner and Pollock mirrors that of Stanley and Stella Kowalski but Krasner is a much stronger character and Marcia Gay Harden more than deserved the oscar she received for the part. The only part that concerned me was the explanation Harris chose to show Pollock's progression to his drip paintings. The arbitrariness of the "revelation" seems stretched to me and suggests that it is actually known how Pollock made that movement. All in all, the movie is excellent and worth seeing. Just be careful - I cringed every time he got into a car...

Jackson Pollock was not a likable person. He was an alcoholic, an adulterer, an egotist and simply a plain jerk. He also was a pioneer in the field of modern art, so he became famous and hence, even had this movie about his life. Ed Harris, a jerk himself, was a good choice for the role. Harris, who looks like Pollock, did a fine job of portraying this "tormented" soul, a word critics love to use for famous artists (see Van Gogh). This was an interesting film and I watched it twice. It inspired me to become an artist and I did a handful of Pollock imitations, several of which sold for a decent price. I love Pollock's work, and I enjoy character studies of people on film . But this gets a little sordid as the film goes on with a definitely-unhappy ending. Hat's off to Marcia Gay Harden for her performance as Pollock's wife. She has the New York City accent down pat. She is shown worshiping her husband and it's painful to see her get hurt. The story is a bit soap operish but if you enjoy art, and especially Pollock's work, you'll find this story fascinating. More than one look, however, changes the canvas, so to speak. The story, more than the art, then will come through more and that can be too much of a downer. So, visit this "art show" once and leave it at that.

The problem with most actors when they direct is their belief that performance is all. Well, what good are any performances without good storytelling? "Pollock" is as flat as one of Jackson's canvases, devoid of dramatic tension or even real character development beyond two notes. I never believed that Pollock and Lee Krasner were in love -- they never kiss, physical contact is strictly buddy-buddy arms across the shoulders, and the only emotions expressed with any conviction are anger and despair. Something that distracted me throughout was Ed Harris' physique. The only exercise the real Jackson Pollock got was from lifting cigarettes and beer bottles to his mouth but here he's always utterly buff. Even at the end, when Harris put on 20 or 30 pounds, he was a buff-looking fatty. Bottom line, Pollock's life was boring, and so's the movie.

This film was a major disappointment for me, and is yet another example why you don't put actors in charge. Harris is an earnest enough actor, but a film project in general needs to understand the broader nature of the art of film. When it is a film of another art (dance, music, painting, even film-making itself) it requires an even broader stance. Else what you have is a story about just another schmuck with a messed up life. There are so many elements of this story that Harris misses, but two particularly annoy. First: Art, and painting in particular, consists of producing the actual artifact and simultaneously presenting a narrative about the artist and artifact to the consuming public. Van Gogh was a great painter because of both his work and his brother's publicizing of the artist's views. A trend in art history focuses more on the accident of the narrative than the talent of the artist, and Pollock is the key example. That's because what really made Pollock was the contemporary film of him painting. His energy. The notion of brushwork so abstract that the brush never even touches the canvas. The notion of isolation from the urban dialog. That film is misplaced in this story as coming late. I recall it came earlier, and was a key in presenting the art. So what's missed is the opportunity to focus on Lee as the real artist. Rather than being a sacrificing second-rate painter, she was the real abstract painter: brushwork so abstract she never even touches the brush. And the fact that the seminal film (of the real Pollock) is not exploited in this context is a tragically missed opportunity. Here, it is merely an excuse to fall off the wagon. A simple actor's device rather than a fulcrum for exploring cultural memes. Second: Quite apart from the missed leverage of the historic film noted above, the medium of cinema as painting is completely ignored. Why shouldn't the nature of the film convey, at least in some small measure, the same ideas the paintings have? Compare this to 'Vincent and Theo,' where the pictures on the screen mirror those on the easel. Also 'The Draghtsman's Contract?' It would have been so easy for us to get a feel of what Pollock intended if the approach to the camera had some of Pollock's feel. Instead we get Aaron Copland? Instead we get a literal, completely composed linear camera perspective? Instead we get something we can understand? Instead we get no management of color and rhythm? Jackson would have vomited. Note the logical place for at least a titular statement of style, the sixty seconds or so right before the crash. No luck. How great a film could have been woven around the notion of itself being art and also about art; of being a narrative of art and also a narrative about the narrative of art. Damn, we'll never know now. This film is not bad because it is bad (like most films), rather it is bad because it is not good.