'3BlackChicks Review...'
POLLOCK (2000) Rated R; running time 119 minutes Genre: Drama Seen at: Jack Lokes' Celebration Cinema (Lansing, Michigan) Official site: http://www.spe.sony.com/classics/pollock/ IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0183659 Written by: Susan Emshwiller, Barbara Turner (based on the book by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith) Directed by: Ed Harris Cast: Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden, Amy Madigan, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Knott, Bud Cort, John Heard, Val Kilmer, Sada Thompson, Tom Bower, Jennifer Connelly, Sally Murphy, Molly Regan, John Rothman, Annabelle Gurwitch, Isabelle Townsend, Barbara Garrick, Everett Quinton, Stephen Beach, Jill Jackson, David Leary, Donna Mitchell, Frank Wood, Julie Anna Rose
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2001 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamspollock.html
There's an ex-brother-in-law of mine who, like Jackson Pollock at one time, was a starving artist (and not ever much more than that), and who, like Pollock, drank heavily when he decided The World Was Against Him. There's a good reason he's an "ex-"; and there's an equally good reason that this ex- will probably never achieve even a small fraction of Pollock's notoriety in his lifetime (or - sadly, more apropos for the career of a painter - after his death).
Not that this ex-relative of mine is anywhere near the status of a Jackson Pollock, mind you. It's just that having known this wasted man, helped me to see beyond the strange monotone drone this movie at times had for me, and understand the demons Pollock faced, a wee bit better.
The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**): Let's get the largest spoiler out of the way now, so that anyone who isn't familiar with The Life And Times Of Jackson Pollock, can start hating me right away: Jackson Pollock is dead.
Though of course, this movie deals more with his life, than his death. POLLOCK begins with a woman, bearing a copy of "Life Magazine", seeking an autograph from a man who looks like the troubles of the world lay in his steely eyes; then it flashes back to Greenwich Village, New York in November of 1941, 9 years earlier. At that time, Jackson Pollock (Ed Harris) spent as much time drinking, walking through life in a daze, and complaining to his brother Sande (Robert Knott) about the attention his fellow artists were getting ("F*ck Picasso!", he raged), as he did painting - much to the consternation of his pregnant sister-in-law.
Enter abstract artist Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden), who moves rapidly into Pollock's life, his business, and his bed. Impressed with Pollock's work at the start, Krasner soon sets him up with gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim (Amy Madigan), who allows Pollock to work on commission for her gallery. The world doesn't seem to be ready for him, though; he's seen as an original, but that doesn't immediately translate to sales, and he becomes frustrated, and drunk, in waves. Pollock and Krasner eventually move away from the big city, into a more peaceful, if not prosperous, existence on Long Island. But even after he recreates his abstract art style of painting - using thrown and dripped strands of paint in a style called Action Painting, in which the process of painting becomes as important as the finished product - that doesn't seem to be enough to take Pollock to the next level.
That is, until "Life Magazine" takes a notice of his work, thrusting him into the limelight. Bringing with it, its own new set of demons...
The Upshot: The most subjective of the creative arts, Art, I fear, is one of those things in life that you either Get, or you don't. That goes double for movies about Art. And so I'll tell you true: for a large part, I just didn't Get POLLOCK.
Oh, I understood the "starving artist" concept, and the "they don't understand what I'm trying to Say here" concept and the "tortured soul in another plane of existence" concept and all. I just don't Get folks sitting/standing around trying to decide what a given painting "means"; especially one that - let us be for real, here - looks like a child made a mess on the canvas. Similarly, I didn't Get the gist of what this film was trying to tell the audience, past the madness that comes with coloring outside the lines, so to speak. But most of all, I didn't Get what all the people in this cast - especially "names" like John Heard (as Tony Smith), Val Kilmer (Willem de Kooning) and to a lesser degree, Sada Thompson as Pollock's mother Stella - had to do with anything in Pollock's life. Yes, I *know* they were real-life people, but looking at the cast of characters, I can't even remember who half of them were. For all the interaction they had with him, the filmmakers could've pared the cast down easily by half, and spent more time delving into the Whys of Pollock's madness, and his genius.
All that said, I certainly groked the main performances by Ed Harris as the artiste Jackson Pollock, and especially the tour-de-force by Marcia Gay Harden as Lee Krasner, fellow artiste, and - for want of a better term - Jackson's keeper. I failed to see what, exactly, Krasner could've possibly seen in Pollock that would allow her to take so much of his crap for so long, but Harden brought an intensity to the role - especially in her closing scenes - that definitely earned her every ounce of Oscar gold that she got. Harris and Harden made a dynamic duo; where Harris' Pollock was moody and tempestuous, Harden's Krasner was a whirlwind, sure of herself, with the no-nonsense attitude of a woman who "knew her place" - and welcomed it. Hard to believe they could've stayed together as long as they did, but, Strokes For Folks.
Combined with good showings by Amy Madigan (Harris' real-life wife) as gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim and Jeffrey Tambor as art critic Clement Greenberg, and the outstanding directing of Harris himself (I loved his use of quiet shadows throughout; Jackson's and Lee's first love scene was nothing less than a work of art), POLLOCK was an enjoyable, if slightly irritating, peek into a way of life that I don't I'll ever fully understand. I only wish that with as large a cast as this movie had, I could've gotten more from the big picture.
Bammer's Bottom Line: I enjoyed POLLOCK more on the strength of stars Ed Harris and especially Marcia Gay Harden, than the overall movie itself. But I appreciated this literal art flick for its glimpse into the tortured soul of an artist, even though the artist it put me in mind of, deserved all the torture that came to him. Who, me, bitter?
POLLOCK (rating: greenlight): But sorry, some of Pollock's paintings *did* look like nothing more than just dribbled paint. Maybe I'm just not meant to Get It.
Rose "Bams" Cooper Webchick and Editor, 3BlackChicks Review Movie Reviews With Flava! Copyright Rose Cooper, 2001 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com http://www.3blackchicks.com/
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