POLLOCK
US, 2000, 132 minutes, Colour.
Ed Harris, Marcia Gaye Harden, Jennifer Connolly, Amy Madigan, Tom Bower, Bud Court, John Heard, Val Kilmer, Sada Thompson, Jeffrey Tambor.
Directed by Ed Harris.
Pollock is a fine portrait of the American artist, Jackson Pollock. Films about American artists of the 20th century include Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat and several films about Andy Warhol including I Shot Andy Warhol and The Factory. Warhol also appears in Basquiat.
Jackson Pollock was a New York artist, working in the 1930s and 40s, influenced by the modern trends of the period. However, with the encouragement of Lee Krasner whom he married, he was able to make a breakthrough into the art establishment of the city. This was especially through the influence of art entrepreneur and dealer, Peggy Guggenheim (played in the film by Harris’s wife, Amy Madigan). Marcia Gaye Harden as Lee Krasner won the Oscar for best supporting actress.
Ed Harris gives an intelligent performance as Pollock, even mimicking in many scenes, Pollock’s method of painting, with brush, with splashing, which became his characteristic trait. Pollock himself is presented as an egotistical man with temperament, an alcoholic, relying very much on the support of Lee Krasner but eventually tiring of it and wanting to break out on his own. He has an affair with Peggy Guggenheim and finally leaves his wife for a younger woman (played by Jennifer Connolly).
While the film shows the ups and downs of Pollock’s life and his temperament as well as portraying a great deal of his art, the film also shows something of the art world of the mid-1950s in the United States, especially in New York City.
Ed Harris directed the film himself, a labour of love. Harris’s other film that he directed was the western, Appaloosa, 2008.
1.Audience knowledge of Jackson Pollock? Interest in him? His life, his artwork, his temperament? The film offering insight into him? Ed Harris and his commitment to the film and to the portrait of Pollock?
2.The framework, Pollock and the celebration, autographs, the flashbacks, his life, career, his success, his self-destructiveness?
3.The New York settings, the 1940s and 50s, studios, family homes, galleries, Long Island, the house, the garden and the countryside?
4.The score, the period and atmosphere?
5.Audiences and their response to the lives of artists, their temperaments, gifts, being driven, self-centred, relationship with family, loving relationships, sexual, betrayal? Reputation, jealousy? Being hurtful? Achievement, never enough? Destruction?
6.The portrait of Jackson Pollock? In his family, his brothers, their families, nieces and nephews, the meetings, the meals? His love for his mother, her coming to the opening? His work in the 1940s, the art influences, his friends and critics, his judgments on other artists including Picasso, condemnation? Lee, her arrival at his apartment, her enthusiasm, encouraging him? The relationship, love? Connecting? The various art representatives? Howard Putzel? The friendship of Tony Smith, Willem De Kooning? Peggy Guggenheim? His drinking, keeping her waiting, the exhibition, the sales, her commission for the foyer, success, his relationship with her? His marriage to Lee, going to Long Island, two years off the alcohol, Lee not wanting a baby and its effect on him? His struggle, the vegetables, the deliveries, the bike? Finding his stride, his characteristic work, distinctive? Lee and her travel, tensions, his taking up with Ruth Kligman? The sexual relationship, hurting Lee, saying that he owed her something for what she had done? His drinking, the phone call, his driving, recklessness, Ruth and the passenger and their fears, the crash?
7.Pollock’s distinctive style, modern, American, the influences, abstract? His use of paint, colours? Meanings? His change? His contribution to world art?
8.The character of Lee, her arrival, her approach, the relationship, living with Pollock, encouraging him? Her place in the art world? At home, meals? His drinking and putting up with it? Going to Long Island, the garden, her not wanting a baby, Pollock’s anger? Her friendship with the critics, the reviewers? The growing alienation, her travelling, Pollock leaving her, her being hurt? The subsequent twenty-eight years and her curating his work?
9.Ruth, in love with him, her friend, her not having any regard for Lee, the drive, her fear, the deaths?
10.Peggy Guggenheim, as a character, her demands?
11.Clem Greenberg, Lee persuading him to look at the art, becoming a friend, his visits, his comments?
12.The range of friends, Dan Miller, the agents?
13.Pollock’s death – and the questions of what might have been had he lived and been more positive and constructive?
