Last night I saw on TCM the Ed Harris 2000 film, Pollock, for the second time. I first viewed it 24 years ago, the year it premiered. I remember thinking of the film as an outstanding directorial maiden voyage for Harris, who portrays the American artist Jackson Pollock. I was pleased when he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and Marcia Gay Harden won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her interpretation of Lee Krasner, Pollock's wife and, in my view, an equally talented artist. On this viewing of Pollock, I realized how much I had missed the first time. This biopic tracing Pollock's life and artistic times simultaneously examines five vital issues concerning the human condition: the history of American art, which always reflects its times; the business of art, which determines what is art and what is not; the creative process, which rarely has been covered so brilliantly as here in any medium; mental illness, with all its psychological and social manifestations; and matrimonial conflict, inevitable in all marriages but compounded by mental illness. This singular achievement belongs to the screenwriting genius of Barbara Turner and Susan Ermshwiller, as well as the superlative, pensive direction of Harris.
The film starts in 1941, during World War II, when Picasso reigned as the supreme global artist, and social realism clashed with surrealism, profoundly affecting what and how American artists produced their work. Although the term abstract expressionism was not coined until 1946, Pollock reveals events leading up to it and beyond, when this movement brought worldwide attention to American artists.
Art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim and art critic Clement Greenberg play key roles in the film as Pollock's professional supporters and confidants. (Amy Madigan and Jeffrey Tambor radiantly deliver these roles.) Throughout the movie are several dialogues about what constitutes twentieth century art and how the public acquires its aesthetic taste in the modern world. These dialogues run in tandem with Pollock's decades-long physical and emotional decline.
The creative process is at center stage whenever we see Pollock at work, or even when he is thinking about working. His breakthrough drip method of painting gets a visually stunning introduction, and the stunning visual contrast of Pollock's gritty New York City and idyllic East Hampton residences by cinematographer Lisa Rinzler is pure art in itself.
Pollock suffered from reclusiveness, personality disorder, and alcoholism throughout his life. Harris shows how these maladies gradually destroyed the artist and the man, estranging him from his family members, closest friends, and eventually his wife. It also contributed to his death behind the wheel with two other passengers, one of whom died. The film shows his inner circle of collaborators shrinking as his conditions worsen and surface more frequently, profound effects of mental illness.
The real fireworks in Pollock are in its depiction of the artists' marriage. Krasner is unconditionally encouraging and supportive of Pollock, who is lost in his own world, unable to relate to people on any level other than art. During certain moments of the story, it's hard to draw the line between where Krasner was a champion of her husband's work or an enabler of his bad behavior. Ambiguity always promises great drama, and Pollock overflows with the mystery of being as well as the perplexity of human relationships.
A movie as important nearly a quarter century after it was released is one worth watching. Pollock is a must-see for viewers interested in learning something about themselves and their world.
