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Pollock
***
Cinema Releases - June 7, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. USA.
122 minutes. Directed by Ed Harris. Written by Susan J. Emshwiller, Barbara
Turner; based on the book "Jackson Pollock: An American Saga" by Steven Naifeh.
Starring Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden, Amy Madigan, Jennifer Connelly, Jeffrey
Tambor, Bud Cort, John Heard, Val Kilmer, Stephanie Seymour, Tom Bower, Robert
Knott.
The obvious reaction to the art of Jackson Pollock
is one of dismissal. Anyone can splash paint onto a canvas, it has been said,
and more fool Pollock fans for being so pretentious as to be duped into
intellectualising his work as masterful. This criticism gets around the fact
that his paint splatters are unshakably striking. And even if anyone could
have done them, it was Pollock who had the mad, obsessive genius to actually
go out and turn them into a career.
One of the achievements of "Pollock"
is that it not only proves my last two sentences, but it debunks
the idea that Jackson Pollock's work was easy to create. Ed Harris, in the
title role, looks deeply involved with his materials as he goes about creating
images; there's an intense, unbreakable momentum in his eyes and movements.
There's also great physicality; the very act of putting these paintings together
involved grand and exhausting struggles, like shouting for hours in a language
that only makes sense to the speaker.
"Pollock" was released a year and a half ago in
the United States; it's late arrival here is inexplicable, but during the
wait we've seen plenty of press about the movie's genesis. We know that for
more than a decade this project has been a labour of love for Harris, who
starred, produced and directed. It's not easy to find financing for a movie
about a weirdo artist who was, by all accounts, not very nice to be
around.
Harris's years of waiting to get "Pollock" made
have given him a good deal of time to consider what it was like to be the
man, and his performance seems intuitive. The movie is respectful; it stays
within a certain format, and doesn't attempt to leap out of the frame and
reinvent cinema the way Pollock revolutionised art -- but Harris inhabits
the role (especially the painting scenes) so well that we never doubt the
work is coming from him. We don't even think about it.
The film begins in the 1940s, at the start of
Pollock's career, and goes right up to his death in 1956. We see much of
the man at work, of his temper tantrums, and of his relationship with fellow
artist Lee Krasner, who became Pollock's wife. On the basis of this movie,
Krasner was really a saint -- she's constantly clipping her husband's reviews,
reading them to bored party guests, acting like some kind of agent. And yet
she's not just some girl on the sidelines whose job it is to go gaga over
genius; she has compassion, love and care for Pollock, she understands the
power of his work, and she sacrificially devotes herself by doing her best
to keep Pollock in a state that is not exactly normal, but just about healthy
enough to be productive.
Krasner forgives Pollock for not being grateful
for her; he's self-absorbed and unsatisfied, and that's his personality.
When she gets angry it's because Pollock is actively betraying her, or working
against her efforts by doing damage to himself. Pollock's final road to
self-destruction comes when he finally recognises his wife, and responds
to her with rejection.
Marcia Gay Harden won an Oscar for playing Krasner,
but it's not the kind of showboat role that usually wins awards. She gets
to have a few rants, but the best thing about the performance is the way
it communicates complicated, internalised, well thought out dedication. Harris,
of course, is excellent, and as a director he portrays the New York art world
by populating his frame with sharp supporting performances by familiar actors.
We see Amy Madigan (as Peggy Guggenheim), Jeffrey Tambor (as art critic Clement
Greenberg) and Val Kilmer (as William DeKooning, one of Pollock's friends
and competitors), as well as John Heard, Jennifer Connelly and Bud Cort.
Hey -- if you don't know anything about the NYC art scene of the time, you
can at least gauge a role's importance by reflecting on how well you recognise
an actor's face.
"Pollock" has come under fire from some British
critics for being, they claim, just another story about a tortured artist.
I would submit that the film only seems straightforward because the complexity
of its relationships and intelligence of its details have been handled with
such ease. These are not caricatures, they're lives, unfolding on the screen.
Harris's direction is absorbing; compare it to Richard Eyre's ghastly handling
of "Iris", which seemed calculated and fake. Pollock says in one scene that
people should leave their baggage at home, and for once, he's saying the
right thing.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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