This movie, in my opinion, is as good of an art movie as it is a cinematic drama to please the masses. I really enjoyed how they showed the trials and tribulations of Jackson Pollock’s career. The movie really brings you into the craziness of Pollock and the actor Ed Harris was a great choice to play this character as he was really able to embody his slightly neurotic behaviors.

The way this movie showed how he painted was very interesting to watch, from the original style he painted to then showing how he came upon the style of drip painting that he was most famous for producing. I thought that the painting scenes were well put together in that you could very easily see the style of his painting and still not be caught up in a movie where the artist does nothing but paint. The way they showed his style of drip painting for example, it was very interesting to see the technique of dipping the paint and the way that the movie is filmed shows him going through the different paint layers and colors on the canvas. The movie portrayed Pollock’s paintings in a complex but also simple way with him choosing where to drip the paint carefully but also having it be out of his control how it hits the canvas so that there are no mistakes to him. There were many examples of Pollock’s paintings in the movie and they were always lying around the house or hung up on walls so the importance of painting in his life was made apparent in this movie.

The overall plot of the movie was very interesting, mainly due to Pollock’s crazy life which was filled with radical high and lows. All of the actors in the movie performed very well and the movie is hard to stop watching once you begin. I also think that the time periods that the movie went through were all portrayed very well. The first scenes of the movie to me were very interesting with Pollock living with his brother in New York City. I thought that the pre-war or just entering the war stage was shown well here with such things as the train station which had war bonds being sold along with train tickets, or the general solemn tone of the movie in the first few scenes.

As the movie went one thing that I noticed was that at times you could find yourself lost trying to figure out where they are in the movie. Since the movie jumps around in time just missing five minutes of the movie could cause you to miss a crucial scene to the plot or just not know where the scene is taking place and wondering who the new, unfamiliar characters are. This is hard to avoid in a movie where so many of the scenes occur in different places and at different intervals of time, but it can cause headaches for the viewer.

I did like how they portrayed Lee Krasner (played by Marcia Gay Harden) the wife of Pollock who stood with him through thick and thin and controlled his estate after his death. I think her role of support for Pollock was played so well by her that you end up hoping they come out on top together. Even when Pollock had mistresses she still stayed with him to keep him focused on art so that he could be successful, the role is played well showing how deeply connected she felt to Pollock to the point where she would stay with him although he was an alcoholic, adulterer, and showed little care for her at times. It is clear through this movie how much of an integral part of Pollock’s painting career Lee Krasner was and I felt that the movie and Marcia Gay Harden did a great job of showing her too. 

The relationship between Pollock and Krasner in the movie was not defined very well in my opinion. They were husband and wife but frequently throughout the movie Pollock would have various other women with him obviously for pleasure but they are not introduced well and their relationship to Pollock is not described greatly which can be a confusing part of the movie. I feel like a better explanation or any explanation could have been given to how he met the other girls he was with or just how close they were. Because of this you begin to sympathize more with Krasner as the movie goes along and see that Pollock had many flaws as well as talents. I think this was done on purpose to give you a glimpse into the real everyday life of him.

I would recommend this movie. It has its confusing draw-backs that can make it hard to understand at times but those are brief and few and far between in the movie. I thought it showed an excellent realistic portrayal of Jackson Pollock and the emotional and challenging life of an artist that he lived. The art in the movie was shown very well from the process/technique that was used to make it to the art shows with all of the finished products being shown off. Jackson Pollock lived a tumultuous life that I think was portrayed very well with this movie and I thought it was great that despite all the drama around his life and name they still showed the painting mind and side of Pollock.

While he was born in Wyoming, the movie skips his early life and begins immediately with a scene of Pollock, intoxicated, in his early 20’s in New York City. This was an interesting choice for the director to make as it really set the tone for how the movie would go. I enjoyed this choice made by the director because often it can be boring for the viewer to be given too much background information on a main character’s early life. You are almost immediately introduced to Lee Krasner, who would later become his wife. She follows him home which lets the viewer know right away she is a bold and strong personality. She is seen physically shoving herself through the door to speak to him, about art, which seems like a symbolic chose the director made. Her coming through this door was literally her coming into his life and the start of his driving success. She also has a heavy New York accent, and being from New York myself this was a touch that I enjoyed. They begin discussing art immediately and it is revealed to us that Krasner is also an extremely intelligent and well-spoken artist. Krasner’s main interests are in modern and abstract art, and particularly Pollock’s works.

While Krasner and Pollock are shown in their early dating life, and beginning stages of their relationships, we are shown they struggle heavily with money. Pollock is not yet a successful or known artist. We see scenes of Pollock being so intoxicated he falls asleep in the streets and is covered in filth coming home at all hours of the morning. Despite all of Pollock’s flaws, and red flags, Lee Krasner still loves him, and supports his art. Lee Krasner throughout the film becomes a character that the audience sympathizes with a lot. I particularly enjoyed that the movie portrayed her as such a strong woman in Pollocks life, rather than as someone who was walked all over which could have easily been the light that the director could’ve portrayed her in. Throughout the film Krasner motivates Pollock, seeks out opportunities for him, and even gives a very impressive speech to Peggy Guggenheim when she comes to visit.

A scene I found to stick out the most is the scene where Peggy Guggenheim views Pollock’s art in his apartment. She begins the scene extremely furious that Pollock and Krasner are late, and visibly intoxicated. She enters the house, furious, insults Krasner’s art, and then shoves past her to view Pollock’s work. Despite such a horrid mistreatment, Krasner still follows Guggenheim into the room full of Pollock’s work and does all the talking on how genius the pieces are. This scene really proved to me that behind every man’s success is a strong successful woman.

Another scene I particularly enjoyed was later on in the movie after Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner, moved to their house in East Hampton on Long Island. Pollock, and Krasner appear very happy and in love. They are shown gardening and fixing up their property, and it appears the director made the choice to have this scene very romanticized. Following this very happy scene they are shown inside the house at night, Pollock is having a beer and he asks Krasner to have a baby. Krasner says no and Pollock erupts in violence, heavily contrasting the romantic and happy scenes just shown before. I particularly love every scene where Lee Krasner stands up for herself and puts Pollock in his place, but this scene stuck out the most. Krasner tells Pollock that a baby won’t fix their relationship, she made the choice not to have kids, and that they need to be realistic because they’re both low income painters. While this scene may be an odd scene to enjoy so much, the director as well the actor playing Krasner really did her character justice. For Krasner to be so strong and opinionated in a time where women faced so much inequality, and were expected to stay home and raise kids, I thoroughly enjoyed that the director included this scene.

The film Pollock overall was very enjoyable; however, I didn’t enjoy it for the reasons I thought I would have. I truthfully had not expected that Jackson Pollock such a jaded, awful person, and the way this film portrayed him made me enjoy his art less. On a more positive note this film introduced me to another amazingly talented artist, Lee Krasner. Upon some research into her art works after the film I found that she was equally as talented of an abstract expressionist painter as her cheating husband. The director did a very good job depicting Pollock and I seriously have respect for how Lee Krasner was depicted. I am so happy her character was shown as such a strong person next her husband who is essentially a household name. The film did a thorough job giving a very raw depiction of the life and struggles of Jackson Pollock, and I would recommend it a friend to watch. I enjoyed the film Pollock but would probably enjoy a movie about Lee Krasner more.

Harris himself plays Pollock, magnificently I must add, and is able to relay to the audience the torment and burden, both physically from producing art and mentally through his alcoholism and borderline abusive tendencies, that Pollock battled throughout his whole life. In order to adequately prepare for the role, Harris partook in activities that the artist did every day, among some of the most noted being sleeping in the late artist’s bed, learning how to paint and even painting in the artist’s studio in Springs, East Hampton, New York, and smoking the artist’s preferred unfiltered Camel cigarettes. All of this preparation most certainly paid off, as Harris was able to portray Pollock’s character as closely to what the artist would have been like while he was still living as possible.

One of the most successful and engaging aspects for the audience was the portrayal of Harris painting in “live” action. This film strategy offered a realistic view of the what the process of creating may look like; Harris performing different techniques such as sketching, mixing paints, as well as the act of painting itself, could especially prove fascinating to an audience whom may not be otherwise familiar with them. These “live action” portrayals of Pollock painting in the film primarily began after the arrival of Pollock’s soon-to-be wife’ Lee Krasner, who is played by Marcia Gay Harden. The most powerful, though it may not have been the most realistic, representation of the creative and physical process of Pollock painting was when he was commissioned by the prominent art patron and socialite, Peggy Guggenheim, who is played by Amy Madigan. Pollock is depicted as being in a creative rut, coming up fruitless of both vision and of action, for weeks after the commission. Harris does a wonderful job of showing the frustration that the fruitless attempts caused and the tension between he and Krasner. At one point, Krasner threatened that if he did not produce soon, he would lose the commission. This prompted Harris to both literally and figuratively isolate himself in his tiny studio; just the blank canvas, paints and paint brushes, and himself being present. During this sequence, the filmmakers chose to depict Pollock as being almost lifeless; staring blankly into the distance for elapsed hours on end, while the seasons seemed to change outside through the windows behind him. This created a dramatic suspense for when creativity would strike him. There is, then, almost a definitive moment in which the light switch of vision and action flips on for Pollock. He sprung out of the chair in which he seemed to be bound to, and just started doing. He started to simply just paint. With a bucket of black paint and paintbrush in hand, Pollock started to fluidly and loosely, yet very purposefully and violently, cast the paint onto the canvas, not stopping, feverishly repeating the process fluidly with each color and detail, until he was left almost breathless, admiring his finished work. This sequence of standstill followed by abrupt rejuvenation and passion chosen by the filmmakers serves as a metaphor for the pattern of turbulence and instability of Pollock’s own personal life.

Perhaps the most realistic aspect of the film was the portrayal of Pollock’s personal relationship with his wife, Lee Krasner. The couple infamously had a turbulent, volatile, and sometimes abusive relationship with one another. Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Krasner in the Film, impeccably conveys to the audience Lee’s tremendous courage in her compromise of her own promising career and talent to foster and nurture Pollock’s visions, techniques, and brand of art as well as the nurturing of his soul, and as he exclaims to his mistress Ruth Kligman in the last fifteen minutes of the film, “I would be dead without her.” From the time Krasner entered Pollock’s life in 1942 until she left Pollock to travel Europe following Pollock’s extramarital affair with Kligman, she was portrayed as being Pollock’s biggest critic while simultaneously acting as his biggest supporter and admirer. In a notable scene within Pollock’s barn studio, after he had created his first splatter painting work, Krasner displayed nothing but utter admiration whilst gazing at the sensational work. Through exclaiming, rather breathlessly, “You’ve done it, Pollock. You’ve cracked it wide open,” she both praises Pollock, while also foreshadowing the fascination and obsession with Jackson Pollock, both as an artist and as a movement, that was soon to spread like wildfire beyond just the art community, spilling into popular culture outlets such as Life Magazine.

Some of the most powerful, emotional, and informational moments between Pollock and Krasner are presented, however, in their scenes of turmoil and conflict. When discussing the turbulent aspect of their relationship, it is important to reference two specific scenes in the film in which provide the most colorful scenes of violence and abuse. The first example occurs while the couple is in their farmhouse in Springs while entertaining guests. The scene involves Pollock, who was in an extremely drunken stupor, and art critic Clement Greenberg, who has always challenged Pollock’s work. Greenberg, who is played by Jeffrey Tambor, criticizes Pollock for having “too much blue” in one of his works, to which Pollock lividly storms out of the house, retrieves the so-called flawed painting, and marches it back into the house and aggressively places it on an easel, putting it on display for everyone to see. He angrily threatens to “fix” the painting to Greenberg’s “liking”, hurling profanities out of frustration, anger, and ultimately fragility, at everyone in the living room, including Krasner, who was trying to calm him. This scene is important because it shows Pollock’s volatile nature that would often lead to outbursts, as well as his sensitivity to critiques of his work. Throughout the film, he often spoke of how viewers of his work did not understand his purpose. At one point, in an interview with Life Magazine, he proclaimed, “If people would just look at the paintings, I don’t think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It’s like looking at a bed of flowers, you don’t tear your hair out over what it means.” Through the many similar interactions between Pollock and Krasner, reporters, journalists, critics, and comrades alike, the filmmakers are able to convince the audience that a movie about Jackson Pollock should depict all of the work and labor that goes into creating, not just strictly the art as a finished product. Additionally, they are able to convey that it was important to Pollock for his work to be seen not within a box of tradition or what was seen as “conventional”, but to see the art for what it really was; the art takes a life of its own and it should be interpreted as such.

The final catastrophic, blowout dispute between Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock in the latter portion of the movie very well may chalk up to be the most disturbing and intense moment in the entire film. It is apparent in this moment that Pollock appears to have fallen back into depression and alcoholism has once again claimed the sanity and serenity of the artist, as he is stumbling, hurling chairs and dishes into the empty space around him, and seething venomous insults at Krasner for not understanding him and for not wanting to have children with him, which ironically enough, earlier in the film he admitted to only wanting because it was what was “next in the sequence of life”. This was both Harris’s and Harden’s most dramatic performance in the entire film, being that the tensions between the couple were clearly maximized and had finally come to head. Though the behavior exhibited by Pollock was shocking and could evoke a certain sense of despair from the audience because it stirs a gut feeling that the artist may not escape from his demons this time, the most commanding behaviors were expressed by Krasner’s character. Throughout the entire film, Krasner’s character was courageous and bold, nevertheless she always was soft towards Pollock, yet in this precise scene, Harden was able to match Pollock’s fiery passion and viciousness through her own biting verbage and frenzied body language. This was a pivotal moment that transformed Krasner’s character from a devoted wife who took on her husband’s burdens as her own, to an independent woman who had reached her absolute limits of her own sanity. Portraying this moment from what was perhaps the ugliest time in Pollock’s life in an accurate and convincing manner was absolutely crucial for the filmmakers because it challenges the audience to view Pollock’s work for what it really was; a personality of its own, whether it was stable and light-hearted, or violent and capricious. Stepping up to the plate of the challenge, Harden and Harris executed their performances flawlessly.

Flashback to 1941 where the movie’s story officially begins. Jackson Pollock is living with his brother Charles in a tiny apartment in New York City doing more drinking than painting, that is until he meets Lee Krasner (played by Marcia Gay Harden) another abstract painter at the time. Lee is fascinated by more than just Pollock’s work she puts her career on the back burner to become Pollock’s companion, to help him stay off the booze and on the canvas. Lee also helps Pollock tremendously when selling his art she sets up meetings with Peggy Guggenheim and Howard Putzel, two world-renowned artists and art critics. Peggy Guggenheim offers Pollock his first one-man viewing at “Art of this century Gallery” on November 8th, 1943.Peggy also commissions Pollock to create an 8 by 20-foot mural for her townhouse giving him full artistic control.

Ed Harris does an amazing job directing “Pollock” but an even better job portraying the expressionist painter. The creation of the mural scene not only shows how brilliant an actor and director Harris is but how Jackson pulls abstract art from his head and strategically throws them on the canvas to create a masterpiece. Jackson struggles for weeks to find an idea that perfectly fits the canvas. Creating suspense the director cuts from Pollock’s eyes to the canvas then back to his eyes suddenly something clicks Pollock drops his cigarette and furious strokes of black paint fly up and down the white canvas. Pollock knows what he wants.

Throughout the entire movie, Jackson Pollock has been going through ups and downs from creating his mural and marrying Lee to not selling any paintings and binge drinking. Jackson Pollock died in 1956 from a drunk driving accident. This scene in the movie was tough to watch because you see Pollock struggling to stay sane and finally he just gives up. Jackson Pollock’s death was very tragic and a waste of so much talent. Pollock was forty-four years old when he died but he still had so much to accomplish, he could have created so many more beautiful abstract paintings. This is why his death is so tragic. The movie gives a good visualization of the abstract painter’s life with help from Ed Harris the director and leading actor I would give this movie a 5-star rating. If you are into dramatic movies with a great historical background it is a must watch.

In one scene a reporter from Life Magazine asked Jackson Pollock “Howdo you know when you’re finished with a painting? He then replied “How do you know when you’re done making love” I think this shows how truly insane he was.He was brutally miserable and made everyone around him miserable. A lot of Jackson Pollock’s bad times revolved around his alcoholism. In the movie he is noticeably happier during the period he stopped drinking. His alcoholism also led to his death in a drunk driving accident that also took the life of an innocent woman. I think this movie is more about the work rather then the art.Meaning it shows how much work he put into his artwork. It also shows how hard everyday life was for Jackson Pollock. There is a point made in the movie that it takes more for an alcoholic to get out of bed in the morning then it does fora normal person to go through their day. Pollock is sluggish and tired at most times in the morning suggesting he is hung-over.

The movie starts in post-war setting. You can tell because everyone is smoking cigarettes and the rent is very cheap. The time period matches perfectly with post World War 2. It even says in the movie Pollock was turned down from the military for being mentally unstable. Jackson Pollock is married to Lee Krasner who just happens to be an art critic. Many would say if she didn’t poke her head through his door his career would have never took off. Lee Krasner helped her husband land a meeting with a very famous art critic Peggy Guggenheim. He almost misses the meeting, showing his knack for just simply messing everything up. She is immediately impressed with his work. In the film it shows her pressing her hands against the paintings to see the temperature.

Jackson Pollock is a painter like most that had tremendous confidence in his work. In one scene where is he is painting a mural for Peggy’s town house he shows how confident he is in his work. This mural is truly amazing and was an earlier work of Pollock where he did not use is signature drippy action. In this mural he instead used a controlled swirl forum. Pollock uses a bunch of different vibrant colors but he makes it looks they are all one. The mural was 20 feet high by 8 feet high. Pollock initially thought the mural was too big. During the unveiling of the piece Jackson Pollock was bragging how good his art work was. He was wasted, he then walked over to the fire place and started urinating. Once again showing how bad his alcoholism was. Pollock uses surrealist abstraction in this work, which was the largest he ever made.

I think Jackson Pollock used his art to escape from his depression. His artwork brings him happiness. I think it brought him joy that his artwork brought others happiness. He could escape the everyday life and just get away and paint. His success was also his downfall.He became known for gloating about his work and telling everyone how great he was. In the movie he was very verbal about his hatred for Picasso but they have a lot of similarities with their depression. They both use Art to cope with their depression and both are considered the greatest of their respected generations. I do not know if Ed Harris can actually paint but he makes it appear that he can really paint and makes sure it is very historically accurate in showing how Jackson Pollock painted. He uses a progressing, doggedly form of brushstrokes. The film also shows his use of dynamic dripping and spattering. It shows how he paints with gradients and many vibrant colors.

I think this movie does a great job of showing the life of an artist in New York City in the 40’s and 50’s. There was not a true American art Star before Jackson Pollock and I think he did a great job of cementing his name as one of the great American painters. This was a time in New York with a lot of great artists with great ideas but Jackson Pollock is truly remembered more than all of them.