The movie Pollock, directed by Ed Harris and released in 2000, was an emotional movie that I feel showed the life of an artist in an accurate way. The ups and downs of the movie were captivating for the audience to watch and it also had its fair share of drama as well. The drama in the movie made it exciting, but I feel that the portrayal of how Jackson Pollock (played by Ed Harris) thought, acted, and most importantly painted was shown very well in this movie.
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.
