'Pollock' Takes Audiences Inside the Mind of the Artist

Author: Kate Prouty

For some artists, an alcohol or drug addiction is what makes them. For most, it is what kills them. American painter Jackson Pollock, directed and played by Ed Harris in the film adaptation of "Jackson Pollock: An American Saga," is no exception. The film, while it was an accurate tribute to the life of Jackson Pollock, did not forget to remind us that alcohol addictions smother more art than they inspire it.

In a movie in which a match igniting the permanent cigarette in the stained hands of an alcoholic painter opened scene after scene, Harris believably portrayed the life and canvases of Jackson Pollock.

Harris brought to the screen the blue-collar authenticity required to accurately convey the struggles of Pollock as a man, not to mention as an artist. His eyes glazed over when he was drunk but, on the other end of the emotional spectrum, the same steel blue eyes lit up convincingly when inspired by dripping paint on his canvas. Especially in the painting scenes, Harris realistically poured instinct and emotion into the camera as he poured latex and acrylics onto the canvas.

The film's climax came when, having moved to the country for detox, away from the contaminating influences of his drinking buddies, Pollock stood over a canvas on the floor of a barn — his converted studio — and noticed paint dribbling off of his brush onto the floor.

The inherent beauty of these accidental drips of paint spurred an epiphany for both Pollock and American art history. It was an equally pivotal moment in the film. Recognizing the ingenuity of this new painting technique, Pollock's wife Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden) exclaimed, "You've done it, Pollock. You've cracked it wide open!"

Always deeply invested in the canvas before him, Harris realistically conveyed the spontaneity of the artistic moment. He prepared 10 years for this role, and it showed.

The scenes in which Pollock created his famous drip paintings gave the film the thrilling air of an action movie and so much more. There was a truly visceral reaction to the excitement of being privy to something being created out of nothing. Canvases would magically transform from ominous blank white into a mess of brushstrokes and finally into a masterpiece hanging in the hallway of Peggy Guggenheim's (Amy Madigan) apartment.

Leaning over the floor, Pollock danced along all sides of the canvas as the camera followed him around 360 degrees. These long camera movements were untraditional but were the perfect way to display the grand athletic movements with which Pollock painted.

In fact, everything was on an exaggerated scale: his gestures were uninhibited, his canvases were huge and his reputation, eventually, was larger than life.

The one thing that seemed to sustain this man was passion for his art. Although he was drunk for most of it, Pollock managed to hold onto his life for the sake of pursuing his painting, and perhaps also for his wife.

Besides his brushes and paints, only his wife Lee Krasner, another famous painter of the era, grounded Pollock. Although this strong-headed woman's relationship with Pollock transformed her into a scrambled-egg-cooking, disheveled housewife whose own studio is overshadowed by Pollock's, Krasner deserves credit for keeping Pollock alive.

Perhaps the first to witness the true genius residing within Pollock, she was his number one cheerleader and net worker. She worked to convince the powers-that-be (Peggy Guggenheim and critical icon Clement Greenberg) of his talent with little emotional validation from Pollock.

As Pollock gained more and more success as a painter, with the help of his wife, he also became less and less inspired. As with many artists, his talent fizzled.

This realization struck Pollock while shooting a film that aimed to capture his genius by showing the public his unique painting style. Being abruptly told to stop and go by an oblivious director, Pollock felt like a phony. He finished making the film, yet subsequently began his downward spiral of destruction.

Harris gained 30 pounds and grew a beard to portray the suddenly washed-up Pollock. His temperament when drunk went from funny (peeing in Guggenheim's fireplace at a party) to scary (flipping over dining room tables covered with food and having screaming matches with his wife).

Although it was inspiring to witness the American painter discover his particular talent, it was depressing to see that legends, too, are vulnerable to destruction.

This film adaptation of Pollock's life made it seem, in the final scene, like his fatal car crash was an intentional suicide attempt.

As he sped recklessly along a dirt road, he gazed, with obliterated eyes, up at the night sky and half-smiled before he let the car drive itself into the forest, killing himself and a passenger.

Jay Carr adeptly summed up Pollock's character, as portrayed by Harris, in an article in The Boston Globe, "He was a prisoner of the artist-as-bad-boy era, when such envelope-pushers as Jack Kerouac, Charlie Parker, Marlon Brando and James Dean identified with their excesses. But far from succumbing to the cliché of art as a wild-man routine, 'Pollock' makes it clear that Pollock was a damaged man, opaque to himself, who found serenity when he immersed himself in making art."