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    		•

    FILMS

    Pollack (2000)
  • Starring Ed Harris, Robert Knott, Molly Regan, Marcia Gay Harden, Sada Thompson, Matthew Sussman, Bud Cort, Amy Madigan

  • Directed by Ed Harris

    • Ed Harris is one of those actors that continually slips under my radar. When I think of actors I like, Harris almost never came to mind. And yet most movie he's in, I think he does a superb job. He's does so well in Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, The Rock, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Abyss, and Enemy at the Gates that you have to give him a little latitude and forgive his transgressions for films like, say, in agreeing to do Milk Money. From here on out, he's in my top ten favorite actors of all time list.

    I'm guessing that Pollack was his baby. He directed, produced, and starred in it. And I'm glad he made it. Watching this film made me want to create something. After Kerri and I finished the movie, I started pacing around the room, talking. I couldn't shut up. My head was full of ideas for the story I'm currently working on. Kerri thought there was something wrong with me. What she didn't know was that there was something right with me. Wonderfully right.

    So I've got to give a bountiful thanks to Ed Harris. He brought me into the world of Jackson Pollack, of which I knew nothing about, and got me excited again about the idea of creating. No, no. Don't worry, I'm not going to start drinking heavily or be abusive or throw paint. But watching Harris as Pollack—so focused during his painting—was admirable, to say the least.

    (Fair spoiler warning: I'm not about to give away the ending, but I will be describing a scene or two. Skip the next two paragraphs if you don't want to know diddly-poo about the movie.)

    There are two scenes that strike me from this movie. One in which Lee Krasner (at this point she's Pollack's girlfriend) comes to his studio and tries to decipher what he's doing. She rattles off art lingo like it's going out of style. She asks what it is that he's trying to say. What styles is he incorporating? What's the source of inspiration? He says, "I'm just painting." That right there is awesome. Sometimes there doesn't need to be purpose or intentions in art. Just the act of doing it is enjoyable for him. Not everything has to be a statement. I like that.

    Another scene just made me laugh. Pollack is at a high-society, artsy-fartsy party at Peggy Guggenheim's house. He gets drunk and, right in the middle of the party, pees into the burning fireplace. You can hear the logs sizzle. I laughed my ass off. Because, if peeing into a fireplace ain't comedy, then I don't know what is.

    Marcia Gay Harden has to be commended for her role as his wife. She owned that part. My sympathies and well-wishes and admiration go out to the real Lee Krasner, wherever she is. If the movie is at all true-to-life—you are/were one hell of a woman.

    As far as Jackson Pollack's artwork is concerned, I am of two minds. There are moments when I can look at the dripworks and see a depth and beauty to it. I see angels in pain and people walking against the wind. I see everyday objects as well as devices that can only live in the imagination. His paintings are like looking at clouds and finding meaning where none was intended. Everything I see, no doubt, are visions the likes of which Pollack probably never considered. Or rather, they're not the same as what he saw when he painted them.

    And that is cool. Undeniably cool.

    Good art has as much to do with the person viewing the art as it does with the art itself.

    And then there are times when I look at Pollack's work (or abstract art, in general) and think that his drips and drizzles and spills and splatters are not art. A child could do it. There's no skill or purpose there. It takes much more talent to render the human form or paint real-life scenes than it does to fling and plop some Sear's Weatherbeater onto a canvas.

    I try not to think this way, because I'm learning.

    I'm learning that I like being of the former mindset. I want to see the artwork. I want to know that there's an image hiding among the splashes, if I can just find it; that Pollack created a window through which I can see anything my mind can create.

    (You have to admit, there's something borderline-genius in accomplishing such a thing. It's almost a magic-mirror of sorts.)

    Pollack, like many visual artists, seems to put his balls on the table while handing you a cleaver; but he categorically refuses to be apologetic or to offer explanation for his work. He shoves something in front of your eyes and challenges you. Either you can walk away or stand firm and consider the challenge. It's up to you.

    But sometimes my brain is lazy. Crap, let's not blame my brain. Frankly, sometimes I'm lazy. I can be completely useless and would rather whine, Homer Simpson-like. "But Maaaaarge, that's crap. I know crap. I've stepped in crap before, and that framed canvas over there looks exactly like the same stuff on the bottom of my shoe!" [pause] "Ooh! A Gummi-bear!"

    Like I said, I'm learning—taking baby steps to a whole new level of appreciating Things I Used To Mock Because I Didn't Understand.

    As you may guess, I'm not an art aficionado. I like to look at the stuff, but I don't know the history or the modes or the biographies of even its most prominent figures, nor do I covet sculptures or paintings as commodities. This abject ignorance on the subject prevented me from knowing anything about the real Peggy Guggenheim before I saw this film. And let me say this for the record: if the late Ms. Guggenheim was anything similar to Amy Madigan's portrayal of her in Pollack—we've got a new horror franchise on our hands, brother. I can see it now:

    The Guggenheimenator.
    Return of the Guggenheim.
    Sister of the Guggenheim.
    Attack of the Guggenheims!
    The Art Benefactor: Palette of Blood.

    "You made me RUN after you? I've got weak ANKLES! Now, I'm going to kill you and drink your neo-impressionistic fluids!"

    You have to trust me, she will scare the shit out of you. Kudos to Madigan. This role is a far cry from playing Kevin Costner's cute Iowa farm-wife in Field of Dreams. (Which, if Ms. Guggenheim was placed in Dreams' scenario, she'd build an open-air art studio out in the middle of a cornfield and dead artists would come back to paint. What a yawn-fest that would be.)