What does it mean to be an original artist? Does it mean the artist is without outside influences, or that he has seen what others can't see? Does it simply mean he has an inimitable approach to an age-old tradition? Is the original artist a self-contained being, antagonistic to prevailing trends?
Sorry to disappoint you, but you will find no definition here (or anywhere else for that matter). It's a hard phrase to pin down, much like "genius" or "fraud." Whether you label a Jackson Pollock painting the former or the latter, you will most likely find yourself unable to deny the artist his "originality" if you watch actor and director Ed Harris' art-star biopic "Pollock."
"Pollock" marks an auspicious debut for long-time actor and first-time director Ed Harris, whose interest in the life of this American painter has spanned 15 years, which started when he encountered the book "Jackson Pollock: An American Saga" (on which the screenplay is based).
Graciously enough, Harris does not ask us to like Pollock's abstract expressionist paintings (which, incidentally, you probably should). In the spirit of Jackson's action-painting style, the film is more interested in the process of Jackson's meteoric rise and fall to stardom than in the cultural artifacts he left behind.
When, in the film, a Life Magazine reporter asks Pollock how he knows when he is finished with a painting, he responds by saying, "How do you know when you are finished making love?" From the story the film puts forth, this seems like the only time in Pollock's life when he knows "when to say when."
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Here are a few undeniable facts about the artist in question, well rendered in the film:
Pollock was an American icon and the first really important (read: famous) American artist. He was a neurotic, alcoholic and reckless individual, and despite what some historians might have you believe, his best work came from a period in his life when he was off of booze and in relative peace. Despite his loner persona, he was a needy individual who probably would have self-destructed much sooner if not for the care of his wife, painter Lee Krasner. Pollock was an original, but he was not an island.
Oscar-winning supporting actress Marcia Gay Harden plays a difficult character with dignity and strength. These are characteristics that the real Krasner must have had to stand by Pollock as she did. Through all of his outbursts, infidelities and alcoholic binges, Krasner is equal parts muse, maid and mother. The film portrays her own artistic output as taking a backseat to her nurturing of Pollock. When the couple moves to a neglected house on Long Island to get away from chaotic New York City, the transformation of the house from a shack into a home is shown as symbolic to her own transformation of Pollock's cluttered mind.
But even their home cannot hold Pollock for long, and the temptations of his friends and his increasing stardom pull at the patchwork of his repaired mind. He starts drinking again, takes on a mistress and puts out unfeeling shadows of his more brilliant works. Just as he uses others to bring him up, he drags more than himself down when his mind starts to unravel. In the end, Harris' Pollock is the consummate codependent, needing others' praise to lift him up and constantly demanding an audience, even as he plunges gracelessly into the grave.
Which brings me to one final fact put forth in "Pollock": Jackson Pollock may have been original, but he was not cool. Even the paint-spattered shoes, the tight black T-shirt paired with a denim jacket (Harris' wardrobe of choice in this flick) and the ubiquitous precariously perched cigarette on pensive lips do not hide that fact. His character is at most times unlikable - a selfish, reckless boor of a man. It's often hard to see why Krasner tolerates what she does.
And yet, the image from this film which sticks in my mind most is of Pollock's wide hopeful eyes as he dances over a stretch of canvas, slapping, splashing and dripping his way into history. Most likely, in spite of Harris' film, in spite of the truth behind the genius, this is the image of Pollock that will prove most durable. Such is the afterlife of an American icon.
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