ViewGuide

Created Feb 11, 2010 10:40PM PST • Edited Jun 27, 2019 12:02AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Pollock – Portrait of the Artist as a Neurotic Genius

   Jack the Dripper reanimates in Ed Harris’s masterful movie about Modern Art anti-hero Jackson Pollock.

   A drinker as well as a dripper, Pollock defined `40s and `50s artistic chic.

   “Too neurotic” in his own words to fight in WWII (think about it), he learned to paint realism in a WPA Federal Art Project under Modern American master Thomas Hart Benton.

   Then he broke the bond between brush and canvas, inventing Abstract Expressionism.
   Equal parts art and neurotic exercise, it made him a wildly successful sensation.

   Pollack – dependent on his brother Charles, who the movie paints as latently homoerotic in return – became a great artist, opening up through painting and sometimes booze.

   An ugly drunk, the bottle killed him – and an innocent companion.

   Using considerably more realism than expressionism, Pollock places Pollock in a very small class of American authentics. As played by Ed Harris and directed by Ed Harris, he’s Brando with a brush.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Ed Harris & Marcia Gay Harden fully inhabit celebrity artist couple Jackson Pollack & Lee Krasner, performances that earned her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and him a nomination from the Academy.

   Harris nails Pollock’s odd physicality: stilted walk, inchoate speech and most especially aerobic painting method. IMDb says “Harris’s father bought his son a book about Jackson Pollock simply because he felt Ed bore a strong resemblance to the painter. Ever since then, Ed Harris became fascinated with Pollock’s life.” The preparation paid off. Plus, Harris’s father was right: that’s the real Pollock in the WikChip, looking for all the world like his cinematic doppelgänger.

   Harden seems the very essence of New Yorker artist: savvy, abrupt and clear eyed about the sick genius she loved. Hand that actress a gold statuette.

   The outstanding supporting cast includes:

   • Amy Madigan has two classic scenes as Pollock’s rich patron Peggy Guggenheim: climbing the stairs to his walk-up apartment and him climbing on her during an abortive tryst. Madigan is Mrs. Ed Harris in real life.
   • Bud Cort, always an interesting sighting
   • John Heard, always a bit addled
   • Val Kilmer as Willem DeKooning, Pollock’s friendly rival
   • Jeffrey Tambor as critic Clem Greenberg. Tambor plays snotty sophisticates as well as can be done.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Ed walks in Clint’s giant steps by directing – and starring in – this Perfect movie. What’s next Director Harris?

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    The script undresses the American authentic Pollock as a phony, showing how he famously replied with a question when asked when he knows he’s done painting.

    “How do you know when you’re done making love?”

    This from the successful artist who blew his wad almost immediately when presented the opportunity to shag Peggy Guggenheim. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s like MOMA theater.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Perfect Jazz

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.9

    The man went over the edge.

17. Sex Erotic 3.1

18. Violence Fierce 2.2

19. Rudeness Profane 3.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Mostly straight reality.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.2

    Time magazine famously dubbed him Jack the Dripper.

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0