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 Is the relationship between Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner alone a worthy subject for a film? Having read the book the film gleans its story from, I can happily say that the movie isn't nearly the hit piece that the book was. The people responsible for that book really do go out on a limb at times for some reason.Pollock's contribution to Modernism is etched in granite. If you've never seen his work in the flesh and only know it from photographs in books and parody by others who think they can demonstrate how ridiculously simple it is to just splash paint around then step back and sarcastically call it a masterpiece, you have no idea what an experience his drip paintings are. The atmosphere and depth created by his interweaving color is mesmerizing and the scale of his work engulfs you as you move in close enough to examine the surface which you can't help doing. It is an experience you won't forget, but you also don't get a degree in fine art without being branded by the mythical tales of Pollock's excess in nearly everything except well mannered behavior. Is this what warrants scores of books, documentary films, a bust in the pantheon of art history, and now this film? I think the empty nihilism one feels after watching poor Lee Krasner's futile efforts go down the drain and into a tree sums it up. She is the hero of this film and for what? It is nice to see an icon of 20th century American art like Pollock made the subject of the popular imagination through film but at what cost to his reputation as a one of the most significant painters? In fairness to Pollock the artist and his contribution to making American painting the world leader in mid-century, and frankly a more interesting story with genuine heroes would be a dramatic look at all the major painters of the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York at that time. You couldn't find more interesting character studies than Pollock, Rothko, DeKooning, Klein, Reinhardt, Still, Gorky, Newman and Greenberg. The relationship between Krasner and Pollock would make an interesting subplot but the explosive dynamics of those people are even more interesting than the Impressionists.
Ed Harris has always been one of my favorite guys to watch on the big screen. In a long line of films - including Knightriders, Apollo 13, The Abyss, The Truman Show, and The Right Stuff - the common denominator in Harris's performances has been a kind of surface placidity that can give way suddenly to explosive emotion. That quality fits like a glove on the character of Jackson Pollock, a painfully shy alcoholic given to fits of towering rage. Occasionally, in embodying the extremes of the artist's personality, Harris seems to miss the more delicate shadings in the middle. Nevertheless, it's a mesmerizing performance, the perfect complement to Hardin's loyal, longsuffering Krasner. An extraordinary level of craftsmanship is evident in nearly every aspect of this film. Harris went to great lengths to learn enough of Pollock's celebrated painting style to be able to mimic it with absolute confidence. Some of the most enjoyable moments in the movie are those in which the artist simply works, attacking the canvas with big, looping ribbons and fat dollops of paint. Even the music score that underlies these scenes of triumphant activity is perfect - intricate and understated, as if it didn't want to disturb the painter in the moment of inspiration. Minute attention to period detail and set design impeccably evoke post-World War II America, and the film somehow captures the vigorous optimism of the American art scene that is reflected in the flowering of Abstract Expressionism. Each scene is a small gem, cut with seeming artlessness. In one sequence, Pollock has just traded one of his paintings to a grocery store owner for a case of beer; and now, already a sheet or two to the wind, he's bicycling home with the wooden crate full of bottles perched perilously on the handlebars of his bike. After managing to stay upright for some distance, he pulls a bottle from the case, somehow knocks the top off it, removes the cigarette from his mouth and tries to take a swig from the bottle - all of which he impossibly pulls off until a passing car distracts him and the whole thing comes crashing down. In someone else's movie the scene would be a throwaway, some humorous filler to round out the weightier stuff; but here it's an exquisite miniature of everything that's miraculously right and everything that's tragically wrong with the protagonist. Nothing in this film is thrown away. Pollock isn't always an easy movie to watch. It's certainly not a panegyric to the artist who, while unquestionably brilliant, was also an abusive, self-absorbed drunk. It is, however, an inspiring paean to the redemptive power of creative endeavor. As much as you might scorn the painter for his loutish behavior with Krasner and others, as soon as he picks up the paintbrush and hurls himself into his work, he's got you. In 1949, Life posed the rhetorical question of whether Jackson Pollock was the greatest American artist of his day. That's a question that is probably as difficult to answer today as it was then. But it seems certain that Pollock is the greatest film about any American artist of any era.
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Pollock traces the life of artist Jackson Pollock from 1941 until his death in 1956. It focuses particularly on the nine years that culminated in Pollock's lionization by Life Magazine as the leading figure of mid-century American art. A project of director/star Ed Harris that was years in the development, Pollock gives equal emphasis to the painter's professional achievements and his troubled personal life. It also highlights the role of Lee Krasner, a fellow modernist painter who became Pollock's lover and later his wife. Krasner, portrayed by Marcia Gay Hardin in an Academy Award-winning performance, effectively relegated her own promising career to the backseat in order to promote Pollock's work, take care of him, and protect him as much as possible from his own demons. 
Overwrought biopic of Jackson Pollock that probably wouldn't have grated on me as much if it hadn't left me with the suspicion that director/actor Ed Harris considers himself in the same league (i.e., "brilliant and troubled artist") as his subject. On the one hand, Pollock's achievement is certainly more debatable than similarly influential painters; on the other hand, it's rather presumptious of Harris to equate himself with Pollock, debatable stature notwithstanding. (But, natch, this might be something else that the two of them "share": bigfat egos.) Apparently, the unpleasant task of reminding Amazon customers that Mr. Harris has starred in such high-art movies as *Needful Things*, to use one egregious example, has fallen to little old me. Given the sheen of self-importance in *Pollock*, it seems that Harris needs reminding, as well. Perspective and humility are direly needed. That's worth repeating: perspective and humility are direly needed. And that extends to the movie's notions of how Pollock "discovered" his trademark drip technique. Over and above the discovery seeming like a lucky accident, the sequence -- in true Hollywood fashion -- manages to strip all creative mystery from the thing. "You've cracked it wide open!" Pollock's wife Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden) exults, as if he solved a Rubik's Cube rather than created a revolutionary new style. Having said all this, the movie has its moments: the interiors of your typical artist's apartment in the Village back in the 40's, complete with bathtub in the kitchen . . . the time spent observing Pollock actually paint . . . the unglamorous portrayal of dipsomaniac bingeing . . . and finally the husk of the Has-Been.
