Perhaps one of the most effective methods of treating the life of a visual artist is to allow for the visual to narrate. In the case of Jackson Pollock, a man whose alcoholism and emotional travails made him glaringly inarticulate and intemperate, this visual narration speaks volumes.
Pollock, in this film, is displayed as something of an idiot savant, a fact that is well accepted and understood by his wife. A particularly poignant and mordant moment in the narrative is when she rebuffs Pollock's request to have a child. She simply states that it would be too much to have to take care of two people other than herself, evidently Pollock and his prevalent tempests are enough for her. What is particularly effective about this moment is that her facial expressions, her mannerisms, the timbre of her voice express a long and involved history with Pollock, something a narrative dialogue could not have accomplished. Perhaps this picture might have been overburdened by a steady narration and the montage and close observation of the visual character of Pollock would have been disrupted. Instead, in the absence of a putative narrator we are given the gift of Pollock's art and its steady unveiling of the unveilable: the human psyche.
Personally I do not want to know what in Pollock's childhood made him into what he was and perhaps there is no explanation. His wife aptly describes his weekly visits to the psychiatrist with an acerbic gnashing of her teeth; the visits are not doing anything for him. So what then? Idiot savant? Alcoholic? Perpetually tormented artist? So it appears. And his undoing by his own hand? It seems logical, all the portents have spoken of his demise since the opening scene of the film. So, therefore, was this a predictable film? Absolutely, in the same timeless fashion that foibles and tragic flaws ultimately undo those who possess them. We knew the fate of Oedipus before Oedipus did. The ending, like predestination in Calvinism, was salient from the opening of the book... but did that tarnish the luster of the story? Absolutely not. Thus we have the same situation with this film. We knew he was doomed, some of us even knew the skeleton of his life story before we viewed this picture. But we did not suffer conventionality because the art of Jackson Pollock, the only voice truly capable of doing justice to the man, spoke.
Bravo to Ed Harris for his mature and responsible direction. Bravo to Marcia Gay Harden and Ed Harris for facile depictions of their characters. This movie is worth viewing if for no other reason than it possesses a maturity that Hollywood seems to have exsiccated from most of its directors, the ability to be subtle and to let someone else or something else do the talking.
Pollock, in this film, is displayed as something of an idiot savant, a fact that is well accepted and understood by his wife. A particularly poignant and mordant moment in the narrative is when she rebuffs Pollock's request to have a child. She simply states that it would be too much to have to take care of two people other than herself, evidently Pollock and his prevalent tempests are enough for her. What is particularly effective about this moment is that her facial expressions, her mannerisms, the timbre of her voice express a long and involved history with Pollock, something a narrative dialogue could not have accomplished. Perhaps this picture might have been overburdened by a steady narration and the montage and close observation of the visual character of Pollock would have been disrupted. Instead, in the absence of a putative narrator we are given the gift of Pollock's art and its steady unveiling of the unveilable: the human psyche.
Personally I do not want to know what in Pollock's childhood made him into what he was and perhaps there is no explanation. His wife aptly describes his weekly visits to the psychiatrist with an acerbic gnashing of her teeth; the visits are not doing anything for him. So what then? Idiot savant? Alcoholic? Perpetually tormented artist? So it appears. And his undoing by his own hand? It seems logical, all the portents have spoken of his demise since the opening scene of the film. So, therefore, was this a predictable film? Absolutely, in the same timeless fashion that foibles and tragic flaws ultimately undo those who possess them. We knew the fate of Oedipus before Oedipus did. The ending, like predestination in Calvinism, was salient from the opening of the book... but did that tarnish the luster of the story? Absolutely not. Thus we have the same situation with this film. We knew he was doomed, some of us even knew the skeleton of his life story before we viewed this picture. But we did not suffer conventionality because the art of Jackson Pollock, the only voice truly capable of doing justice to the man, spoke.
Bravo to Ed Harris for his mature and responsible direction. Bravo to Marcia Gay Harden and Ed Harris for facile depictions of their characters. This movie is worth viewing if for no other reason than it possesses a maturity that Hollywood seems to have exsiccated from most of its directors, the ability to be subtle and to let someone else or something else do the talking.