It's rough to watch a movie that portrays someone you know, especially when the portrait process is conducted dumb-assed. That's how Pollock handles the character of Clement Greenberg. Too tall, too fat, too unrefined, and too effeminate. And not drunk enough. I don't remember ever seeing his character with a drink in his hand, much less one that was light on the rocks and heavy on the booze, as the real Clem preferred. His character was dressed more like a mid-level banker on holiday than a NYC intellectual who knew exactly how to dress, as the real Clem did. All in all, just the stereotype of any ole art critic, except for the lines themselves, which were historically accurate and therefore could not go with the way Jeffery Tambor played Clement Greenberg. They did not ever sound right, despite that haunting accuracy.
Even though historicity permeates the Greenberg character and the whole movie, it is a drama, not a documentary. And it is the drama of the thing that caught me by the short hairs the first time I saw it, and continues to grab me, 15 or so viewings later. The Clem problem never goes away, but then the book the movie is based upon did an equally poor job of handling Clem's character. Everything else gets better and better, with few exceptions.
The drunk scenes are over acted, as Darby Bannard notes elsewhere on this site. My wife thinks not - says I just haven't known enough drunks. I guess it gets down to what type of drunk was Pollock, assuming historical accuracy is important. On the other hand, and assuming Pollock was that type of drunk, the effect verged on slapstick, as if Red Skelton were doing the directing. Except it wasn't funny.
Pollock's depression was also overacted. In both the drunkenness and the depression, it seemed like a miracle and morality play, in which a sign was hung around Ed Harris's neck: "Drunk" or "Depressed" (depending), just in case we didn't get the point. Part of being really depressed is covering up being depressed.
And Lee: Lee Krasner was quite slim during her early years (as most of us were). If Harris could gain weight for the declining Jackson, Marcia Harden could have lost some to play the young Lee. Or so I thought the first few times through. Harden's problem is the camera loves her bones, as a videographer once said about a different face when we were reviewing some tape together. The more I watch, the more I know Harden simply could not unleash the full force of her looks on the Krasner character. Lee's power was not the power of someone blessed with knockout looks, it was the power of someone blessed with knockout instincts. And that's exactly how Harden plays her. She deserved the Oscar, hands down.
I couldn't find any trace of the real Namuth films. (They are pretty bad technically, compared to what we are used to. When fake Namuth film was used, the technical badness was faked right along with the subject matter.) Nonetheless, I was convinced by Harris that it was Pollock painting, whether it was the all-over pictures or earlier ones. Urgency, rhythm, concentration - it was all there more than I expected. We don't really know what it was like when the real Pollock painted. After all, he was acting for Namuth, not painting. So for Harris to fail on this count, he had to paint in a way that Pollock could not have painted. But Harris and his painting coach (Lisa Lawley) did very OK, better than any film about a painter that I've seen. It was more than plausible. It really might have happened that way.
The "discovery of the drip" sort of flopped though. The "magic moment" thing just did not nail the truth. But that is what most people seeing the film need to "understand" because they are taught they must "understand" art by the whole damn art system, (bad) educators included. So I excuse it. But I wonder if Harris really believed in that scene. He did another great one in which he says, as Pollock, that you are not supposed to "tear your hair out" when you look at art. So why must you tear it out when you make it? The two scenes are not compatible.
Despite the overacting and other warts, intensity presses on everything, even the quiet scenes. The film is like a great painting that has a few "bad areas." The longer you look at it the less they matter. Lee Krasner was not merely devoted and self-sacrificing, she KNEW what Pollock was up to and Marcia Harden put that across with conviction and surefootedness. The scene where she refused to have a baby was great. But nothing topped when Harden takes off her clothes to start up their first sex. That was purely Lee KNOWING - not romance, not lust, not manipulating a man (well, maybe a little manipulation). Harris stumbling along behind was not a "chaotic" social misfit who did not know how to bed a woman; it was Harris showing that Pollock did NOT yet know what Lee KNEW. Brilliant acting, both of them. If they were not conscious of how they played that scene, so what? They got it so right.
There could have been more of that. Clem's own account (to me) of his first viewing of Pollock's work was a studio visit with Jackson, Lee, and himself sitting silent for 45 minutes, then departing together, again in silence. Difficult as doing that scene might have been, it would have underscored that Lee Krasner was the first to KNOW. She had to wait until Clem could see well enough to follow her lead.
I especially liked the scenes where Namuth was filming Pollock painting. That was such an invasive act. And it came across without signs hanging about proclaiming "Invasion!" They clarified why Pollock began drinking again after the final filming. Harris was great at showing just the kind of nervousness such an invasion creates, and how you try to set it aside because "the show must go on," and how for some setting it aside just does not work. In the end Jackson was buggered and there wasn't much he could do about it. The public has its right to eat those it likes, even when the public is young and small. I didn't think there was a need to resort to the manic dialog about "phony" to further explain the "Thanksgiving tilt," though that may be another historical thing. "Phony" was a popular term in the 50s.
So, I think I could make a better film out of this story. A lot of others will feel the same. But then, none of us made the film in the first place, just like a lot of people say they can paint like Pollock, but none of them do. Ed Harris did make this movie, and he made it damned well. I bought the DVD and have watched it many times. (Harris's over dubbed commentary option on the DVD is priceless.) Now I'm watching it on HBO. It doesn't seem like Pollock will ever wear out. It's easy to get specific about the "bad areas," but impossible to do justice to the film as a film. So I watch it over and over.
Posted April 3, 2002
© John Link, 2002
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