'Pollock' draws on Oscar buzz

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001

Two nominations and stellar performances by Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden bring attention to Pollock.

Two weeks ago, moviegoers might have bypassed Ed Harris' film Pollock as quickly as a velvet Elvis painting at a flea market. That was before his biography of abstract artist Jackson Pollock nabbed a pair of Academy Award nominations for Harris and his co-star, Marcia Gay Harden.

Now the film is a curiosity, if not quite the event Harris planned. Pollock operates much like its subject painted, with drips, splashes and splatters of information creating a jumble to be deciphered. Step back, soak it in, and the picture turns out to be the usual tortured-artist movie canvas, albeit with two formidable performances at its center.

Are there more deserving nominees than Harris as best actor and Harden as best supporting actress? That's a possibility. But there are factors contributing to the Academy's surprising attention. Most revolve around Harris, a respected actor nominated twice in recent years for Apollo 13 and The Truman Show. Oscar likes making up to past losers.

Even more attractive to voters are actors who personally nurture projects for years and direct themselves, such as Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson and Warren Beatty. It's an enticing sense of independence, defying the typical studio process, the kind of thing many performers wish they could arrange. Harris has nursed Pollock for a decade since reading a script. Dedication pays off.

Then there is the fact that Jackson Pollock was an inspiring rebel who pushed, folded and spindled the envelope of artistic expression. The kind of thing that actors can delude themselves into believing they're accomplishing too. By rewarding the artist, and the artist impersonating him, voters might feel they're setting the stage for their own showcase someday.

Will Harris or Harden win the Oscar? No way. But they're not out of place among nominees.

Politics aside, Pollock is also a good, not great, movie. Harris radiates intensity in the title role. His film, however, is a fitful examination of Pollock's professional life, falling into a predictable pattern of alcohol and anguish. The notion that talented artists are also emotionally disturbed is a bit of a cliche by now. Even the guy who painted those card-playing dogs probably had skeletons in his closet.

The film begins in 1941 when Pollock is a boozing, unappreciated talent. Out of nowhere arrives Lee Krasner (Harden), another abstract artist with a few Manhattan gallery connections. She leads Pollock to museum owner Peggy Guggenheim (Amy Madigan) and his first one-man exhibit.

Fame comes fast and fades. Jackson and Lee get married, enduring his mood swings and her pushy inspiration until his death in 1956. It's the kind of scenario that could easily be summarized for a museum tour program. Fleshed out on screen, the story adopts a static pattern of tantrums, reassurance and a disappointing shortage of insight about Pollock's art studio process.

Harris perfectly captures the physical grace of Pollock's gift, the way he aggressively approached canvases with dripping brushes, a new technique devised when a mistake becomes an epiphany. Scenes showing Pollock at work are energetic, sweeping the viewer into a verve that must have appealed to Harris and the screenwriters. Yet, merely depicting a gift isn't the same as defining it.

What does the artist see in his painted chaos? We can only surmise that confusion on the canvas is representative of Pollock's state of mind, since each outburst is followed by a masterpiece. We observe people like Guggenheim in awe of his genius, but remain distanced from whatever rapture they're feeling. Dialogue meant to fill the gap comes off sounding pretentious compared with Pollock's earthy demeanor.

Pollock feels more like the end of an actor's professional odyssey than the arrival of a new filmmaking star. Harris controls actors as well as expected, but his pacing and repetitiveness is bothersome. Academy voters can overlook a lot when the mood strikes, even paint-by-numbers drama.

Pollock

• Grade: B
• Director: Ed Harris
• Cast: Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden, Amy Madigan, Jeffrey Tambor, Jennifer Connelly
• Screenplay: Barbara Turner, Susan Emshwiller, based on the book Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
• Rating: R; profanity, sexual situations
• Running time: 122 min.

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