March 17th, 2009

So last night I watched on MPix movies on demand Pollock, which I had been meaning to see for a long time.  I was interested in Ed Harris but importantly to see what it had to say about the creative process.  Quite frankly I am not a fan of modern art, but I do enjoy the creative process and trying to better understand it.   Pollock was a wanna-be great artist in my mind from the US working in the shadows of Picasso.   Picasso seemed to be just one step ahead of him, even as they were contemporaries.   What I had not remembered until later on in the movie was the performance here of Marcia Gay Harden, who was outstanding.   She wins the Oscar as I am now seeing, and deservedly so.  There is a scene where Pollock is demanding a child from her, after she had essentially demanded a wedding ring from him and she denies him.  She has a great speech where she talks emotionally about the fact that they have little money, but he is a great artist but that he “needs, needs, needs” all the time.  And the look on his face shows that he understands that she is correct.   It is a powerful scene for a woman who is his greatest supporter, but who is more like his manager than his spouse and lover.   He gets into this drip painting essentially and it’s messier and less precise than pointillism (like Georges Seurat and Claude Monet) which I enjoy very much.   Anyway, it’s an interesting piece with some good performances.   Funny these artist types though that are so self destructive.   Here it’s alcoholism.