blog 1

From first scene of Ed Harris’s Pollock, it is evident that it is a film attempting to shed light on the artistic vision and inspiration of the founder of abstract expressionism, one of the art world’s most innovative and complex characters. The camera works to become Pollock’s eyes, his sight, allowing the viewer to experience the artist’s most vital sense. The opening sequence of the film features a close-up shot of a yellow cardigan, a faceless woman seeking an autograph and then cuts to Pollock’s face, his eyes staring off into space after signing an autograph. This shift from an unidentifiable entity to the face of the artist in the first sequence sets the tone for the movie as it is film which aims to capture the world as seen by Pollock. As the film progresses, the same camera technique in which the world unfolds in front of the viewer as it does for Jackson Pollock is used to expose other aspects of Pollock’s identity—his alcoholism, his relationship with Lee Krasner, his budding career, and his creative process. There are many sequences featuring the world of Pollock the alcoholic, seemingly outnumbering the rest, such the shot in which the camera is angled upward with an extreme close up of school children’s feet as the viewer, in essence, wakes up with Pollock on the sidewalk after a night of heavy drinking. Pollock’s courtship and marriage to Krasner also unfold in front of the viewer as they unfold his eyes; the viewer first meets Lee through a shot of Pollock’s front door as she approaches it and sees her for the first time.
In terms of following the schematic structure of the artist’s biography, the film does not feature Pollock’s “prebirth” or “birth,” but rather begins in his “youth,” in 1941, showing his burgeoning recognition beginning with his discovery by Peggy Guggenheim who commissioned him to paint a mural for her wall as well as featured him in the Art of the Century, his first man show, in 1943. It is interesting to note how the film shows his budding discovery by critics and patrons. Characters, such as Guggenheim and Clement Greenberg, seem to always be featured looking at Pollock’s art, as stand-ins for the viewer. Other aspects of Pollock’s “youth” are also featured as the viewer gets a solid look at Pollock’s early work, and his struggles with creating art that represented his truth. The point in Pollock’s biography in which we stopped viewing the film stills falls within his youth, when Krasner and Pollock move to Long Island in search of a quieter life, before 1947, when Pollock ultimately reaches maturity with his development of the drip-can technique.
When comparing the classical view of artistic inspiration with how Pollock’s inspiration is constructed in the film, they are overridingly similar. In Plato’s Ion, Socrates describes artistic, poetic process as one in which the poet or artist is not “in their right mind.” There is a “chain” of divine inspiration—it begins Muse who possesses the poet, who in turn takes hold of rhapsode and a fit of divine madness ensues which is inspiration. Art is not a matter of skill or thought, it all comes down to divine inspiration: “for all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed.” While the film features no muse, sequences of Pollock’s artistic inspiration mirror classical description. The sequence of Pollock’s creation of the mural for Peggy Guggenheim is exemplary of classical ideas of inspiration. Leading up to this scene, is a sequence in which Pollock breaks through a wall (literally), followed by several shots of Pollock sitting in silence in front of the blank canvas waiting for inspiration. When inspiration does finally strike him, the camera works to show it as a moment in which Pollock is not in his right mind. As Pollock stands looking at the blank canvas there is an extreme close up on his eyes, then another shot of the canvas, then an extreme close up of the ground as Pollock drops his cigarette, and then the music quickens as we watch Pollock attack the canvas in a state of creative madness. It is sudden, as if a muse at that very moment decided to evoke a state of creative ecstasy within him.
Though Pollock may only highlight certain aspects of the artist’s life because it is targeted towards the mass culture, it is filled with beautiful imagery and I look forward to seeing the rest of it.