Pollock

Starring: Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden

Release: 2000

When is an artist considered a success? When the first canvas is sold? When the work can financially provide a comfortable life? When a piece gives its creator personal satisfaction? Or is there something else that defines success? These questions are central to this week"s film,
Pollock, the 2000 film that portrays Jackson Pollock"s rise to artistic fame and his relationship with his wife, painter Lee Krasner. Beginning shortly before the two painters meet (she seeks him out after learning that they each would have a painting in the same exhibition) and ending with his death, the film investigates the artists" conflicting definitions of success.

Throughout the film, Pollock experiences various landmarks that would seem to indicate artistic success. Peggy Guggenheim features his work in her gallery, invites him to paint a mural for her home, and becomes his official patron. He has individual exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery. He is the subject of a Time article. Photographer Hans Namuth spends several months filming and photographing him. He becomes as much a household name as any contemporary artist can.

But despite all of this, Pollock always seems dissatisfied. After Guggenheim discovers his work, he"s offended that he isn"t receiving positive reviews in more publications and that he isn"t selling more pieces. When his work starts to sell, he"s irritated that his brothers and their families aren"t all-consumed by his genius. When he"s firmly established as a luminary of the American art world, he is offended when an art critic friend mentions that there are new up-and-coming artists who are also worth noticing; he is offended that any other artists receive attention. There"s always something bigger that Pollock envies and longs for.

Krasner, meanwhile, recognizes the importance of public attention and sales; even more often than she paints on her own, she acts as Pollock"s agent, smoothing over drunken mishaps (he struggled with alcoholism his entire life) and his frequent temper flares. But she also finds immense satisfaction in watching her husband"s genius grow. She is not blind to his failings -- they fight a great deal, she criticizes him for his infidelities and drinking, and she critiques paintings that don"t meet her philosophical standards. At the same time, however, she sees that her husband is more than just a good painter; she sees that he is a great artist, and she pushes him to reach the brilliance that she knows he is capable of. While she clearly enjoys the commercial success he achieves, she also very visibly takes greater joy in his personal artistic triumphs. Walking into his studio after he has created his first signature piece, with dripped paint in swirls across the floor, she beams. For Krasner, the steps her husband takes to move the art world forward are his real successes.

The film never really answers its philosophical questions about art and the nature of success, partially because it never really asks them with enough clarity – for a movie that received such critical acclaim, it"s surprisingly slow-paced and noncohesive. As viewers, we know that in the future Pollock is seen as a massive success, but he doesn"t look like one, succumbing to depression and alcoholism and sending Krasner away to Venice so he can spend more time with his young mistress. The film seems to condone the artistic success that Krasner seeks for her husband – a success where talent is recognized with modest wealth and where the couple spends quiet evenings together in mutual respect. She looks for an attainable artistic success – a success they generally have in the few years after he stops drinking but before his Time article is published. But Pollock himself is never fully satisfied that he is a success, and maybe that"s the film"s point: the greater the talent, the greater the heights the artist believes he can reach...and the less attainable those heights really are.

Don't miss the other blog posts in my series on movies about artists!

10 Movies You Should See About Artists:

• #10 - Andrei Rublev
• #9 - Lust for Life
• #8 - Goya's Ghosts
• #6 - Basquiat
• #5 - Girl with a Pearl Earring
• #4 - The Agony and the Ecstasy