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In Reply to: Pollock, if you like.... posted by patrickU on October 15, 2003 at 06:28:18:
No offense intended, Patrick. I didn't like a minute of that film, which I suppose makes it a successful movie about Pollock, sine I find his persona and myth as tedious and overblown as Jim Morrison's. He has a handful of great paintings--Jim Morrison has a handful of great songs--but mostly he was a whiny, self-important drunk. If he was tortured, it was probably the knowledge that he was one of the 20th century's great one-trick ponies that did the job.As a film, well, I found Harris's performance pretty spot-on, insofar as it was vapid, and got along on the back of pensive looks and tantrums, a la Pollock himself. The score was irritating, as well, but not half as irritating as the Art History 101 lessons about abstraction scattered hither and thither. Any more forced and it could've been dialogue from a Godard movie, but whereas Godard was conscious of putting his words in the mouths of actors, Harris seems to be oblivious to the fact that artists and critics don't talk about art that way. The only other cringer of that caliber is the gallery conversation in Far From Heaven. This is the sort of canned profundity that gives people exactly the wrong idea about what art is and how they should approach it, and since cinema seems to be the only place people are willing to see abstract paintings, that's the only place they're likely to get their vocabulary.
Sorry, I can understand why one might like the movie, but I really did not, and I was hoping I would. Although the biography it's based on is similarly embarrassing, so I don't know why I was expecting better.
Follow Ups:
"poseur" of a movie, and so wrong about the artist? "A handful?" Well, if your hands are the size of Rodin's famous one, perhaps. Have you ever seen any of his paintings "in the flesh?"
And...Jim Morrison, as well? C'mon. He had a rather sizable number of great songs. One of rock's great voices, IMHO. I'd agee that his excesses sometimes lapesed into self-parody.
It seems YOU have a problem with drunks and rowdies that happen to be great artists. Janis, Jimi, Billie, Eric....the list goes on and on, you know...
and I think some of them are really stunning. Many of them are not, however. They're muddy, and they retread ground already covered. The abstract expressionists have alot in common, centrally the fact that their early work was either boringly social realist, derivative of the recent European masters, or plain bad. I saw the Rothko retrospective and was stunned at what a downright poor draughtsman he was. In Pollock's case, he was so enthralled by second-generation surrealists like Gorky that he probably wouldn't have produced anything of special value were it not for his 'discovery.'Now, I'm certainly not of the school that dismisses abstract expressionism with bullshit 'my six year old could do that' sentiments; my area of emphasis, in the course of getting my flagrantly useless bachelor's degree, was the art of the 20th century avant-garde. BUT...it was a gimmick. A creatively fruitful, financially profitable gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless, in all their cases. Pollock did not have the intellect to match the heroism of his gestures, and he didn't really have the daring, either. The phrase "critic's darling" might very well have been coined for him; he saw what people responded to, and he cranked it out, and this contributed to his 'torturedness.' He was at a dead end towards the end of his life, and he knew it. Given the shameful state of most of his more brilliant contemporaries, I shudder to think of what Jim Morrison might've gone on to do. Jim Morrison in the '80's? Terrifying. Ditto Pollock. Unlike Rothko or Newman--who I don't particularly care for--Pollock didn't have much sense of how to refine his central gimmick, how to explore the relationships at work. It was too unwieldy. He knew it. He knew that he was getting to be a performing monkey for the leisure class. This is one of the reasons he self-destructed.
Like I said, there are a number of his paintings that I think are as beautiful as any other, that show real grace and delicacy. But he made so many goddamn paintings, man...that technique is not something you can get a real handle on, for better and worse. There were alot more misses than hits. Was he the greatest artist of the 20th century or something like that? No, I don't think so (I'm not one to say who the owner of that title might be). What he had was great press, in the form of Clement Greenberg, whose ideas were, really, bizarrely misguided, if still interesting and well-stated. His tastes moved on after Pollock, who really was not flat or dull enough to please Greenberg. Pollock had his moment in the sun, and he deserved it more than most. But he was a one-trick pony in the long run.
As fer having a problem with drunks and rowdies who happen to be great artist, my God, tinear, I don't even know how to tell you how wrong you are! Fucked-up genius types are my stock in trade!;-) Come over some time if you're in the neighborhood (St. Louis), and I'll take you on a tour of my libraries, both literary and musical. Chock full o' drunk-and-rowdy greatnesses. What I don't like is people who make enough interesting work to qualify as really significant, and then burn up dramatically before they can see their critical fortunes fade, thereby assuring themselves outsized legend status. And that's the class I'd put Pollock and Morrison in. They are remembered by the people who think they were great artists as being exclusively great artists, because they didn't have the chance to prove how few tricks they had in their respective bags. They both made some great stuff, but they didn't have more coming, and they knew it, I think. Lester Bangs called Morrison a "Bozo prince," with a fair amount of admiration behind that title. I think it can be easily extended to Pollock as well. Any further disagreements we'll have to settle over some good port and loud music.
say "No?" "One" can't!!!
St. Louis, huh? Well, I'd love to climb around in the arch and I understand there's some interesting new architecture there.
With a 2-yr. old, however, it may have to wait a bit. Now, if you're in SW Florida...let me know. The next six-months are perfect, weatherwise, here.
I worked on this film, so I saw it over and over. Ech viewing got more tedious than the first one had been. I frankly never thought it would see the inside of a movie theater. I expected permanent shelving or direct to video. I have always liked Ed Harris' acting. I'm waiting to see good directing from him.I can't fathom why anyone would even want to make a film about an untalented drunk.
Steve
You know, the movie never explained why his splattered paint was considered art? Because Peggy Guggenheim thought so? That's part of the reason I went to see it. His work is like 20th Century composers--lost on me.
When I see a real artist that has proven ability to accuratly portray people or landscape or fruit bowls start to push the envelope into expressionism, cubism or what have you I'm willing to consider it art, I may not like it but if the man is an artist (or musician) I'm willing to consider it art. Examples of that would be Van Gogh and Picasso. Pollack AFAIK never could paint, didn't push any envelopes, and was a mean untalented drunk.The fact that Guggenheim or anyone else decided to declare "he is an artist" doesn't make it so, for me.
Steve
The problem Victor and you, had already a mind for this " artist " I did not. He was new terrain for me, course I had heard his name and certainly had see some of his pictures somewhere. So I was a relative virgin..on this one. And I did not certainly spare the man in my critic having to rely entirely from this fim in the good faith that in will be a true rendition of his life...
So you can imagine that the written bio is entirely strange to me, so I have no clue what did Harris or did not to him...But as I like this guy I have rely on him..So it goes..
-Well we do agree on Harris performance and on the score too, that makes two ( i hope it did come through my critic!
I have my problem ( language ? ) what did you found irritating in what you describe as " Art History 101 " I have not the feeling as they was! You mean the blah blah of the critics?
But critics and artists do some times talk that way..if you look at the great galerists and artists loke Picasso and many others biographies I had read this kind of " spirit " was there... Or do I miss the sense of what you are trying to tell me ?
But I see that you are irritate on this transposition and deformed or simplified look at art...you are right but what can one expect in such a short time..better? you may be certainly right!
The " Frida " film was another example...Diego was well put and the film did have some sparks of creativity, helas no real" profondeur " as for the main "personnage"I did like this movie for not the same reason you did dislike it.
It was for the real feeling of real life. Not an romantise one just, what I see around me in others people life as in mine, and that I did appreciated.
We just saw two different films....Salut.
I was talking about the dialogue going out of its way to spell out the background history and contemporary context of the art. The example that I can think of is when Lee Krasner says something like, "Well, Jackson, this isn't really cubism because you're not breaking down the figure." Huh? I don't know anybody who might say anything that weirdly didactic to another artist. She goes--rather, Harris (or whoever adapted the script) has her go out of her way just to bring up this very miniature definition of cubism, in order to demonstrate how Pollock broke from it. And there's other instances of that throughout the film. It reminds me, like I said, of the scenes in Godard's movies where he has some character musing about the history of cinema or the effects of consumption or urban planning, or something, except in 'Pollock,' of course, it's not meant to be funny or self-conscious.I can imagine that you might've liked it for the same reasons I didn't, and much as I'm weirded out to admit it, I agree with Victor, I just find Pollock the man to be insufferable, and I probably didn't have any reason to expect the film to be any different.
What is your first language? German? You seem to have easy access to accent marks that don't appear on my keyboard...
--The example that I can think of is when Lee Krasner says something like, "Well, Jackson, this isn't really cubism because you're not breaking down the figure." Huh? I don't know anybody who might say anything that weirdly didactic to another artist.i can think of 1000 way more didactic things one artist can say to another, believe me!
Sure. But that line especially has the quality of a CliffNotes summation. I mean, if someone just walked up to you and said, "Dmitry, this painting is good, but clearly it bears no relationship to the work of Gerhard Richter (Germany, born 1932), who has been instrumental in moving German art away from its infatuation with American pop art and towards abstraction." I mean...it just seemed so desperate to have her point out what the work was not, just so's to be able to give people a fortune-cookie sized definition of cubism.See what I mean?
what if i say,"rhizo, you know, georg baselitz's infatuation with soutine is so felt at times that it makes me less interested in baselitz and more interested in soutine."how's that for didactic?
he he
But if you were to say, "Rhizo, you know, the infatuation Georg Baselitz, a primary proponent of German neo-expressionism, feels for Chaim Soutine, an oft-overlooked Lithuanian painter at work during expressionism's original flourishing, makes me more interested in Soutine and less interested in Baselitz," then that would be annoying.
"rhezo, old chum, Soutine is not really Lithuanian per se, I'd say. He grew up in Borovichi[?] near Minsk. But close enough to Lithuania where he spent some time. His friendship with Modigliani and expressionist genius coupled with torment of private life could have made a great biographic film."
Modigliani a very passionate painter...
So it's 'rhezo' now...I fear for the integrity of my moniker in the face of such wanton butchery...So are you just partial to the expressionist end of the spectrum? Where else do your tastes in paintin' lie?
The point, really, is that your example is an instance not so much of an artist being didactic but of the film being didactic and doing so with clumsy, transparent, dramatic exposition to boot. I don't imagine that Pollock needed to be told what cubism was, so clearly at that moment we have a character speaking past his interlocutor to the audience, thus destroying the suspension of disbelief, etc., etc. That's just bad writing.
if we want to be fair, the quote you posted is not complete.here's the complete quote.
-Well, Jackson, this isn't really cubism because you're not breaking down the figure...
-I know that, you crazy bitch!
Yes this was more than enerving! Cubism..hum... In the film I did not have the feeling that Pollock did actually knew what..cubism was...
No,I still think that we had two different bias to look at..I glide easily on what you did dislike to concentrate on what I did like.
No more can be said...
Francais.
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