Strong and Moving!

Good movie but grossly overrated

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is such a powerful piece of work. Ed Harris has clearly devoted a large section of his life to capturing Pollock's story, and his commitment I doubt could have been rivaled by anyone else. His performance is spellbinding - painful, inspired, ugly, and it's hard not to think that he must have really gone there while performing it.It is doubly impressive to wonder how he managed to also direct the film - and direct it with a strong hand and complete assurance - while going to the emotional depths that were required of his performance as Pollock.Particularly enjoyable for a Pollock fan - but enjoyable for anyone that wants to experience an honest and unflinching look into the life of a tormented genius.Highly recommend.

Watching "Big Eyes (2014)" really made me want to see a GOOD biography movie about a painter. This is the 3rd or 4th I'm watching this movie (my first watch was at the cinema).This movie is so much better than "Big Eyes" - everything about it is great: Direction (Ed Harris himself), cinematography, score, writing. The entire cast is wonderful, especially Ed Harris - he's just excellent and all the scenes of him painting are very realistic (it's obvious he studied Pollock back and forth) - although he was only nominated for an Oscar and Marcia Gay Harden actually won one.I really like the direction/writing/acting approach of everything presented very realistically and natural, like people really act - there's no smooch and people smiling all the time, like you usually see in movies. Everything is straight forward and real. It's pretty noticeable in Marcia Gay Harden's character (acting and speech). Pollock is a broken character, with lots of damages, problems and imperfections - very far from the usual Hollywood presentation.I like the way they present Pollock as a passive character and Lee Krasner as the active of the two, doing all the decisions, pushing Pollock forward without hurting her own ego. If you want an example of a strong female character in a movie, she's a good example - I hate how people throw this term for just about any silly/weak/meaningless female character in other movies.The last part of the movie is a bit weak, but other than that it's great.This movie is one - if not THE - best movie biographies I've seen about a painter.

"Pollock" suffers the fate of many a biopic about famous artists. It makes the mistake of thinking that people who produce interesting art are by extension going to be interesting themselves, and they're so frequently not. Usually, they're messed up, but in the same old tired ways in which everyone else is messed up, and I leave a film like "Pollock" wishing I had just looked at some Jackson Pollock paintings instead of spending time in the man's head.But all that criticism aside, "Pollock" is a fairly accomplished film, and it's clear that director/star Ed Harris cared strongly about his subject. His performance is good, but by definition one-note and a bit obtuse, because Pollock himself was apparently those things. It's Marcia Gay Harden, in the obligatory and thankless suffering consort role that all biopics have, who gives the most impressive performance.Grade: B

The elements of the biopic of the artist are well defined: the struggle with drink and/or drugs, the love of a good woman, the defining moment of inspiration, the recreation of the art itself and the succession of minor characters whose primary role seems to be to comment on the exact status of the hero's career. In this sense, Ed Harris' film 'Pollock' is quite similar to the films made about Ray Charles or Johnny Cash, differentiated primarily by the stubborn refusal of the narrative of Pollock's life to fit into a happy ending. Harris not only directs but also stars, and he gives a performance of studied intensity, forcing the audience to respect his unconventional art through the display of commitment to it manifested by the man. But the root cause of Pollock's demons remain hidden to us; and one wonders if there was perhaps, in a fragment of the man's troubled life, a better story than there is in the whole of it.