For art’s sake
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 20, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Ed Harris stars as Jackson Pollock in
the new movie "Pollock," which he also directed. Pollock became
famous for the abstract paintings he created with his "drip"
technique.
By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Bringing one of America’s most celebrated painters to life
was truly a labor of love for actor Ed Harris.
In fact, making a film about Jackson Pollock has been a personal
project of his for nearly a decade.
“It’s this thing I’ve been thinking about for
years,” Harris said at a press junket. “My little
girl’s been hearing about it since before she was even
born.”
In addition to playing the title character and co-producing
“Pollock,” Harris conducted extensive research,
experimented with the paintbrush and even put on a little weight to
look like an aging Pollock.
“I finally got a chance to do it and it was
all-encompassing,” he said.
Additionally, about a year before filming the movie, Harris
decided he wanted to direct the film as well.
“I had immersed myself in the subject matter to such a
degree and I’d spent so much time and thought … about it, I
realized that I didn’t want to hand it over to someone
else’s vision,” Harris said. “I didn’t want
it to be someone else’s baby.”
Set in the 1940s, “Pollock” chronicles the life of
the radical artist who reinvented modern art with his controversial
“drip” technique. While searching for the pure,
unmediated expression that would end up changing the course of
modern art, Pollock embarks upon a self-destructive path that
threatens to destroy his career and his marriage.
“Pollock said several times that he couldn’t
separate himself from his art,” Harris said. “Not
knowing much about modern art when I began to read about him, it
was much more his persona ““ his struggles as a human being
““ that was interesting to me.”
The film concerns itself with accurately showing the artistic
climate behind the abstract expressionist movement, as well as
fleshing out the artist. According to Harris, Pollock’s
inability to comprehend the world partly originated in his
inability to detach himself from his art.
 Photos from Sony Pictures Ed Harris and
Marcia Gay Harden star in the movie
"Pollock,"about the troubled, self-destructive artist Jackson
Pollock. Pollock was an innovator of modern art.
“Ed’s an explorer,” said co-star Marcia Gay
Harden. “He knew Pollock backwards and forwards. He’s
very pure and he’s very truthful in what he does.”
Harris said that because Pollock is not a fictional character,
audiences should realize that he was a human being and not just a
figure that lives in art history books.
“He lived and breathed for 44 years,” Harris said.
“Those paintings, they were painted by someone ““ every
line, every dot, every drip … was created by an individual person
at a specific time and place who really cared about what he was
doing.”
Harris was especially intrigued by how people in the art world
seem to have strong feelings about Pollock.
“Everybody had a very strong point of view about
him,” Harris said. “Everybody thinks they knew Pollock
better than the next person.”
While delving into Pollock’s personal insecurities and
struggles as an artist, the film also explores the tortured
relationship between the painter and his artist wife, Lee Krasner
(Harden).
“Lee Krasner was, to Jackson Pollock, subservient,”
Harden said.
Krasner’s efforts to promote her husband’s career
often thwarted her own growth as an artist, according to
Harden.
“It’s not so unusual, in my way of thinking, that a
woman would quit what she was doing for a man,” Harden said.
“I think we see it all around us ““ women give up their
careers all the time for their husbands.”
Krasner’s sacrifice may be difficult for audiences to
accept, however, because she didn’t have any children, Harden
said.
“In truth she wasn’t a great painter at the time
they were living together in New York,” she said. “She
was searching for her own voice.”
It was easy for Krasner to promote Pollock and not want to do
her own painting since she had nothing to say about the medium at
the time, Harden said.
“When she first met him, he was already showing signs of
being a genius and here she was and she had nothing to say,”
Harden said. “It’s hard to hear your own music when
there’s a symphony happening over there.”
According to Harden, Krasner needed her own space before she
could begin to understand her voice.
“After he died, Lee Krasner’s voice in her painting
exploded,” Harden said. “It was beautiful, sensual and
large, but she did not have that when he was alive.”
Like Harris, Harden researched the dynamic relationship between
the two artists. She acknowledged, however, that Harris was the
authority on the set.
Even without the Best Actor Oscar nomination for
“Pollock,” Harris finally sees his own work of art
coming together.
“I wouldn’t call myself an artist in terms of
painting, but I spent enough time with the material and with
attempts at creation, trying to put paint on canvas in a way that
felt honest … that I got an inkling of what it must be like to
live one’s life as a painter,” he said.
FILM: “Pollock” is now playing at
the Laemmle’s Sunset 5 located at 8000 Sunset Blvd. For
showtimes or more information call (323) 848-3500.
