I'm betting, reading over the other comments about this movie, that anyone will care for what I type here.
This movie is boring.
Perhaps there is dictum about "artists" in cinema, that "if you don't like the art, you won't like the movie about the artist." Since I just made that up, I doubt there is anything specific like that, but there ought to be, or at least some thing approximate.
I don't like Jackson Pollock's art. I don't think that it is art. I think it's interesting splotches on canvass. But it doesn't mean anything to me. The colors are cool, the variations, the variegations, the structure of his paintings, are interesting. Art? No way. Not to me. I need to see an idea, and there none in Pollock's art.
This is all as prelude to a thought on the movie: If such a tortured soul as Pollock came up with basically interesting splotches of paint on canvas, then it seems to be a complete waste of a tortured soul.
There are long stretches in the film of Ed Harris as Pollock doing not much of anything, other stretches when he's being a drunken fool (urinating in a fireplace during a swanky dinner may be the way to establish a reputation as tortured artist, but in the end it's not exactly polite).
Ed Harris is a great actor, he really is. And it seems he's quite an admirer of Pollock. But what Harris is to acting, in my take, Pollock is not the same to painting.
I think people who watch this movie probably are artistry fans, which is to mean, loving art for the fact that somewhere, someone has called something "art." Even if it's abject garbage. Sometimes literally.
As from the beginning, perhaps it's the person in question: I like Mozart, very much so, and so I very much liked "Amadeus." I like the Doors, very much so, and so I very much liked "The Doors." Still I dislike John Holmes, and yet I liked "Wonderland" quite a bit. Whether Porn Stars rank with artists like Mozart is questionable, though less so when compared with Pollock.
Hence, perhaps this movie would be better were it about a better painter. Just throwing ink and paint and other fluids around does not a great painter make.
This movie is boring.
Perhaps there is dictum about "artists" in cinema, that "if you don't like the art, you won't like the movie about the artist." Since I just made that up, I doubt there is anything specific like that, but there ought to be, or at least some thing approximate.
I don't like Jackson Pollock's art. I don't think that it is art. I think it's interesting splotches on canvass. But it doesn't mean anything to me. The colors are cool, the variations, the variegations, the structure of his paintings, are interesting. Art? No way. Not to me. I need to see an idea, and there none in Pollock's art.
This is all as prelude to a thought on the movie: If such a tortured soul as Pollock came up with basically interesting splotches of paint on canvas, then it seems to be a complete waste of a tortured soul.
There are long stretches in the film of Ed Harris as Pollock doing not much of anything, other stretches when he's being a drunken fool (urinating in a fireplace during a swanky dinner may be the way to establish a reputation as tortured artist, but in the end it's not exactly polite).
Ed Harris is a great actor, he really is. And it seems he's quite an admirer of Pollock. But what Harris is to acting, in my take, Pollock is not the same to painting.
I think people who watch this movie probably are artistry fans, which is to mean, loving art for the fact that somewhere, someone has called something "art." Even if it's abject garbage. Sometimes literally.
As from the beginning, perhaps it's the person in question: I like Mozart, very much so, and so I very much liked "Amadeus." I like the Doors, very much so, and so I very much liked "The Doors." Still I dislike John Holmes, and yet I liked "Wonderland" quite a bit. Whether Porn Stars rank with artists like Mozart is questionable, though less so when compared with Pollock.
Hence, perhaps this movie would be better were it about a better painter. Just throwing ink and paint and other fluids around does not a great painter make.