quoted 6 lines maybe you didn't catch one of the main themes in the movie,> maybe you didn't catch one of the main themes in the movie,
> that pollock
> did his best work while sober after he married lee krasner
> and they moved
> out of NYC to long island, it was only after the nuemann film that he
> started drinking again, and subsequently his work/life went to shit.
Oh, believe me I noticed that. Even when he was sober, though, the film
never portrayed him saying anything intelligent or coherent about his art.
Or about art at all. Conniving, opportunistic, and smarmy critics around him
deliberately created the critical opportunity for him, particularly Clement
Greenberg.
The film, like almost all art biographies, simultaneously glamourizes the
artist-as-tortured-soul while lamenting what might have been without all the
drugs/alcohol/temper/whatever. We were supposed to beleive he was a
revolutionary genius - while at the same time the movie portrayed his
artistic endeavors like they came solely from his random and (literally)
flailing attempt to get attention. (Is that what the avante-garde is?) He
looked about as comfortable talking about art theory as George W Bush does
talking about foreign policy. The scene where he discovers the splatter
technique is supposed to be like we're watching the birth of Christ, but to
me it just ended up saying that "Abstract Expressionism is the product of
the careerist desperation of a small group of desperate, shallow, and for
the most part alcoholic men."
I wish the movie showed his relationship with Thomas Hart Benton. That
would have been interesting.
Maybe the movie was *trying* to be an indictment of Pollock, AbEx, and the
art world... but I doubt it. Either way, it ended up making the single most
influential art movement of the late 20th century look like a joke. Which of
course it is.
By the way, I had a fling with the woman who played the Life magazine
interviewer. So I guess I'm biased!
-Cf
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