Ed Harris in Pollock (2000)
the names, dates and professions? Is the Jackson Pollack tale really that much different from the cinematic treatments of Jim Morrison? Or Pablo Picasso? Or fucking Van Gogh? Must the same predictable pattern of creating great art be combined with a mercurial, abusive personality?
Granted, these artists were probably no picnic to live with, but do screen stories have to religiously adhere to the same tired plot structures? Denis Leary summed it up accurately in his No Cure For Cancer concert. It still applies. To paraphrase: he drinks, he’s nobody, he drinks, he’s somebody, he drinks, he’s fucking dead.
There is still hope, though, for this tired subgenre. Instead of plodding through the bollocks of Pollock, why not try the fresher taste of Before Night Falls? It’s not perfect, but at least it bears the novelty of a main character, an artist, who is quiet, introverted, sensitive, self-effacing, curious, not at all boorish, and talented. The only requirement he fills is to die young - even that is underplayed much more effectively than the car wreck, literally and figuratively, seen in Pollock.
Javier Bardem (who plays Cuban writer Reinaldo Aranas in Falls) and Harris were both nominated for Oscars in 2000. Place both films side by side and ask yourself which of these performances, which of these stories, can truly claim to be originals among the herd? Jackson Pollock may have been the wild beast who broke through the ice, but Ed Harris proves to be a tame animal indeed.
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