Having a role in all but one of the film’s scenes, Jackson Pollock (Ed Harris) is clearly the heart of the story being told. But wife Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden) is an equally important character as she is the safety net below Pollock as he tightropes his way between genius and insanity. And fortunately, for the viewer’s sake, she is a character that can be felt for – not a monster like Pollock whom audiences will likely find frustrating at best. The want for him to succeed in the world of art is always there and, from time to time, his humanity shines through in “awe” moments like when he tries to save the life of an injured dog. But Pollock never fails to violate any confidence audiences may place in him as it becomes increasingly obvious that he is indeed his own worst enemy. Easy as it may be to blame his problems on alcoholism, the message of this film is clearly that he had plenty of “chances” and blew them all. And for every time he disappoints, like going to a bar instead of an important meeting with Peggy Guggenheim, Krasner is there to catch his fall – whether it be dragging his drunk body across town to catch Ms. Guggenheim at the last moment or otherwise.

      The artwork Pollock labors over in the film is truly a marvel unto itself. Perhaps it seems obvious that a movie about a great American painter would come equipped with such a feature, but there is no reason Ed Harris, as the film’s director, had to include so much and yet his decision to is a masterstroke. Eyes grow sore quickly of staring at a red-nosed Pollock and the continuous opportunities to see him with his work – a time when he is always at peace – are a necessary tool to the audience’s survival of a downright intense production.

      Another fine touch is Jeff Beal’s original score for the film. Like last year’s suave and sexy art film “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Pollock” employs a jazzy score that offers a much-needed beat to some of the movie’s slower moments. And despite often being comfortable skipping weeks, months or even, at one point, half a decade between scenes, the production is hurt by its running time of just under two hours which is simply too long for the subject. No argument that the jazzy score is a delight, but it could be put to better use and more greatly appreciated if it wasn’t forced to serve as a strained binding.

      Harris feels no obligation to explain the tightrope between genius and insanity that Pollock walks just as “Man on the Moon” helmer Milos Forman was content to settle for merely recognizing that such a tightrope existed in the life of Andy Kaufman. This is wise as such an examination would surely require the film to run even longer and likely would produce no meaningful findings. The purpose of the film is not to explain Jackson Pollock, rather it is to show who he was and what he did and let the audience guess at the rational. After all, this is a man who flip-flops between downplaying “I am just painting” and boasting “I am the only painter worth looking at in America.” In “Pollock,” those paintings most certainly are worth looking at, and so is Ed Harris in the finest lead performance of 2000.

Mac VerStandig, 1999