Pollock
All actors and roles (10)
All team (32)
Short description
Pollock is a biographical drama about the American painter Jackson Pollock, following his rise in the New York art world of the 1940s and his relationship with fellow painter Lee Krasner. Krasner recognizes his talent and becomes his partner, and the two marry and move to the countryside, where she sets aside her own work to support his. His unconventional methods bring him fame as the first American modern painter known abroad, but success arrives alongside self-doubt, heavy drinking and volatile behavior that threaten to undo him.
Ed Harris directs and stars as Pollock, working from a screenplay by Susan Emshwiller and Barbara Turner. Marcia Gay Harden plays Krasner, with Tom Bower, Jennifer Connelly, Bud Cort and John Heard among the supporting cast of 53 credited performers. The film was produced by Harris, Jon Kilik and Fred Berner. It was Harris's first outing as a director, ahead of Appaloosa in 2008.
Made for about 6 million dollars, the film took roughly 11 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a period drama. On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 31,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from 367 votes, while a critics' rating of 7.3 out of 10 from 110 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Ed Harris's directorial debut.
- Filming and simultaneously fulfilling the duties of director demanded such strain and effort from Ed Harris that he once simply fainted on set and had to be briefly hospitalized.
- The project took Ed Harris a total of 6 years.
- Filming took only 50 days, but after the first 40 days of shooting, a six-week break was announced; it was needed to give Ed Harris time to gain weight (he gained 13 kilograms) and grow a beard, as required by the script.
- Everything his character draws on screen was painted by Ed Harris himself. The finished works by Pollock (which are, of course, copies) are the work of real artists.
- In the scene where his character tries to bring a box of beer home on a bicycle, Ed Harris fell off the bicycle, and when he got up, he looked at his hand. As it turned out, he actually cut his hand to the bone, and the wound had to be stitched.
- American singer and actress Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016) played herself in some cameo scenes in the film. Her face appears several times on the cover of Life magazine (issue of August 8, 1949); the cover photo was the very first result of her collaboration with the magazine. The filmmakers used an authentic Life magazine cover, while the pages with the article about Pollock were merely reproductions of the original, and the photograph of Pollock was replaced with a photograph of Harris.
- The film is based on the book 'Jackson Pollock, an American Saga' by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.
- Ed Harris's father bought him a book about Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) when he was a child because he seemed to believe there was a striking resemblance between his son and the artist. Since then, Harris has been literally "obsessed" with Pollock.
Similar movies
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