Pollock [Special Edition]

Director: Ed Harris Ed Harris

Overview

"Pollock, the portrait of the troubled and self-destructive artist Jackson Pollock, makes its way to DVD and Columbia/TriStar should be commended for the fine disc they've produced. The image, which uses an anamorphic transfer framed at 1.85:1, is outstanding, with only a small number of distracting elements. Colors are bright and well saturated, but the most effective part of the transfer might just be the flesh tones, which are near perfectly reproduced. The 5.0 English track is certainly adequate for a film like this, though there is no use of the surrounds and only a limited amount of sound from the front left and right speakers. As for extra material, this disc has a good selection of rather impressive features. First up is a commentary track from the very soft-spoken director/actor Ed Harris. Though at times he mumbles and is difficult to understand, his love for art and filmmaking is evident. Equally important, though relatively short, is an excellent 20-minute featurette covering many aspects of the production. Also included is the Charlie Rose interview with Harris where he goes into even more detail about his passion for the artist and the desire to get this project made. Four deleted scenes, along with two trailers and some filmographies, round out this nice special edition."

Product Details

Release Date:	07/24/2001
UPC:	0043396064546
Original Release:	2000
Rating:	R
Source:	SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMT
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[5.0]
Language:	English
Time:	2:02:00

Special Features

Digitally mastered audio & anamorphic video; Widescreen presentation; Audio: English 5.0 [Dolby Digital] and 2-channel [Dolby Surround]; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; Ed Harris commentary; Making-of documentary; Theatrical trailers; Link to website; Charlie Rose interview with Ed Harris; Deleted scenes; Filmographies; Interactive menus; Production notes; Scene selections

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ed Harris	Jackson Pollock
Marcia Gay Harden	Lee Krasner
Jennifer Connelly	Ruth Klingman
Jeffrey Tambor	Clement Greenberg
Amy Madigan	Peggy Guggenheim
Bud Cort	Howard Putzel
John Heard	Tony Smith
Val Kilmer	Willem de Kooning
Sada Thompson	Stella Pollock
Stephanie Seymour	Helen Frankenthaler
Tom Bower	Dan Miller
Robert Knott	Sande Pollock
Matthew Sussman	Reuben Kadish
Norbert Weisser	Hans Namuth
Sally Murphy	Edith Metzger
Molly Regan	Arloie Pollock
Rebecca Wisocky	Dorothy Seiberling
Moss Roberts	Ted Dragon
Eduardo Machado	Alfonso Ossorio
Katherine Wallach	Barbara Kadish
John Rothman	Harold Rosenberg
Annabelle Gurwitch	May Rosenberg
Isabelle Townsend	Mercedes Matter
Claire Beckman	Vita Peterson
Kenny Scharf	William Baziotes
Barbara Garrick	Betty Parsons
Everett Quinton	James Johnson Sweeney
Stephen Beach	Jay Pollock
Jill Jackson	Alma Pollock
David Leary	Charles Pollock
Donna Mitchell	Elizabeth Pollock
Frank Wood	Frank Pollock
Julia Anna Rose	Marie Pollock
Kyle Smith	8-Year-Old Jonathan Pollock
Sondra Jablonski	11-Year-Old Jeremy Pollock
Jeff Beal	Composer

Technical Credits

Barbara Turner

Susan Emshwiller

Susan J. Emshwiller

Susan Ernshwiller

Ed Harris	Director,Producer
Fred Berner	Producer
Jon Kilik	Producer
Joseph Allen	Executive Producer
Peter M. Brant	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Todd Thaler	Casting
James Francis Trezza	Producer
Barbara Turner	Screenwriter
Susan Emshwiller	Screenwriter
Susan J. Emshwiller	Screenwriter
Susan Ernshwiller	Screenwriter
Scott Breindel	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Really big canvases and even bigger alcohol binges -- that's the career of American painter Jackson Pollock in a nutshell. This biographical film, directed by and starring actor Ed Harris (whose performance earned an Academy Award nod) places these facets of the abstract expressionist's life on extravagant display. Harris impresses in his debut behind the camera, chronicling Pollock's early days as a starving artist in New York's Greenwich Village, his dazzling ascent to the heights of art world stardom, his ongoing struggles with alcoholism and depression, and finally his death in a car accident in 1956. Harris studied actual footage of Pollack at work on his famous "drip" paintings, and the scenes in which the artist creates his legendary canvases are the movie's most visually compelling. At the center of the story is Pollock's stormy relationship with his strong-willed wife, the painter Lee Krasner, who, despite her own talent as an artist, devoted her energies to her husband's career rather than her own. Marcia Gay Harden's rock-solid performance as Krasner earned her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but ultimately Pollock is Harris's show. He bears a striking resemblance to the real Pollock, and his virile physical presence dominates the screen, conveying stiff suffering early in Pollock's career, wiry masculinity at the height of his success, and, finally, paunchy inebriation during the painter's last days. The result is a wrenching portrait of a tormented genius whose quest for greatness came at a heavy price.