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Marcia Gay Harden stars as Lee Krasner in
Pollock.
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The voice explodes from the screen with the force of a foghorn. "This is Lee Krasner, Jackson's wife," the dark-haired woman says into the phone. For a brief moment, the nasal Brooklyn accent turns silent, only to return with high-pitch surprise. "Oh, Life magazine!"
Actor-turned-director Ed Harris called his film Pollock for good reason. It was his 10-year dream to make a film about artist Jackson Pollock.
But veteran actress Marcia Gay Harden's Oscar-nominated performance as Pollock's embattled wife, Lee Krasner, is receiving plenty of critical acclaim. Harden's challenge was to make Krasner more than the woman beside the drips and streaks in some of the most famous artwork of the past century. Capturing Krasner's accent was just for starters. Harden wanted audiences to feel both the love and the heartache Krasner experienced throughout her life with Pollock.
"I always want audiences to feel," Harden, 41, says, speaking at last fall's Toronto Film Festival. "I want you to feel and to illuminate something about what we go through in life and what we yearn for in life and what commonality about our experiences are in life. There is such a resonant thread amongst us all. Whether it's Lee Krasner or a housewife or a NASA scientist, there is something very resonant that is connecting us. That's the thing that I want to find."
As a young girl, acting helped Harden adjust to a Navy brat lifestyle while her family moved constantly. After graduating from New York University, a career in New York theater was inevitable. Harden was nominated for a Tony for her role in Angels in America. But her starring role in the Coen brothers' gangster drama, Miller's Crossing (1990), was meant to make Harden a film star. The film turned out to be a box-office disappointment, and Harden exchanged Hollywood stardom for a career as a character actress in films such as The Spitfire Grill, Meet Joe Black and Space Cowboys.
Harden auditions for most of her roles. She accepts it as standard procedure for any actress without a celebrity name. Her problem is when directors don't bother to familiarize themselves with the actor's work.
"The people that I mind reading for are the directors who graduated yesterday from film school and have never seen one of my films or my work or barely looked at a tape," Harden says, raising her voice to a fever pitch. "They're asking me to audition for a part that would require me to play it with my pinkie -- the child-star-of-the-film's mother who appears in one scene giving him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- and I have to audition for that? I feel like saying, 'Fuck you, frankly. Fuck you!' Well, there it is. That's my quote.
"But you yearn for certain people, like Scorsese, and a role that's complicated. And if you're not sure I can do it, let me prove it to you. Let me show it to you. Let me come in and prove it to myself. Sometimes, auditioning can be really fun. For the Coens, I had my make-up and my hair, and I was so in character. There was a bravery about auditioning when you're younger or fresh in the business that's different than now. You would go further. It's not like if you were playing a Southern belle, you would arrive in a hoop skirt. But there was a different kind of bravery when you're unknown. I loved that. I loved proving it."
Harris made sure the film stayed true to the details of Pollock's life. We see Pollock's bohemian origins and the struggle he and Krasner had to make ends meet. A stack of Pollock biographies helped guide Harris on both sides of the camera. The artist's temper, alcoholic binges and unpredictability are well-known. To re-create Krasner, Harden had to rely on her own instincts as an actor.
"Marcia is unbelievable," Harris says, speaking earlier. "I can't say enough about her acting. But even as important to me was the fact that this was a really tough shoot. We were working really long hours. She wasn't getting paid anything, and she was just so committed to it ... I couldn't have done it without her."
Only recently has art history taken an approving eye to Lee Krasner and her artwork. Finally, she is being considered a noteworthy artist, separate and distinct from her famous husband. Harden's performance in Pollock should bring Krasner additional attention. It might also boost Harden's own career. The next time she auditions, it's her Lee Krasner performance directors will remember.
"What was hard about letting Lee go was feeling like I'd never completely eaten her or devoured her or regurgitated her," Harden says. "I felt that there was still more of her out there. If I just had another chance, another taste or another sitting at the table, I could be more like her." ©
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Ed Harris is Jackson Pollock
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Intimate Portraiture of An Artist
I would like to believe that a dependable yet small look at an influential figure could distract audiences from all the outside reality. To do so, a film would have to look inside its tortured artist, in this case, Jackson Pollock (Ed Harris). The sheer genius of his works are on display, as are some less-than-glorious moments that illustrate the high degree of difficulty such personalities can achieve.
Harris -- as both director and star -- avoids giving the audience docu-style talking heads and a cast of quirks in search of their characters. What he presents is quiet and sometimes truly intimate, yet is still removed from the vital essence of Pollock. We look at (and not into) him, because of what Harris the director gives us.
The one true and unerring thing in Pollock's life and this film was not necessarily his prodigious talent, but his wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden). The Academy Award nomination for Harden is recognition for her deft mini-portrait of the woman who willingly provided a lifeline for Pollock's vision. Harris is also rewarded for his obvious labor of love that is far from perfect, but pleasing at a certain distance. -- T.T. Clinkscales
CityBeat grade: B.
