Reely Bernie Faves: Pollock (2000)

To me, no other movie portrays, captures, embraces, forgives, and, most importantly, empathizes a human being more than Ed Harris’s auteuristic gift in Pollock. I have seen the film from its birth in the theatre in 2000 up to 15 more times, and I am still in awe at how much it continues to be a new experience for me with every viewing.

Ed Harris essentially is the troubled, talented, and doomed American master painter, Jackson Pollock, and if his performance isn’t convincing enough, his directing nearly perfects the life of an American celebrity at his most vulnerably beautiful and ugly.

Pollock was just as unhinged in alcoholism as he was an innovator in paint, art, and expression, and with the duality came a painful existence.

Pollock is grueling. It is passionate. It is abundantly satisfying. It is the life of a brilliantly busted painter.

There is a galvanizing energy in not just Ed Harris practice-performing the art of drip painting but the way his face tells the story of success and anguish. Just look at his eyes during the slow-motion prelude and interlude clips.

I know that Ed Harris’s father encouraged his son to look into making a movie about Jackson Pollock because Ed looked a lot like Pollock during his prime. Along with taking on this monumental challenge, Ed Harris sacrifices his body and self-will to fully embrace a man at his highest and lowest and most true. Composer Jeff Beal magnifies the experience with his vibrant score orchestration, and the end result breaks the term “biopic” wide open.

Not all artists have to be tortured, but I can’t help but notice the greatest ones are.

Pollock is a riveting movie I cherish, and I savor the next viewing.

Reely Bernie Faves:

1. Amadeus (1984)

2. Magnolia (1999)

3. Poltergeist (1982)

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. The Godfather Part II (1974)

7. Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

9. Goodfellas (1990)

10. Nosferatu (1922)

11. Pollock (2000)

12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

13. Jaws (1975)

14. Fargo (1996)

15. Citizen Kane (1941)

16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

17. The Endless Summer (1966)

18. Back to the Future (1985)

19. Angel Heart (1987)

20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

21. The Goonies (1985)

22. Trainspotting (1996)

23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

25. Bambi (1942)

26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)

27. Psycho (1960)

28. Parenthood (1989)

29. Swingers (1996)

30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

32. Smoke (1995)

33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

34. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

36. City of God (2002)

37. 1917 (2019)

38. Black Swan (2010)

39. School of Rock (2003)

40. Mulholland Drive (2001)

41. Groundhog Day (1993)

42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

43. The Greatest Showman (2017)

44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

45. The Florida Project (2017)

46. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

47. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

48. Shadowlands (1993)

49. Steve Jobs (2015)

50. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)