Pollock

When watching Pollock, I recalled the words of Miloš Forman when he spoke about his doubts about whether and how to shoot Amadeus. He considered biographical films about troubled artistic souls to be the most boring genre that could appear in the film industry and simply did not know how to approach the material. With biographical films of this caliber, you only need to know a few (and basically, you can count them on one hand) biographical facts, watch the first few minutes of the film, and deduce what to expect in the next two hours without much effort. Ed Harris simply wanted to make his artistic film, through which he would break free from established acting stereotypes and show himself in a good light as a director. Though the film is honest and well-acted, it drags on and the film as a whole is boring, unless you are fans of Pollock's artwork or Ed Harris. With biographical films, it really is true that your satisfaction is directly proportional to your relationship with the character the film is about. Personally, I prefer biographical films that present a specific historical epoch and place their protagonist in a certain society, rather than those that depict the torn artist's soul. The only attractive scenes for me were the ones depicting Pollock's creative process. Overall impression: 45%. (19.11.2010)