Читать книгу Pollock - Donald Wigal - Страница 38

“I do step into the canvas occasionally – that is, working from the four sides I don’t have to get into the canvas too much.”[84]

Age 38

In the climatic scene in Bill Rabinovitch’s film, PollockSquared, neighbours are seen helping to pick up Pollock’s sagging spirits by coming to his yard and helping him create Blue Poles. Rabinovitch envisions the work as being created in the yard, rather than in the studio[85]. The possibility is inspired by Potter’s suggestion that Tony Smith and Barnett Newman collaborated with a discouraged Pollock. Naifeh & Smith expanded the idea. They propose it was first Tony Smith, then Newman, who worked with Pollock on the piece[86]. Solomon details how the three artists might have worked together over time on the painting[87]. Rabinovitch goes further with the idea to include neighbours. However, Potter admits, “Lee’s view of others having worked on it (Blue Poles) is put simply: ‘Hogwash!’ She remembers Jackson painting in the poles (eight dark blue mostly vertical lines) with a two-by-four (piece of lumber) as a straightedge.” Dealer Ben Heller comments: “Collaboration? Fig leaves! That’s an old war-horse that’s been, I think, sufficiently answered enough times not to have to require any more comment.”[88] Stanley P. Friedman observes the Australian who bought the painting might have got a bargain in obtaining a masterpiece by three great American artists rather than one[89].

Rabinovitch explains:

“An artist’s absolute authenticity wasn’t really what I was after. Rather, I wanted to make larger, more poetic points about the general Zeitgeist, which is done throughout the film. The Blue Poles scene is the climax of the movie. I brought in more characters than likely participated in the actual event. That definitely throws things into a more fanciful perspective.”

At the same time, Rabinovitch gives a nod to historic reality as he makes the actors who play Barnet Newman and Tony Smith prominent in the scene. He recalls,

“Our Newman was a close look-alike as well as a powerful intellectual artist who strongly identified with Barnet. Isabella Rossellini’s handsome nephew played our Tony Smith with great verve.”

Jackson’s friends who interceded that day in our version (of the Blue Poles events) included a few current neighbours (from Springs) playing the Potters. The real Jeffrey Potter was away in Europe, but otherwise might have participated. We also had look-alike actors playing Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler (the Art In America critic), and Philip Guston.

In the movie, these characters are seen individually exchanging comments with Jackson prior to being set to work on the painting. (Rabinovich knew Guston, who visited his studio a few times).

Rabinovitch said,

I had tried to get Larry Rivers, whom I knew, to come over (to participate in the Blue Poles scene) which would have been great fun, but he was already very ill and in fact passed away that very week. In his honour we did a scene later that day where our Jackson runs over a Larry Rivers sculpture (on purpose) which provokes a bit of fun and a yelling fight, with a real Manhattan art dealer playing the part of Larry. Larry Rivers died on 26 August, 2002 of liver cancer. In its obituary of Rivers, Time Magazine remembers Rivers once suggested the headline for his obituary should state, ‘Genius of the Vulgar Dies at 63’[90]. He lived to be seventy-eight.

Also in the scene are the sculptor Reuben Nakian’s son and a real Manhattan art critic and Greenberg look-alike. Rabinovitch adds, “Filling things out was a look-alike (Marcel) Duchamp. We returned late that night with a handful of people and by using my night vision camera did some meditation scenes of Pollock with the painting.”

For the earlier feature film Pollock (2000), Ed Harris never got to use the actual Pollock studio. Instead, he recreated a look-alike studio from scratch somewhere in Brooklyn (45). However, Rabinovitch explained that for PollockSquared:

We actually used the real studio several times, but not on the day of the Blue Poles shoot. When we did use the real studio we used slippers but in one scene our Pollock and Krasner play off each other barefoot as a reminiscing Pollock goes around pointing out patches of colour on the floor, identifying several by year and by painting. On the day of shooting that scene we also showed our handsome de Kooning, a real Italian art dealer playing (Leo) Castelli, as well as look-alikes playing (Clement) Greenberg, and our vivacious (Peggy) Guggenheim[91].