0:00:31 > 0:00:36Patrolman Earl Finch received a radio dispatch from police HQ
0:00:36 > 0:00:39at 22.15 hours
0:00:39 > 0:00:42on August 11th, 1956.
0:00:42 > 0:00:48It reported an automobile accident on the Springs Fireplace Road.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52Proceeding to the scene, he found a 1950 Oldsmobile
0:00:52 > 0:00:55registered to one Jackson Pollock.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03He observed an injured woman lying in front of the vehicle
0:01:03 > 0:01:07who was identified as Ruth Kligman, aged 25 years
0:01:07 > 0:01:12who was removed to the South Hampton hospital.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17He also observed a male body lying nine feet west of the vehicle
0:01:17 > 0:01:21on its back, head to the west, feet to the east
0:01:21 > 0:01:26who was later identified as Jackson Pollock, Springs Road, New York,
0:01:26 > 0:01:29aged 44 years.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32Date of birth - 28th January, 1912.
0:01:32 > 0:01:37The coroner, Dr Nugent, examined the body of Jackson Pollock.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39It was wearing a black velvet shirt,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43grey pants, brown belt, blue shorts,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46brown socks, no shoes.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49No jewellery or ID found on the body.
0:01:54 > 0:02:00It was a romantic way to die. If he hadn't met me,
0:02:00 > 0:02:05and died in that car, he would have died a sick man
0:02:05 > 0:02:07with maybe an enlarged liver.
0:02:07 > 0:02:12That is not as romantic as dying tragically in a car
0:02:12 > 0:02:15with a woman that he loved.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19Drunkenness and...
0:02:19 > 0:02:21a violent death and ...
0:02:23 > 0:02:29..sex and art - all of that is attractive to the public -
0:02:29 > 0:02:32with the exception of art!
0:02:32 > 0:02:35It's easier to think of the drama of his history
0:02:35 > 0:02:39than to think of what he did in the realm of art.
0:02:45 > 0:02:50MAN: He has become a legend. It has nothing to do with his art.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53It's the person.
0:02:54 > 0:03:00Who ever would have thought this guy knew how to paint?
0:03:00 > 0:03:04He'd become famous! Incredible!
0:03:04 > 0:03:08And look at it now, who knows what fame is...?
0:03:08 > 0:03:11God, it's so fucking stupid.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24At the time of his death in 1956,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28Pollock was the most celebrated artist in the US.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31His new way of dripping paint onto canvas
0:03:31 > 0:03:34redefined the nature of painting.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38Sometimes I use a brush but often prefer a stick.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43Sometimes I pour the paint straight out of the can.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47I like to use a dripping, fluid paint.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01It was this desire to find a more direct form of expression
0:04:01 > 0:04:07which saw Pollock and peers being called abstract expressionists.
0:04:10 > 0:04:16Pollock's work was so different from what anyone else was doing.
0:04:16 > 0:04:22It wasn't even as much shocking as it was just...unimaginable.
0:04:22 > 0:04:27People could not imagine that this was painting.
0:04:27 > 0:04:33Even Pollock had doubts about whether he was truly creating art
0:04:33 > 0:04:36because there wasn't a model for it.
0:05:03 > 0:05:09He broke the mould so spectacularly, he attracted huge media attention
0:05:09 > 0:05:14and soon came to be seen as the key figure in abstract expressionism.
0:05:14 > 0:05:19When do you think it became clear that he was emerging as the leader?
0:05:19 > 0:05:21Erm...
0:05:21 > 0:05:26I guess whenever Life Magazine
0:05:26 > 0:05:30did a spread on Pollock, and this would be...
0:05:30 > 0:05:33My dates, I haven't got them.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37In '48 or '49, I'd say.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Erm...
0:05:39 > 0:05:45Their headline was, "Is he the greatest painter in America?"
0:05:55 > 0:06:01"Recently, a formidably highbrow critic hailed this brooding man
0:06:01 > 0:06:07"as a major artist and a candidate for finest painter of the century."
0:06:13 > 0:06:19Life Magazine had Pollock standing there like a jerk.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24And the thing was, "Is he a genius or a crackpot?"
0:06:25 > 0:06:28Now that's what Life thought.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31But what people thought was...
0:06:31 > 0:06:37"Anybody can do it! My kid can do it, I can do it!"
0:06:37 > 0:06:40And that made a deep impression upon America.
0:06:42 > 0:06:48Jackson became a legend and America began to look at art.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54"Pollock, at 37, is a shining new phenomenon
0:06:54 > 0:06:57"of American art.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00"He was virtually unknown in 1944.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04"Now his work is in five US museums and 40 private collections."
0:07:04 > 0:07:10Surprised? I mean, he hit as big as it could be.
0:07:10 > 0:07:16But what it meant to the public at large that he did this...
0:07:16 > 0:07:20And everybody... He was imitated just overnight.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24It looked real easy. But for some reason,
0:07:24 > 0:07:27no-one could do it the way he did.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29When they held art shows,
0:07:29 > 0:07:34you'd see a dozen imitations - but they could never do it.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45It's remarkable, the leap he took.
0:07:45 > 0:07:52He let the nature of the medium take over the way a piece was built.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57You think of drip painting as being a form of pouring but it's not.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00It's a constellation of effects.
0:08:05 > 0:08:11I find ways that are different to the usual techniques of painting
0:08:11 > 0:08:15which seems a little strange at the moment.
0:08:15 > 0:08:21It makes no difference how paint's put on as long as something is said.
0:08:31 > 0:08:36- SEIBERLING:- There was a great response to the Life article.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40More than 500 letters came in - only 20 of them favourable.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Here's a selection.
0:08:43 > 0:08:48"Answering your query, is he the greatest painter in the US?,
0:08:48 > 0:08:51"I submit a photo of my son, Dennis,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54"a five-year-old contemporary of Pollock,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57"with his latest work, Number 99."
0:08:57 > 0:09:03"I have an old garage door on which I've cleaned paintbrushes for years.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07"It is rather similar to Pollock's Number 17.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09"The first 1,500 takes it."
0:09:09 > 0:09:14Now here - finally - is a redeeming letter.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18"As a long-time and proud collector of his paintings,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21"Pollock is the best US painter.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25"My opinion is shared by my wife, mother and children.
0:09:25 > 0:09:30"We've never tired of our paintings - they appeal like great music."
0:09:30 > 0:09:34That's from Reginald Isaacs in Chicago.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41Art became the subject of mass culture
0:09:41 > 0:09:47and that created this sort of pool of general interest -
0:09:47 > 0:09:49who was the greatest painter?
0:09:49 > 0:09:55Before, it was of interest to an elite. Now it was in Life Magazine.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00Jackson was the right painter at the right time.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03Right art, right country...
0:10:06 > 0:10:11Pollock was an artist who struggled for a long time in total anonymity.
0:10:11 > 0:10:16By the time he was 30, in 1942, he had achieved almost nothing.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21During the 1940s, American critics
0:10:21 > 0:10:27felt a need for a culture to match America's presence in the world
0:10:27 > 0:10:29on other fronts.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39Artists began to look for different ways of painting,
0:10:39 > 0:10:44different scale, different approach to the canvas.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47Something more immediate, more raw,
0:10:47 > 0:10:51that was more characteristic of the energies of America.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57That vague desire was in the air
0:10:57 > 0:11:02and they felt it had been crystallised by Pollock.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28I was born in Cody, Wyoming, 39 years ago.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32I now live in Springs, East Hampton, Long Island.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38My painting is direct. I usually paint on the floor.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41I enjoy working on a large canvas.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46I feel more at home, at ease, with a big area.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51- MAN:- He was very Western in his voice, his mannerisms.
0:11:51 > 0:11:57The West was echoed in Springs where they had their farmhouse.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01If you go behind that house and look out,
0:12:01 > 0:12:06it's a very infinite kind of space which I think is very American.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11In some of the major late paintings, the scale, the ambition
0:12:11 > 0:12:14is very American.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35America is nothing if not a star country -
0:12:35 > 0:12:39and the media, the art world itself,
0:12:39 > 0:12:45through Life Magazine - star maker for the masses - needed one person.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49This great American painter had to be American!
0:12:49 > 0:12:51The problem, of course,
0:12:51 > 0:12:56was that so many of the candidates for this position weren't American.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09De Kooning was from Holland. Rothko was from Russia,
0:13:09 > 0:13:13Arshile Gorky was from Armenia.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19Jackson was one of the few people who'd been born in the US.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24Lo and behold, born in Cody, Wyoming! He was so American
0:13:24 > 0:13:28at a time when we wanted an American master.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33Well, painting today certainly seems very alive.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38My contemporaries are doing very exciting, vital work.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45The media needed one person.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50They couldn't write about a community.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57It was very alienating for Jackson
0:13:57 > 0:14:03because the rest of the community were hurt and angry
0:14:03 > 0:14:08that he would be considered the pre-eminent figure
0:14:08 > 0:14:11when they saw him as one of the guys.
0:14:11 > 0:14:17He wasn't considered the frontrunner by other artists at all.
0:14:17 > 0:14:22Gorky and de Kooning were the most admired, I think,
0:14:22 > 0:14:27- among the abstract artists, isn't it true?- Yeah, that's true.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32Jackson wasn't particularly admired at all, as a matter of fact.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36He created the biggest mess.
0:14:36 > 0:14:42There was an aura of a myth around him - it was a sort of macho myth.
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Although everyone talked about Wyoming, where he was born,
0:14:47 > 0:14:51he'd really spent most of his time around LA.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01His personality really was defined by the media.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05Born in Wyoming, growing up in the far West -
0:15:05 > 0:15:09luckily he had a picture of himself in a cowboy hat.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14They called him the cowboy painter - when he'd never been on a horse!
0:15:18 > 0:15:23Everything about Pollock that's part of the myth is slightly askew.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27His name wasn't Jackson but Paul - Paul Jackson Pollock.
0:15:27 > 0:15:32He was very aware of what publicity could do.
0:15:37 > 0:15:42Even the first time I went out to Springs to visit the Pollocks,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46Lee had said it didn't mean anything to Jackson.
0:15:46 > 0:15:53There was a pile of Life Magazines. I said, "Why did he save these?"
0:15:58 > 0:16:03Was he ambitious? Well, of course he was.
0:16:03 > 0:16:09He was certainly encouraged to be by Lee. The whole thing she did
0:16:09 > 0:16:13was to make him feel satisfied, and I guess he was pleased
0:16:13 > 0:16:16about the celebrity.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20I mean, it did bolster his ego, I think -
0:16:20 > 0:16:25but in such an unfortunate way, I think.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40Lee was the saleswoman. There are stories of her on the phone,
0:16:40 > 0:16:42day and night, drumming up sales.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46Making sure they had a livelihood so Jackson could paint.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50Controlling his drinking so he'd paint.
0:16:50 > 0:16:55Keeping family away if she felt they'd interfere with his painting.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18WOMAN: When Jackson first met Lee, she was a better-known artist.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22He really was unknown. And he recognised in her
0:17:22 > 0:17:28an understanding of modern art that perhaps was meaningful to him.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32She gave him that discipline, that knowledge.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36He gave her a sense of freedom and spontaneity.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41It was an excellent professional match - and love match.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50She believed he was the greatest painter since Picasso.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54They had met at a leftist political meeting -
0:17:54 > 0:18:00he had come up to her at the dance and said, "Do you like to fuck?"
0:18:00 > 0:18:05Is that OK for the BBC?! Yes? What a liberal broadcaster!
0:18:05 > 0:18:09She realised that he was an extraordinary artist
0:18:09 > 0:18:13and that increased all along
0:18:13 > 0:18:17to the point where she, who'd never boiled an egg in her life,
0:18:17 > 0:18:23just became a housewife, did everything and stopped painting.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28And she was a strong painter - I mean, she was very involved.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31Very capable.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35But she loved him enough to give it up.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39There was a lot of prejudice then against women as painters.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Er... It would be a great temptation
0:18:43 > 0:18:47to realise your ambition through the man who could do it.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51But she was very ambitious for herself, too.
0:18:51 > 0:18:57and deeply resented the fact that people only paid attention to him.
0:19:20 > 0:19:26Once in a while, I'd see them have a confrontation - and she was feisty.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30She'd call him "Pollock", especially when they disagreed.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35She'd say, "Pollock, are you out of your mind?"
0:19:36 > 0:19:41That was one aspect of it. The other was that she took great care of him.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49She tried to keep him off liquor as much as possible.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53She implored people not to give him drinks.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56But when he wasn't working, he'd go to New York
0:19:56 > 0:20:01and be on a bender for days, and not show up.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13Around the corner from the artists' club
0:20:13 > 0:20:15was a bar called The Cedar Tavern
0:20:15 > 0:20:20and the artists would gather and sit around drinking.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24Of course, Jackson was always a big drinker
0:20:24 > 0:20:27and de Kooning, and a number of others.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31They would go to the Cedar Bar and swagger a lot.
0:20:34 > 0:20:40- FRIEDMAN:- The whole art scene went there. Besides Pollock, Kline went,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43de Kooning went there a lot.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48And er...it was mostly guys roughhousing a little.
0:20:48 > 0:20:54When Jackson came in, there'd be bear hugging and kind of wrestling,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57back-slapping, that kind of thing.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00I was a bar fly for a few years.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04I learned more at the Cedar Bar than anywhere.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08There was talk about art all the time.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Jackson, he wasn't part of it
0:21:13 > 0:21:18in the good sense - I mean, he'd come in drunk
0:21:18 > 0:21:23and say, "Fucking whores, you think you're painters", those things.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26And he would come in...
0:21:26 > 0:21:30and invade us - be a blitzkrieg.
0:21:32 > 0:21:38We were always concerned that someone would get hurt,
0:21:38 > 0:21:44that the police were gonna come in... Pollock always put us on edge.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49- And before you knew it, he'd be back there...- Oh, absolutely.
0:21:49 > 0:21:55He'd pull out a table, the glasses would fall - two or three times.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00Sorry, I don't care who you are, you're not welcome here any more.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08It was like walking a tightrope. He'd look at you, ready to attack
0:22:08 > 0:22:11if you made a false move.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16A move of honesty, integrity, anything like that.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19He'd watch you carefully.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22It was scary in a way.
0:22:22 > 0:22:27He was drinking at 17 - he was an alcoholic, under psychiatric care!
0:22:30 > 0:22:36He seemed very sad. He got a big kick out of some things, he'd laugh,
0:22:36 > 0:22:40but overall you thought, yes, he's a very sad man.
0:22:40 > 0:22:42Just suffering all the time.
0:22:55 > 0:23:01MAN: He was seriously troubled. That was the key engine
0:23:01 > 0:23:05of both his rise and his fall.
0:23:05 > 0:23:10He had this mother who had these great artistic ambitions
0:23:10 > 0:23:13and a father who questioned those ambitions,
0:23:13 > 0:23:18who wondered if artists weren't ultimately wasting their lives.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24You can see in those canvases all those experiences,
0:23:24 > 0:23:29all that life, all that drinking, all that agony, all that whatever,
0:23:29 > 0:23:34and suddenly it's all been resolved, at least in these paintings.
0:24:19 > 0:24:26When you do something original, it's frightening because you don't know where it came from.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31He didn't want to imitate himself.
0:24:31 > 0:24:35He'd never kind of cheaply do casual works
0:24:35 > 0:24:38that he knew could sell.
0:24:42 > 0:24:451950 is a critical year for Jackson.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49He had really taken the drip to its ultimate conclusion.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54Those great canvases of 1950
0:24:54 > 0:24:59were the ultimate, glorious expression of the last ten years.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04And that put enormous pressure on him,
0:25:04 > 0:25:09not only to do something different, but also as good as what he had done.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13Celebrity, um...
0:25:13 > 0:25:16 is a...very difficult thing
0:25:16 > 0:25:22because it forces you to do it bigger and better
0:25:22 > 0:25:26at a time when you think you've done everything you can do.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Jackson felt that terribly.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53I think Pollock was, to some extent,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56turned into a commercial object.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01The film would be the best example of that.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04He was only the second American artist
0:26:04 > 0:26:08who ever had a documentary - the Namuth film.
0:26:08 > 0:26:13I think Jackson did want it. I've heard Lee wanted it even more.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28The filming was very tedious. There was a lot of repetition.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32"Let's do it again. The light's different."
0:26:32 > 0:26:38By breaking down the process and making him go through it as an act,
0:26:38 > 0:26:44our feeling is that this underscored for Jackson
0:26:44 > 0:26:51the fact that he was as much a celebrity-slash-fake as he was an artist.
0:26:51 > 0:26:56It reinforced all the things he was already thinking.
0:26:56 > 0:27:02And the film, by deconstructing the process of creating a painting,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05turned him into a cliche.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12For someone who was already never fully confident
0:27:12 > 0:27:15of his own worth,
0:27:15 > 0:27:17this was devastating.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26- It's a trap. - Yeah, it is a trap.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29A technique is a trap.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34As soon as a technique develops, you're trapped,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38especially when the floodlight comes on.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40"I'm trapped. I'm done for."
0:27:40 > 0:27:46How do you get out of it? This is a trap. This is a trap.
0:27:47 > 0:27:53He got into an argument after the last day of filming.
0:27:53 > 0:27:59He was saying, "Hans, I'm not a phoney, you're a phoney!"
0:27:59 > 0:28:04This was linked to his tragic fall off the wagon after two years.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09After the last day of filming, he had two shots of bourbon
0:28:09 > 0:28:14and proceeded to throw the dinner table over, ruining the dinner,
0:28:14 > 0:28:16to celebrate the end of filming.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21Lee Krasner, who had tremendous aplomb, said,
0:28:21 > 0:28:24"Coffee will be served in the living room."
0:28:26 > 0:28:34The completed film played a very important role in boosting Pollock's reputation.
0:28:34 > 0:28:39On the other hand, it also seems he was profoundly unnerved by it.
0:28:39 > 0:28:46It wasn't authentic or real, he was selling his soul to Hollywood.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55He had a tough relationship with celluloid. It didn't do him any good.
0:28:55 > 0:29:01People said, "What is this movie about Pollock that you want to do?"
0:29:01 > 0:29:07It's difficult to get anybody to finance a film about a guy like this.
0:29:07 > 0:29:13People see it as a dark story. I don't know if it's dark.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18It's intense and he's a self-obsessed individual.
0:29:22 > 0:29:27I think he was constantly wondering, "What do you do in this world?
0:29:27 > 0:29:30"What's the purpose of being here?"
0:29:30 > 0:29:35When he painted, he thought that. So he didn't have a fuckin' clue.
0:29:35 > 0:29:40I think this film would come as quite a surprise to him.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43I've talked to Ed Harris,
0:29:43 > 0:29:46who helped play Pollock,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50and he's perfect - physically he's like Pollock.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55Some things about his personality are like Pollock.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59But I think Pollock would be amazed, I really do.
0:29:59 > 0:30:05I think Lee would be amazed and she would like it more than Pollock.
0:30:05 > 0:30:10I talked to someone who wanted Barbra Streisand to play Lee.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14The woman talking to me about it says,
0:30:14 > 0:30:17"Oh, she must have loved him so."
0:30:17 > 0:30:22I said, "Well, yeah, in a kind of a deadly way, you know!"
0:30:22 > 0:30:24It wasn't that cute.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28I don't see how you can make the ordinary movie.
0:30:28 > 0:30:35I'm awaiting the movie to see if they get a single thing right.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40Jackson Pollock is a great American icon.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43He's like Marlon Brando.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46Marlon would have been great to play Jackson.
0:30:46 > 0:30:52He's the only person I've ever known - I knew him early in my life -
0:30:52 > 0:30:57who had that same kind of quality of spontaneity, of genius,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00of being unselfconscious.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03And I think most actors
0:31:03 > 0:31:07see Jackson as a meaty part.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11SHE LAUGHS
0:31:11 > 0:31:16Celebrity is something... I feel somewhat what he must have felt like,
0:31:16 > 0:31:21in terms of it has nothing to do with what you're doing.
0:31:21 > 0:31:26Unfortunately, he was a painter and part of his job was to hang them up
0:31:26 > 0:31:30on a wall in a gallery, which is like putting your soul up there,
0:31:30 > 0:31:36especially for Pollock whose life was so fragile and deep within
0:31:36 > 0:31:42to put his work out there and to have it criticised and then praised.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47Then he feels, "I'm worth something and if people don't like it..."
0:31:47 > 0:31:52This guy didn't have the apparatus to deal with that kind of thing.
0:31:52 > 0:31:58NAIFEH: He felt the world was redefining him.
0:31:58 > 0:32:03He couldn't live up to this persona that Namuth and everybody wanted.
0:32:03 > 0:32:08So he was not only America's first celebrity artist,
0:32:08 > 0:32:12he was America's first celebrity artist casualty.
0:32:12 > 0:32:19The self-destructive streak that you see in a Marilyn Monroe or in a James Dean,
0:32:19 > 0:32:24played itself out in Jackson and they too adored their celebrity,
0:32:24 > 0:32:29but, on the other hand, were incredibly burdened by it.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34And part of them wanted a simpler life.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37The other part wanted this huge...
0:32:37 > 0:32:40the spotlights to go on forever
0:32:40 > 0:32:44and, um...that was a problem for Jackson as well.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49He was very aware of who he was and of what he had done.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53He was very aware of media attention.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58All that became part of his problem, as it did with Jack Kerouac.
0:32:58 > 0:33:04The term I use is that they "froze in the glare of the media".
0:33:04 > 0:33:07It was difficult for them to work.
0:33:07 > 0:33:13That's what it did then and that's what it does today.
0:33:16 > 0:33:21VARDENOE: Pollock had arrived at a kind of creative block.
0:33:21 > 0:33:25In 1951, he'd gone into a deep depression.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28He painted a series of black enamel paintings.
0:33:28 > 0:33:34After that show, he had difficulty figuring out where to go next.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37His friends thought they would help him out.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41Getting him drunk, they led him to the studio -
0:33:41 > 0:33:46Tony Smith, a sculptor, and Barnett Newman, the painter, were there.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49They encouraged him to get going.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53Blue Poles is Pollock's last great attempt
0:33:53 > 0:33:55at monumental abstract painting.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15Pollock used a glass turkey baster to paint.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18Several were lying around
0:34:18 > 0:34:22and got broken and people walked on the glass
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Barnett Newman said, "My blood is in this picture,"
0:34:26 > 0:34:33meaning not that Pollock had taken from his art, but that he had stepped on the glass.
0:34:33 > 0:34:39There are still buried in it fragments of the glass basters.
0:34:54 > 0:34:56He was under tremendous pressure.
0:34:56 > 0:35:01Even if you weren't famous, if you had made some impact with your work,
0:35:01 > 0:35:05and it didn't go where people expected it to,
0:35:05 > 0:35:10you would always wonder if you were going backward or forward
0:35:10 > 0:35:15and whether anybody would let you get away with it.
0:35:15 > 0:35:20If you changed, they didn't like it. If you didn't, they didn't like it.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24It must have been horrendous to be that famous that suddenly,
0:35:24 > 0:35:28out of nowhere, and then have to carry on.
0:35:32 > 0:35:37HARRIS: I guess there are times when you can't put anything on canvas.
0:35:37 > 0:35:44You can't put a mark on it, cos you know it's full of shit and he refused to do it.
0:35:44 > 0:35:50For one thing he was true. He wasn't a bullshitter when it came to art.
0:35:50 > 0:35:56He probably felt, "I don't want to keep doing this. I'd be a liar if I did.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00"It's not easy, but it's familiar to me now.
0:36:00 > 0:36:06"I can do it without the import or without the intention I used to have.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10"I need to find something else, go somewhere else."
0:36:24 > 0:36:27It was a winter evening, very late at night,
0:36:27 > 0:36:34one o'clock in the morning, I was asleep and Lee called and asked me to come over.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39"Jackson has gone out, he hasn't come back and I'm worried.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44"Maybe he went out drinking and got into terrible trouble."
0:36:49 > 0:36:53Finally, she hears a car in the driveway.
0:36:53 > 0:37:00He came in and blasted the door open like you would see in a Wild West movie,
0:37:00 > 0:37:05standing there with a Mac on and a woollen cap
0:37:05 > 0:37:08and as angry as can be.
0:37:09 > 0:37:15But then he said, "I did it, you see, I did it.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19"What more do they want? What more do they want? I've done it.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22"What more do they want?"
0:37:22 > 0:37:26That has to be qualified in another way
0:37:26 > 0:37:33because, at that time, there was a whole climate of abstract expressionism
0:37:33 > 0:37:36and artists were getting famous.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39It was like the goldrush.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43A lot of ambitious people would get on top
0:37:43 > 0:37:47and use it for their gain - get the right gallery -
0:37:47 > 0:37:50 and there was an anti-Pollock group.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54They were trying to put him out to pasture.
0:37:54 > 0:37:59So to understand why he's saying, "What the f... do they want?
0:37:59 > 0:38:03"They want blood. I've given it all."
0:38:03 > 0:38:08It has something to do with the climate around him, you see.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13I saw the change at the Cedar Bar,
0:38:13 > 0:38:18at the club, you know, among my friends.
0:38:18 > 0:38:24From that close community of artists who supported each other -
0:38:24 > 0:38:28like we'd go to the concerts of John Cage
0:38:28 > 0:38:35and we'd go to the play of Lionel Abel and we'd applaud when he came into the bar.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38There was this supportive world
0:38:38 > 0:38:41which changed so radically.
0:38:41 > 0:38:47The Cedar Bar people were talking about galleries instead of art.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51Suddenly American art had become
0:38:51 > 0:38:54a commercial commodity
0:38:54 > 0:38:57and the whole world changed.
0:38:57 > 0:39:00It was so radical and so quick.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11After 1952,
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Pollock painted less and less.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16He went to the studio infrequently.
0:39:16 > 0:39:21He had trouble maintaining a momentum to painting.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24He began to spend more time drinking.
0:39:24 > 0:39:30His life became a shambles. His relationship with Lee fell apart.
0:39:30 > 0:39:36As his life becomes more troubled, he becomes more blocked against painting.
0:39:36 > 0:39:43It's not any one of the pictures at the end of his life that show where he is
0:39:43 > 0:39:45because each one is so different.
0:39:45 > 0:39:51Some of the pictures and their fragmentation and separation
0:39:51 > 0:39:57point to someone who is searching, running up against dead ends.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14He ran out of energy - spiritual, everything.
0:40:14 > 0:40:19- And ideas.- He was sick. He had no strength
0:40:19 > 0:40:22and that you need.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Much more important than ideas.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30There's got to be something that keeps you...
0:40:30 > 0:40:35over the hoop, you go through the hoop,
0:40:35 > 0:40:38you have to land on your feet with energy.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42You can't just lay there and...die.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45You have to get up - and it didn't happen.
0:40:45 > 0:40:52He must have realised it. I realise it now - I am an old man - and I see it.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56Without the energy... it's very hard to get up.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58You give up.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01I think he knew that.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07CILE DOWNS: He was the town drunk.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11He was so helpless and was so vulnerable.
0:41:19 > 0:41:25Lee said he had asked for a divorce and she would never give him one.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30She knew he had another girlfriend, if not many. She had a clue.
0:41:30 > 0:41:36I fell in love with him the first time I saw a painting of his.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39He was exactly like that.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42He was just pouring energy.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46People were very attracted to him and coming over to him
0:41:46 > 0:41:49and bothering him.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52And, er...we just...
0:41:52 > 0:41:56kind of fell in love at first sight, I think.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58We got involved soon after that.
0:41:58 > 0:42:04We were involved that entire year, 1956,
0:42:04 > 0:42:06until he died.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12One of the reasons he was with Ruth
0:42:12 > 0:42:16was that all his fellow painters had all these beautiful women
0:42:16 > 0:42:22and he was the most famous artist of all who had a domestic life with Lee.
0:42:22 > 0:42:27When Ruth threw herself at him, he was an easy target.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31He needed to prove to Bill and the other boys
0:42:31 > 0:42:36that he too had this pretty young thing on his arm and was proud,
0:42:36 > 0:42:40as proud as he could be to show her off, as he did.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43When she went out to East Hampton,
0:42:43 > 0:42:47 he went from house to house showing her off to the dismay of the wives
0:42:47 > 0:42:50who were all friends of Lee's.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53He was trying to be what they wanted him to be.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57We had every weekend...
0:42:57 > 0:43:03We all gathered on Coastguard Beach in East Hampton
0:43:03 > 0:43:09and Jackson paraded Ruth when he first met her
0:43:09 > 0:43:11up and down the beach.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15All the guys thought she was hot stuff.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18She had a sexy look about her.
0:43:20 > 0:43:25- RUTH:- I felt he couldn't be left alone. His wife just left him.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28She couldn't deal with it at all
0:43:28 > 0:43:32because he wanted her to... accept it -
0:43:32 > 0:43:37accept that he had fallen in love, accept the relationship.
0:43:37 > 0:43:42She refused and I think there's been a pretence
0:43:42 > 0:43:45that somehow...
0:43:45 > 0:43:50she went on vacation. She didn't - it was a separation.
0:43:50 > 0:43:56When Lee went to Paris I think it was the hope
0:43:56 > 0:44:01that by taking a break, he would realise he couldn't do without her.
0:44:01 > 0:44:07It had reached an intolerable situation.
0:44:07 > 0:44:09But they both were...
0:44:09 > 0:44:12profoundly attached.
0:44:12 > 0:44:17The Kligman thing couldn't have meant very much.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23A further provocation, somehow.
0:44:23 > 0:44:31He somehow, as a child, wanted his wife and I and he all to live together,
0:44:31 > 0:44:34you see.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37Of course, that couldn't work out.
0:44:37 > 0:44:43So I think the conflict created the drama which led to his death.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46And, er...
0:44:49 > 0:44:53That's very sad - that was the tragedy.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06All through his life he was doomed
0:45:06 > 0:45:09because he was so self-destructive.
0:45:11 > 0:45:18I mean, the others drank heavily and only de Kooning got very seriously alcoholic.
0:45:18 > 0:45:24They all drank much too much, but it wasn't like Jackson.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27He was hellbent to destroy himself.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30By the end, when Lee wasn't there,
0:45:30 > 0:45:32he wasn't painting.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35There was nothing to hold him back.
0:45:39 > 0:45:46You can't blame one person - if she didn't go and if I knew how to drive and all these what ifs.
0:45:46 > 0:45:51It happened and it's an existential answer.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56I believe that now. It was his moment.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03Date of death - August 11th, 1956.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Time of death - 10.15pm.
0:46:07 > 0:46:12Immediate cause of death - compound fracture of skull,
0:46:12 > 0:46:18laceration of brain, laceration of both lungs, haemothorax, shock,
0:46:18 > 0:46:22due to auto accident.
0:46:22 > 0:46:27Death due to auto upsetting. Victim, driver and owner of car.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30Autopsy? Yes.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33Accident, suicide, or homicide?
0:46:34 > 0:46:36Accident.
0:46:49 > 0:46:51Subtitles by BBC Subtitling - 1999