VISITING TOWN just two days before her Academy Award nomination was announced, Marcia Gay Harden had clear views about portraying a real-life figure who bucked the conventions of her time. She says of Lee Krasner (1908-1984), “I don’t see her as a sacrificing victim. I saw her as very female in that she chose to nurture and support the male rather than herself. And I think that is possibly true to the times [the ’50s], although I still see it happening today—right, left, and center.”
In Harden’s view, lacking self-confidence in her own painting, Krasner derived satisfaction from imparting her considerable energies to Jackson Pollock’s organic, previously undirected career. “She loved being the brain,” the actress continues. “It’s quite exciting to be the person who is needed and to be the person who the needy genius can’t live without.
“In some ways I think that Lee was very modern. She was a woman of her own ideas, an independent woman, an opinionated woman.” Thus, Harden continues, Krasner subordinated her own painting—which flourished in the decades after Pollock’s death—as a deliberate professional decision: “It was a calculated choice for her because she was able to gain entry into the art world.” With that came prestige and acceptance not always accorded to women of the era—particularly to children of poor Russian-Jewish immigrants.
Pollock is a film about a creative partnership, and Harden notes of its partners, “They weren’t a Hallmark relationship. They weren’t warm and fuzzy, and I don’t think she wanted that. Lee is very matter-of-fact, which to me breaks female stereotype.” She exclaims of Krasner’s managing Pollock’s affairs, “I think she got a lot out of promoting his career. She was good at it! Marketing something is really fun.”
So why did the woman stay with her husband during the latter, abusive stages of their relationship? How do we view their marriage from today’s context? “It existed then,” says Harden firmly. “And I tried not to judge her or justify her. She had a job; she wasn’t going to give up that job. I don’t think she was thwarted. I think that any sense of Lee Krasner being thwarted came from being married to an alcoholic.”
