The Journey with Jesus: Film Reviews
Film Reviews by Dan Clendenin
Who The #$&% is Jackson Pollock? (2006)
When 73 year-old Teri Horton retired as a truck driver she supplemented her social security income by digging through dumpsters and scouring thrift shops. One day she bought a painting at Dot's Spot Thrift in San Bernadino to cheer up a friend who was depressed. The painting was too big for her friend's trailer, so they displayed it at a garage sale where a local art teacher suggested that it might be a Jackson Pollock original. This is not a great movie but it sure is a great story, and I will only say that the documentary does a nice job of pitting four factions against each other—the anal and insular world of self-important art snobs, forensic scientists who analyze finger prints and paint samples, the several folks who try to help Horton prove her case, and the recalcitrant Horton, who after paying $8 for the painting rejected a $9 million offer. Horton has appeared on Letterman, Leno, Montel Williams, and Sixty Minutes. She swears she will burn the painting before selling it for less than the $50 million an authentic Pollock would bring. Somehow you get the impression that this trash-talking trucker might not be kidding.