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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:05,200 CAR ENGINE REVS 2 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:17,400 MUSIC: Promised Land by Elvis Presley 3 00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:22,440 This is a film about a place people used to call the promised land. 4 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:30,160 They came here to follow their dreams and change their lives. 5 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:36,200 But I'm here to look for art. 6 00:00:37,480 --> 00:00:42,560 Because the spirit of a place is always in the art. 7 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:52,000 That's the Spiral Jetty. 8 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,040 It's a famous piece of land art, made in 1970, 9 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:05,120 Smithson turned up here with a few thousand bucks in his pocket, 10 00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:10,160 hired some bulldozers and created this giant stone spiral, 11 00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:16,240 jutting out mysteriously into the Great Salt Lake in Utah. 12 00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:25,360 The thing is, Smithson couldn't have made this anywhere else. 13 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:29,080 It had to be made in these conditions, 14 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:32,240 by this lake, in this landscape. 15 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:37,280 Because that's what land art is all about, fitting the art to the place. 16 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:41,040 And that's what this series is about as well. 17 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,320 It's about how the spirit of America 18 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:47,640 soaked into the art that was created here 19 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:49,720 and made it unique. 20 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:48,080 If you keep going across America, 21 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,520 you eventually get to the Wild West. 22 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:54,760 And that's where I'm starting. 23 00:02:55,880 --> 00:03:00,920 Because the Wild West did strange and powerful things to American art. 24 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:09,040 These days, with all the bad cowboy movies that have been made here, 25 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:12,680 places like this no longer surprise us. 26 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,200 They've become a cliche. 27 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:19,280 But imagine seeing all this for the first time. 28 00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:26,440 Imagine coming over the mountain, 29 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:28,760 on your trusty mule, 30 00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,320 and this looms up in front of you. 31 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:35,280 Your legs would have turned to rubber 32 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,680 and your heart would have gone boom boody-boom, boody-boom. 33 00:03:41,080 --> 00:03:44,040 Although most of the American West 34 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:47,840 had officially been part of the United States since 1803, 35 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:52,480 70 years later, it was still largely a mystery. 36 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:55,960 Getting there was dangerous and difficult 37 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:58,880 until, in 1869... 38 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:01,760 ..this thing came along. 39 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:07,920 The iron horse with its relentless gallop and its dragon's breath. 40 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:12,120 TRAIN GROWLS, WHISTLE BLOWS 41 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:17,880 With the construction of the transcontinental railway, 42 00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:21,520 the American West was finally open for business 43 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:23,760 and all kinds of shady characters 44 00:04:23,760 --> 00:04:25,240 piled onto the trains 45 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:27,840 to take advantage of the opportunities. 46 00:04:30,520 --> 00:04:35,520 Gamblers, bandits, gold-diggers, they all got on the train. 47 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:43,240 And so, too, did those especially dangerous desperados - 48 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:45,600 the artists. 49 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:54,040 This is Green River in Wyoming and that is the so-called Castle Rock, 50 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:58,600 made famous by this fellow here, 51 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,400 Thomas Moran, from Bolton in Lancashire. 52 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:11,000 Moran was seven-years-old when his father packed his family onto a boat 53 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:17,240 in Liverpool and swapped the Satanic mills of Lancashire 54 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:19,400 for the promised land. 55 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:26,600 Little Thomas grew up to be a talented artist and in 1871, 56 00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:29,840 just after the railways got here, 57 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:32,360 he turned up in Green River 58 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,640 as part of an official government survey 59 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:40,640 that had arrived here to map the newly opened lands of the West. 60 00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:47,840 When Moran painted the Green River, 61 00:05:47,840 --> 00:05:51,360 this was already a squalid little town 62 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:53,840 with a railway running through it. 63 00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:58,800 One of those feral frontier throw-ups 64 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:01,360 they called hell on wheels. 65 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:08,160 But you wouldn't know it from his sublime evocations of it. 66 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:17,160 One of his tricks was to build a scaffold from lightweight bamboo 67 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:21,480 and from the top of it, he would look down on the land, 68 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,000 a God's eye view, that made the West look even more awesome 69 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:27,240 than it already was. 70 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:36,480 The Indians he painted, trekking through the valley, were invented. 71 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,880 Where they're tracking is where the railroad was. 72 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:45,520 And as for those colours... 73 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:49,160 Those burning yellows and fiery oranges... 74 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:54,040 ..those were stolen, directly, from Turner. 75 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,480 This is Moran's view of Yellowstone, 76 00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:09,520 painted after he got back from his first expedition to the West. 77 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:14,760 And this was actually acquired by the government for 10,000 dollars. 78 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,560 A huge amount of money in the days when 79 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:22,120 the American government believed in art. 80 00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:31,360 So persuasive was Moran's dramatic Yellowstone, 81 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:36,320 that this picture was the key reason why, in 1872, 82 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:42,320 Yellowstone was turned into a national park. 83 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,120 The first in America 84 00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:47,920 and the first in the world. 85 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:58,040 The Grand Canyon, painted on Moran's second trip to the West. 86 00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:02,520 And what you get from it immediately 87 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:07,560 is how these huge western lands felt so biblical 88 00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:13,120 with these scary chasms and the towering deserts. 89 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:20,400 The scale of it, the sense of descent, 90 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:24,040 reminded people of Dante's Inferno. 91 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:30,520 When the critic from The New York Times saw this picture, 92 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:35,240 he described it as, "The most diabolical scene 93 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,040 "man has ever looked upon." 94 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:48,160 And here, at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles, 95 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:52,640 made famous by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry, 96 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:57,680 they have the third of Moran's great picturings of the American West, 97 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:01,080 The Mountain of the Holy Cross. 98 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,520 # On a hill far away... # 99 00:09:06,760 --> 00:09:09,160 In the wilds of Colorado, 100 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:13,360 there's a mountain on which the snow forms 101 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:17,560 a miraculous white cross that never melts. 102 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:21,880 And which can be seen from far away. 103 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:28,240 This was the hardest place to get to, 104 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,040 but Moran was determined to paint it, 105 00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:35,480 because the miraculous white cross on the mountain was such a perfect 106 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:38,800 symbol of America's divine destiny. 107 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:48,960 The waterfall and the raging torrents 108 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:53,600 were invented by Moran to heighten the symbolism... 109 00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:59,120 ..and to give his picture an even bigger storyline. 110 00:10:00,680 --> 00:10:05,640 The holy waters, rushing down the mountain towards us, 111 00:10:06,680 --> 00:10:09,040 baptising America. 112 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:17,880 Moran wanted to hang his three great paintings of the West, 113 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,880 the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and this, all together, 114 00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,360 like a giant altarpiece, a triptych, 115 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:29,360 but Congress wouldn't lend them, 116 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:31,200 so it never happened. 117 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:32,800 Not in real life, anyway. 118 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:41,160 But this isn't real life, this is TV. 119 00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:47,400 And on TV, we can do what Thomas Moran wanted. 120 00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:53,320 And we can do more than that. 121 00:10:53,320 --> 00:10:57,840 We can also jump ahead in time 122 00:10:57,840 --> 00:11:01,520 and see how the rhythm and the dimensions 123 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:06,560 and the sublime presence of the American landscape 124 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,240 soaked into the national art. 125 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:17,440 These are by Clyfford Still, the loner of Abstract Expressionism, 126 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:20,720 and a man of the West. 127 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:25,640 Feel his moods, 128 00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:27,280 look where they come from. 129 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:34,800 And what about this, from Jackson Pollock, 130 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,920 hero of the American West, 131 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,240 and this film's ultimate destination. 132 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:49,800 GUNSHOTS 133 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,000 While the landscape painters of the American West were imagining the 134 00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:06,920 awesome landscapes of the promised land, 135 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:11,600 a second branch of early cowboy art 136 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:15,480 was turning its attention to the inhabitants. 137 00:12:19,040 --> 00:12:23,760 Cowboys as we know them with their gunfights and their bucking broncos 138 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:25,760 were largely the invention of a 139 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:28,640 fellow called Frederic Sackrider Remington. 140 00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:33,680 He was America's most popular cowboy artist, 141 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:36,680 but you wouldn't know it from looking at him. 142 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:43,960 Remington was born in New York state, so he was another Easterner 143 00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:46,200 with an overactive imagination. 144 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:53,960 His family wanted Frederic to become something respectable. 145 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:59,040 But he had the artistic gene in him. 146 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:00,720 And it led him astray. 147 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:07,720 Remington had been drawing pictures of cowboys since he was a schoolboy, 148 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:10,440 as many of us little boys do. 149 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:13,280 But the rest of us grow out of it. 150 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:14,760 And he never did. 151 00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:21,280 During the Civil War, 152 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:24,720 his father had been a colonel in the Army 153 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:29,320 and he wanted little Freddie to follow him. 154 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:34,320 But little Freddie grew up to become big Freddie 155 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:38,160 and, like me, he was too fat to be a soldier. 156 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:42,480 So all his fighting was done on paper. 157 00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:51,200 He worked as an illustrator for various books and magazines 158 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:54,040 and he was immensely popular, 159 00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:59,000 largely because he had invented this dramatic persona for himself 160 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,480 as the man who really knew the West, 161 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:04,760 who'd lived it and experienced it. 162 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:12,120 Remington's paintings had a reputation 163 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,560 for being strikingly authentic. 164 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,360 Full of insider knowledge and accurate details. 165 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:26,160 To me, they look like the covers of cowboy comics 166 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:31,440 and where Remington is much more impressive is in his sculptures. 167 00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:38,800 This is his most ambitious horse sculpture, 168 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:41,360 it's called Coming Through the Rye, 169 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:43,920 and if you know your Scottish poetry, 170 00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:47,000 you'll know that, "Coming through the rye," 171 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:50,280 is a line from a poem by Rabbie Burns, 172 00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:53,400 later turned into a famous song. 173 00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:55,960 # Gin a body meet a body 174 00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:58,480 # Comin' through the rye. # 175 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:00,640 # Gin a body meet a body 176 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:03,080 # Comin' through the rye 177 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:05,400 # Gin a body kiss a body 178 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:07,120 # Need a body cry? # 179 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:09,440 HORSE NEIGHS 180 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:12,960 The poem is actually pretty steamy. 181 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:16,880 A man meets a woman in a field of rye 182 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:20,240 and she's wearing a wet dress. 183 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:22,840 Well, you can imagine the rest! 184 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,800 # Gin a body meet a body 185 00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:27,520 # Need a body cry. # 186 00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:32,560 That's why JD Salinger referred to it as well in his celebrated novel 187 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:37,360 about the awakening of teenage sexuality, 188 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,120 The Catcher In The Rye. 189 00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:46,680 But all that steamy stuff went over Remington's head 190 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:49,160 and what he actually shows us here 191 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:54,240 is some cowboys coming into town after a successful round-up. 192 00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:59,240 And they're riding straight at us, through the rye, 193 00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:04,360 whooping it up in this brilliant blur of sculptural movement. 194 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:12,280 Look down here. Can you see how only a few of the hooves are actually 195 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:14,120 touching the ground? 196 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:17,720 They're supporting the weight of the entire sculpture. 197 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:22,000 And this fellow round here, 198 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,840 his horse isn't touching the ground at all. 199 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:28,320 It's flying through the air at full speed. 200 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,840 It's a technical tour de force. 201 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,880 Remington's sculptures are as ambitious 202 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:42,240 as any statues produced in the Renaissance. 203 00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:49,200 But where a Renaissance bronze might show you the labours of Hercules, 204 00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:53,720 or the battles of the gods, 205 00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:58,760 "Fat" Freddie Remington gives us a bunch of whooping cowboys, 206 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:01,320 heading for the saloon. 207 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:14,440 There's just one more thing I'd like you to see before we leave Cody, 208 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:19,480 Wyoming, and it's this, the Irma Hotel, built by "Buffalo" Bill Cody, 209 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:25,800 who gave the town its name - and that museum full of Remingtons. 210 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:34,480 The Irma Hotel was named after Buffalo Bill's daughter, Irma. 211 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:38,400 And I've brought you here because 212 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:43,480 somebody who's important for the story of American art 213 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,240 It was a fellow called Leroy Pollock. 214 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:58,440 Now, Leroy was a bit of a wastrel, 215 00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:02,520 but he did leave American art one extraordinary gift, 216 00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:06,080 because it was here, in Cody, Wyoming, 217 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:10,880 that Leroy had a son and he called him Paul Pollock. 218 00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:17,440 Paul didn't like being called Paul, 219 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:21,080 it wasn't western enough for him. 220 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,680 He preferred his middle name, Jackson. 221 00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:30,640 And since we're going to be hearing a lot about Jackson Pollock 222 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:35,280 in this film, I thought you should see where he came from. 223 00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:50,600 Gunfighters and bronco busters were not, of course, 224 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:54,440 the first inhabitants of these extraordinary lands. 225 00:18:56,600 --> 00:19:01,600 Long before "Fat" Freddie Remington began imagining his cowboys, 226 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:07,760 there was art being made here that was mysterious and profound. 227 00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:16,920 The Native Americans, who had their lands stolen 228 00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:21,360 by the invading cowboys, didn't have a written language. 229 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:22,560 They didn't need it. 230 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:28,880 They could communicate with something far better than words. 231 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,560 They could communicate with art. 232 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:40,080 All over the great outdoor museum of the American West, 233 00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:44,360 you can find mysterious art 234 00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:48,240 carved onto the boulders and painted onto the rocks. 235 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:56,120 This rock here, it's called the Birthing Rock, 236 00:19:56,120 --> 00:20:01,120 has 8,000 years worth of ancient art incised into its stone by the 237 00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:07,320 various native cultures who passed through here. 238 00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:12,840 Why did they choose this particular rock? 239 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:18,680 Perhaps because there's something thoroughly mysterious 240 00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:22,080 about the way it's just plonked down here, 241 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,960 as if it's dropped from the sky. 242 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,840 There's art all the way round it 243 00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:35,560 and these are called petroglyphs. 244 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:39,840 They're cut into the rock, 245 00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:44,840 so you scratch the outer layer of the stone and reveal this brighter 246 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,240 sandstone underneath. 247 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,120 It's called the Birthing Rock because of this scene, here. 248 00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:54,640 Can you see? 249 00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:57,440 It's a woman giving birth to a baby. 250 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,360 But it's a breech birth, 251 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:04,000 so the baby's feet are coming out first. 252 00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:08,680 Why is it here? 253 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:10,800 What does it mean? 254 00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:14,120 We'll never know for sure, 255 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:19,120 but it must be something to do with fertility and survival... 256 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:25,880 ..because rock art is always about the big issues. 257 00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,920 Up the road from the Birthing Rock is another 258 00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:38,960 dramatic location for Native American rock art, 259 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,520 the place they call Sego Canyon. 260 00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:50,440 Most of the huge figures here are painted onto the rocks rather than 261 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:55,920 scratched, so these are pictographs not petroglyphs. 262 00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,480 All kinds of wacky proposals have been put forward to explain these. 263 00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:07,080 A particularly popular one is that they show aliens 264 00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:10,400 who landed on Earth in ancient times, 265 00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:15,320 visitors from outer space come to see if America was for them. 266 00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:24,760 In a way, this mad aliens idea isn't that far away from the truth, 267 00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:27,880 because rock art, wherever it's made, 268 00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:30,720 and you find it right across the globe, 269 00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:34,680 is an attempt to communicate with another world - 270 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,040 the world behind the surface. 271 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:46,000 When we didn't know where water came from, or where babies are made, 272 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:53,160 or what the sky is, when everything was a mystery, 273 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,680 that's when art came to our rescue. 274 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:05,680 Imagine waking up in the morning 8,000 years ago 275 00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,680 and remembering your dreams. 276 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,600 Where have you seen the things you've just seen? 277 00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,520 Where have you been? 278 00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:18,200 There must be another world out there, another reality. 279 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,080 And artists were special, 280 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,720 because not only could they visit this other reality, 281 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:25,920 they could describe it, too. 282 00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,880 I don't like the word "shamans". 283 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:37,440 It's loaded with so much spurious hocus-pocus. 284 00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,600 But sometimes it's the only word that will do. 285 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:48,840 The miraculous power of artists to enter the dream-world, 286 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:54,000 and come back with images of it, was a power like no other. 287 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,960 In the world of the ancients, art wasn't there to decorate things. 288 00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,200 It was there to change them. 289 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,600 And even if we can't understand what it's saying any more, 290 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,000 we can still feel its power. 291 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,640 And that's why American rock art has been so influential. 292 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:25,360 Wind the clock forwards to the age of Abstract Expressionism 293 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:29,480 and you'll see its impact on modern American art. 294 00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,680 The paintings of Adolph Gottlieb 295 00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,880 were a 20th century search for ancient mysteries. 296 00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,280 And look at the fierce art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. 297 00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,400 If you came across this scrawled onto a rock, 298 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,760 you wouldn't be surprised, would you? 299 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,280 After bumming around America 300 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:09,280 searching for work in Arizona, California, 301 00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:14,560 the Pollock family from Cody, Wyoming ended up, 302 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:19,800 like so many pilgrims before them, in the City of Angels. 303 00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:27,000 Paul Pollock, or Jackson as he became, went to this school here, 304 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,640 the Manual Arts High School, 305 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,120 from which he soon managed to get himself expelled 306 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:37,840 for producing a leaflet attacking the school's sports department. 307 00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:45,560 Pollock wasn't alone in getting himself thrown out of Manual Arts. 308 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,960 A second delinquent was expelled with him. 309 00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,160 He was known in those days as Philip Goldstein. 310 00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,760 But he too changed his name 311 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:04,000 and we know him better today as Philip Guston. 312 00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:11,760 The two of them had an art teacher called Frederick Schwankovsky. 313 00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,640 Now, even by LA standards, Schwankovsky was eccentric. 314 00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:21,680 He had long hair down to here, wore purple jackets and sandals, 315 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,720 and he believed in all sorts of strange Eastern philosophies, 316 00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:31,760 and he's the one who introduced Guston and Pollock to theosophy. 317 00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,320 The occult doctrine of theosophy has been brutally redacted 318 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,200 from the story of modern art. 319 00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:48,080 Even here in California, it's an art historical embarrassment. 320 00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,960 No-one wants to believe that theosophy changed anything. 321 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:56,360 But it did. 322 00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,760 Actually, theosophy changed everything. 323 00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,680 Without it, abstract art would never have happened. 324 00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,400 All the pioneers of abstraction, 325 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,360 all of them, Kandinsky, Mondrian, 326 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:18,240 Malevich, the Italian Futurists Boccioni and Balla, 327 00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,960 all of them were fascinated by theosophy. 328 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,000 And Jackson Pollock was fascinated by it, too. 329 00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:33,640 This shady grove in Ojai is where Frederick Schwankovsky 330 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,880 to hear the teachings of Krishnamurti, 331 00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,760 the Californian guru of theosophy. 332 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:50,840 Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, John Lennon. 333 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:56,400 They all came out here to hear Krishnamurti speak. 334 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:00,800 So, what's theosophy about? 335 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:05,160 Well, frankly, life's too short to go into it in detail. 336 00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,120 To understand any of it, you have to have read this, 337 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:12,840 The Secret Doctrine by Madame Blavatsky. 338 00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,080 And that's not something I'd wish upon anybody, 339 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,800 especially not you nice, sensible people watching this film. 340 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,000 So I've read it for you and tried my best to comprehend. 341 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,840 The most important thing that theosophy teaches 342 00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,800 is that the universe has an underlying order, 343 00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:41,200 that the stuff on the surface is just stuff on the surface. 344 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,320 Below it, there's a deeper reality, 345 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,920 and that's what artists need to show. 346 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:04,200 that there was a universal reality beyond the visible reality, 347 00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,040 and that only artists could see it. 348 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,360 And it wasn't just theosophy that Schwankovsky 349 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,560 introduced to Pollock and Guston. 350 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,160 He was also a fervent Communist 351 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,920 with a passion for Mexico and its art. 352 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:36,400 In Mexico in 1910, just across the border from Hollywood, 353 00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:39,440 so right under the nose of the movie industry, 354 00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,160 a real, live revolution had broken out. 355 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,280 Pancho Villa, the notorious rebel leader, 356 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,000 was even said to have signed an exclusive contract 357 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,600 with the Mutual Film Company to film him in action. 358 00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,240 Pancho, they say, 359 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:02,240 would delay his battles so that Hollywood's cameramen 360 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,880 could get there in time to film him. 361 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:12,200 Thus Mexico, its revolution, its politics, its passion, 362 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:19,040 began to exert a powerful hold on American art. 363 00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,800 Mexico City, where your pulse quickens as soon as the plane lands. 364 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,680 What an exhilarating city it is, 365 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,080 and what great art treasures it holds. 366 00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:52,200 I love Rome, I love Venice, I love Paris, St Petersburg, New York. 367 00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,240 They're all great art cities. 368 00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,720 But for sheer excitement, 369 00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,080 for that raw artistic thing that 370 00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:06,240 makes your heart go boom boody-boom, boody-boom, 371 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:10,280 the art of Mexico City is in a league of its own. 372 00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,600 This is the Ministry of Education. 373 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:22,680 Painted in the years 1922 to 1928, 374 00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:28,440 the mural masterpiece of Diego Rivera. 375 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,880 This used to be a Dominican convent, 376 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:39,880 but after the revolution, it became the Ministry of Education, 377 00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:45,240 and Rivera was handed the entire space, 15,000 square feet of it, 378 00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,400 to fill with his revolutionary murals. 379 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:58,080 They call this "The Sistine Chapel of the Americas". 380 00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,160 It's a display of ambition and invention, 381 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,920 the like of which the New World had never seen. 382 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,320 Rivera had travelled extensively in Italy and he'd seen how, 383 00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:15,880 during the Renaissance, 384 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,560 the monasteries of Florence were filled with frescoes. 385 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:24,640 But this is more than a tribute to the Renaissance. 386 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,280 This is an attempt to outdo it. 387 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,920 Anything Giotto could do in Florence, 388 00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,800 Diego Rivera could trump in Mexico City. 389 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:44,600 All together, there are 235 fresco panels in here 390 00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:49,800 and Rivera single-handedly painted most of them. 391 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,400 Here's The Day Of The Dead, 392 00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:02,200 when everyone in Mexico gets annually happy. 393 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:11,040 And this is The Burning Of The Judases, 394 00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:15,520 when unpopular politicians are turned into puppets 395 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,160 and set alight in the streets. 396 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:26,960 But Rivera saves his best moments for up here on the next floor, 397 00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:33,280 where the gringos and their filthy capitalism 398 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,360 come in for a fearful bashing. 399 00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,080 This is called The Wall Street Supper. 400 00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:48,120 The rich bankers of Wall Street, the Rockefellers, the JP Morgans, 401 00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,920 are seated at a capitalist dinner tucking in 402 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,320 to the gold ticker tape of the stock exchange. 403 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,160 And the culmination of it all is up here, 404 00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,800 the overthrow of the capitalists in the Mexican Revolution. 405 00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:10,840 Here's the battle in the trenches in 1910 406 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:16,320 and then a few years later, handing out guns to the soldiers, 407 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,480 there's someone you may recognise. 408 00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:26,200 Ah, yes. The proud and redoubtable Frida Kahlo. 409 00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:32,440 Rivera's wife, heroine of the revolution, 410 00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,760 handing out rifles to the rebels. 411 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:43,800 So, yes, it's agitprop, but agitprop that thrills and delights. 412 00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:47,560 When this was painted, 413 00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:52,600 most Mexicans had never been to school and were still illiterate. 414 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,000 Murals became the chosen art of Mexico 415 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:03,040 because they spoke to all of the people, all of the time. 416 00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,920 And it wasn't just Mexicans that painted them. 417 00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,200 Visiting Americans were at it, too. 418 00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,600 This faded whopper in the small town of Morelia, 419 00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,040 three hours out of Mexico City, 420 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:31,040 was painted by Jackson Pollock's buddy Philip Goldstein, 421 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:40,360 It shows the forces of evil being bashed up by the forces of good. 422 00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:50,160 And, if we leap forwards 40 years to the Nixon era, 423 00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,480 here's Philip Guston again, 424 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:58,520 expressing his respect for his president, Mexican-style. 425 00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,800 Do you know when The Star-Spangled Banner 426 00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,320 became the national anthem of America? 427 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,120 You'd think it was the 19th century, wouldn't you? 428 00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,920 But, no, it was the '30s. 429 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:26,400 1931. 430 00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:32,720 It was originally a drinking song 431 00:36:32,720 --> 00:36:36,120 written for a gentleman's club in London. 432 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,720 But new lyrics were added about the land of the brave 433 00:36:42,720 --> 00:36:47,720 and in 1931, it became the national anthem, 434 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:53,480 another resonant creation of the American imagination. 435 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:01,040 So we've caught up with Philip Goldstein, who became Philip Guston, 436 00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,320 but what about his buddy Jackson Pollock? What was he up to? 437 00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:14,080 Jackson went through a cowboy phase in his art as well, 438 00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,120 and had his high noon moment. 439 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,400 But he was a restless soul, 440 00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:26,400 and his cowboy imagination was soon seeking other trails to follow. 441 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,280 His father LeRoy... 442 00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,320 Remember him? ..had gotten a job as a surveyor 443 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:39,720 and he'd take Jackson with him on his long trips into the desert. 444 00:37:39,720 --> 00:37:43,560 And remember how Jackson had got interested in eastern mysticism 445 00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,800 with theosophy and all that? 446 00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:49,800 Well, it was here in the desert that he first encountered 447 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,440 the sand art of the Native Americans. 448 00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,040 With sand art, 449 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:01,080 you make pictures by dropping or dribbling 450 00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,360 coloured sand onto the ground. 451 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:10,360 So, it's a physical way of making art with your whole body - 452 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,000 an action art. 453 00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,480 So you can see straightaway what influence 454 00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,520 that might have had on Jack the Dripper. 455 00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:22,960 But not just yet. 456 00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,240 First, he needed to go through another of his phrases. 457 00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:30,720 What we might call his regionalist phase, 458 00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:35,240 when he fell under the influence of a powerful and significant American 459 00:38:35,240 --> 00:38:39,120 artist called Thomas Hart Benton, 460 00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:44,160 who specialised in depictions of rural America. 461 00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:54,640 Rural America was a hot topic in the 1930s. 462 00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,640 A subject that stirred deep emotions. 463 00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:04,600 And Thomas Hart Benton was the chief stirrer. 464 00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,880 This was painted especially for the Country Music Hall Of Fame, 465 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,840 a marvellous museum here in Nashville, 466 00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,120 and it shows the origins of country music. 467 00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,840 It's like a Jamie Oliver recipe of all the ingredients 468 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:25,720 that went into country. 469 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:28,520 A bit of gospel. 470 00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:31,040 A bit of banjo. 471 00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:34,280 Lots of fiddle and guitar... 472 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,560 ..and a big smoking train bringing its chug, chug, chug 473 00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,240 to the sound of country. 474 00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,920 And Benton knew what he was talking about. 475 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,560 HARMONICA PLAYS Hear that harmonica blaring out 476 00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,120 and drowning out my words? HARMONICA CONTINUES 477 00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,600 That's Benton himself playing on one of his records. 478 00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:06,440 The mural was Mexico's great gift to American culture, 479 00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:12,000 a way of telling stories that everyone could understand. 480 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,480 And Benton didn't half pump them out. 481 00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:25,160 This one here was painted for the state capital in Jefferson City, 482 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,320 Missouri, Benton's home state. 483 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,680 And it tells the story of Missouri. 484 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:37,720 The industry, the cornfields, the fun that was had here... 485 00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,080 ..and the horror. 486 00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:59,640 I love the way he stood up for the oppressed 487 00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,880 and poked fun at the Establishment. 488 00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,880 And the brain work involved in planning all this is so impressive. 489 00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:14,920 The way it unfolds around you with these interlocking scenes. 490 00:41:17,720 --> 00:41:19,840 It's like a 3-D comic book. 491 00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,000 We know exactly how he did it 492 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,280 because there's a film of him making his murals - 493 00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,720 and the process is fascinating. 494 00:41:30,720 --> 00:41:33,880 ARCHIVE: He first experiments with rhythmic designs, 495 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:35,440 or dynamic patterns... 496 00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:40,440 He'd start with a flow chart of the mural's abstract movement. 497 00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:46,440 No figures, just the rhythm he wanted, the abstract underpinning. 498 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,560 He has a good, basic pattern. 499 00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:56,760 Once he'd got the overall rhythm, he'd start sketching in the figures, 500 00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,520 still keeping the abstract design, 501 00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:05,600 but filling it with recognisable shapes. 502 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:14,400 Next, he'd make a sculpture in clay of the entire scene. 503 00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:20,240 Position all the figures to see how the light falls on them. 504 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,520 And when that was done, and only then, he began painting. 505 00:42:27,720 --> 00:42:32,720 Putting in the colours, the final layer, the icing on the cake. 506 00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,680 So, all these great mural cycles of his 507 00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,560 have an abstract framework to them 508 00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,600 lurking under the bottom of the image. 509 00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,600 You can't always see it, but it's there. 510 00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,400 And they're all painted with egg tempera. 511 00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:55,840 And when he painted this, 512 00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,920 his masterpiece in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, 513 00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:04,240 it's called America Today, the rumour is 514 00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:07,080 that he was paid with eggs. 515 00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:09,240 Not money, eggs. 516 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:16,680 Painting with egg tempera is a wispy, delicate and busy process. 517 00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:24,440 The brush flicks and slides, dances and twitches, 518 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,600 and there's a sense of perpetual motion to it all. 519 00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:37,160 Now, all these lessons about starting with an abstract rhythm, 520 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:42,080 painting in layers, painting quickly and wristily, 521 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:46,760 these were all things that Benton was teaching his students. 522 00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:51,600 And his students repaid him by modelling for his murals. 523 00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:56,360 Like this fellow here, 524 00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,920 who's whipped off his shirt 525 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:03,200 and who twists heroically like a Michelangelo slave. 526 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:09,000 That is Benton's most loyal and celebrated pupil. 527 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:13,160 That is Jackson Pollock. 528 00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:35,040 Pollock arrived in New York in 1930. 529 00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:36,640 He was 19. 530 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:38,400 A hick from the West, 531 00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,920 who wore cowboy boots and a Stetson, 532 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:44,840 and who strutted about Manhattan like Wyatt Earp. 533 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,000 As soon as he got here, 534 00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:54,360 he enrolled as a student at the Art Students League. 535 00:44:56,040 --> 00:45:00,800 An independent arts school for painters who wanted to get better. 536 00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,320 Benton was a teacher here 537 00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,640 and he had his work cut out because, according to 538 00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,200 the people who knew Pollock in his first days in New York, 539 00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,360 when it came to art, he wasn't a natural. 540 00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:25,280 This is his first and only self-portrait. 541 00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,080 It's scarily intense. 542 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,400 Black, bleak and clumsy. 543 00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:36,760 Benton, to his credit, 544 00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:41,760 saw through the clumsiness and spotted something real in there. 545 00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:45,160 He took Pollock under his wing, 546 00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:50,240 nursed him, educated him, and as we saw, used him as a model. 547 00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:58,440 There's Jackson again, playing the harmonica, 548 00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:03,440 in another Benton mural, which lists all the fun you can have in America. 549 00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:13,840 They were so close that Pollock moved into the same house as Benton, 550 00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,840 here in Eighth Street, number 46. 551 00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:22,880 And that's where he developed a fierce crush on Benton's wife, Rita, 552 00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,360 who played with him flirtatiously 553 00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,520 and helped to derail him. 554 00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,280 Pollock had been a drinker since he was 15, 555 00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,040 but it was in New York that it became a problem. 556 00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:44,560 There was something harsh inside him, 557 00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:46,720 something brutal and primitive. 558 00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,640 It came out when he drank 559 00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:53,600 and it came out when he painted. 560 00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,360 The drinking got so bad he was forced to see a shrink, 561 00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:05,080 and for four years, he was in psychotherapy, 562 00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,520 and it all came spilling out. 563 00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,560 Pollock's Jungian therapist encouraged him 564 00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,520 to get in touch with his unconscious self. 565 00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:23,400 And boy, did he do that. 566 00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:27,840 With Pollock, now and later, 567 00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:32,040 there's a feeling that he's hanging on for dear life 568 00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,680 while all this stuff comes bursting out of him. 569 00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,760 His breakthrough picture, the one that made him famous, 570 00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,800 was painted in 1942 for his new dealer, Peggy Guggenheim. 571 00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:54,080 And according to legend, the whole thing was painted in a single night, 572 00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:57,800 the day before he was due to deliver it. 573 00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:05,920 It's called Mural and it's the size and shape of a Thomas Benton mural. 574 00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:12,800 It originally showed a stampede of Wild West Mustangs, 575 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,160 and they're still in there somewhere, 576 00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:21,200 but where Benton started with abstraction, then added the figures, 577 00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,840 Pollock reverses the process. 578 00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:31,080 He started with the Mustangs, but ended up with their rhythm. 579 00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:42,120 With Peggy Guggenheim supporting him, he finally had some money. 580 00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,360 And in 1945, he moved 581 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:51,440 to a house on Long Island and began making 582 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:56,520 his celebrated drip paintings. 583 00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:03,720 They were done on the floor. 584 00:49:03,720 --> 00:49:07,840 He would put a canvas on the ground 585 00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:12,840 and, inspired by the sand paintings of the Navajo, 586 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,840 he'd prowl around it and drip paint onto it. 587 00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:29,160 He began with some figurative shapes. 588 00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:34,120 Heads, bodies, faces, whatever jumped into his mind, 589 00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:37,400 indicated quickly 590 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:42,400 with a runny black paint that responded 591 00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:48,600 immediately to his twitches and thrusts. 592 00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,920 And there was always music playing, 593 00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,120 not country music like Benton, but jazz. 594 00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,080 That's the music that suited his rhythm. 595 00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:11,000 He would put jazz on the record player and play it night and day, 596 00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,040 over and over again. 597 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,920 JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS 598 00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:26,200 Everything he was interested in was pulling him in the same direction, 599 00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,720 the theosophy, the Jungian therapy, 600 00:50:30,720 --> 00:50:33,800 the sand art of the Navajo, 601 00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,960 Benton's murals with their hidden abstraction, 602 00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:42,520 and what they all had in common was the belief that 603 00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,040 the visible world was just a surface 604 00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:51,080 and that underneath this surface lay something bigger and more important, 605 00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,560 and the artist was the conduit through which 606 00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,240 this bigger reality could be reached. 607 00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:04,080 All he had to do was trust... 608 00:51:07,720 --> 00:51:08,720 ..his instincts. 609 00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:26,280 This one is called Lavender Mist. 610 00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:30,280 It's in the National Gallery of Art in Washington and it's one of his 611 00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,000 greatest paintings. 612 00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:37,360 Now, because of the way he made these, the dripping, 613 00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,480 the prowling around the canvas, 614 00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,160 Pollock was called an action painter. 615 00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:49,160 But to get the most out of his art, you need to be an action visitor. 616 00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:57,880 There's no point standing in one place to look at Jackson Pollock. 617 00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,360 You, too, need to dart about. 618 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:07,320 In and out, left and right, backwards and forwards. 619 00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,960 The art never stops moving, so neither should you. 620 00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:19,840 Sometimes it's like looking through a microscope at tiny details. 621 00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,880 Other times, it's like staring up at the cosmos. 622 00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:32,160 It wasn't the Stetson or the cowboy boots 623 00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:36,200 that made Jackson Pollock a Wild West artist. 624 00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,720 It was the bigness of his vision, 625 00:52:39,720 --> 00:52:41,800 the cosmic scale, 626 00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:44,400 that taste for infinity. 627 00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,240 So, this is abstract expressionism, 628 00:52:52,240 --> 00:52:56,840 the first truly American art movement, 629 00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:01,880 when all the dumb and inchoate stuff inside came bursting out 630 00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:06,120 in an unstoppable torrent. 631 00:53:18,240 --> 00:53:23,240 While Jackson Pollock in New York was reimagining the West as a bit of 632 00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:28,840 abstraction, in the West itself, 633 00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:33,880 the landscape was impacting on American art in more tangible ways. 634 00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:43,280 Land art is the only American art form that couldn't have happened 635 00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:44,560 anywhere else. 636 00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:47,200 It had to happen here. 637 00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,120 You need this landscape... 638 00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,160 ..these dimensions... 639 00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:57,320 ..and this sense of place. 640 00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:05,000 This is Double Negative by Michael Heizer. 641 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,920 He made it in 1969. 642 00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:13,960 Heizer brought some bulldozers up to this impressive Mesa in Nevada 643 00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:19,800 and carved two huge artificial canyons in the rock, 644 00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:25,120 two great trenches stretching altogether 1,500 feet. 645 00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,960 To create his artificial canyons, 646 00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:36,960 Heizer had to dig out 240,000 tonnes of rock. 647 00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,080 These days, the sides have crumbled 648 00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:49,240 and obscured the clarity of the Double Negative. 649 00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:54,720 But Heizer didn't mind, it was part of his plan. 650 00:54:54,720 --> 00:54:58,240 He always knew that nature was bigger than him. 651 00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:06,880 And these here are the sand tunnels, 652 00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:11,760 created by Nancy Holt in 1976, 653 00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,440 in the great basin desert of Utah. 654 00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:20,200 All these concrete tunnels are aligned to the sun, 655 00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:22,880 and at different times of day, 656 00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:26,800 the sun and the shadows do different things. 657 00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:35,400 But the daddy of all examples of American land art, 658 00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:39,960 the greatest land art moment in the West, 659 00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:41,720 is the Spiral Jetty. 660 00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:49,680 When I was an art history student, 661 00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:54,680 this was on the cover of every book about modern art that I had, 662 00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:59,480 and the reason it was so famous is because it wasn't there any more. 663 00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:06,480 When Smithson created the Spiral Jetty in 1970, 664 00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:12,040 the waters of the Great Salt Lake were at a historic low. 665 00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:18,920 But soon after he finished, they rose again, and for 30 years, 666 00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:24,880 the Spiral Jetty disappeared from sight. 667 00:56:28,240 --> 00:56:33,240 It popped up again in 2002, just in time for the new millennium, 668 00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:38,320 and I've been to see it a couple of times since then, and every time, 669 00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:39,360 it's different. 670 00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:46,240 The first time I saw it, it was gleaming white. 671 00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:51,520 The salt crystals in the water had caked the rocks 672 00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:54,280 and given the Jetty a Christmas look. 673 00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,080 So I hopped across it, like a kid in the snow. 674 00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:04,280 But that's not how it looks today. 675 00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,720 Today, the changing climate has turned 676 00:57:08,720 --> 00:57:11,560 the Great Salt Lake into a desert. 677 00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:17,680 And Smithson's stones stick out of the sand like bones. 678 00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:24,840 And see how the water around the stones is this spooky red. 679 00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:29,720 That's this tiny shrimp that survives in these salt waters, 680 00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:32,080 millions and millions of them, 681 00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:36,480 looking like blood that's soaked into the Great Salt Lake. 682 00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:44,920 Smithson never intended this to be a happy artwork. 683 00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:52,000 He was a sci-fi fan and he chose this location, he said, 684 00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,920 because it had a sense of decay about it. 685 00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,480 An atmosphere of entropy. 686 00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:02,840 MUSIC: Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen 687 00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,760 And that's the thing about the Wild West, 688 00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,640 it was largely a work of fiction. 689 00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:14,800 Everyone who has looked at it has imagined things 690 00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,200 that may or may not be there. 691 00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:22,040 What you see is what you want to see. 692 00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:25,680 # Born down in a dead man's town 693 00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:27,800 # The first kick I took was when I hit the ground # 694 00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:32,080 In the next film, we're heading for that other quintessentially 695 00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:34,360 American territory - 696 00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:36,240 the city. 697 00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,520 Where some look up 698 00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:40,240 and others look down. 699 00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,640 That's The Story of the American Metropolis, 700 00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:48,840 the next stop on this artistic road trip. 701 00:58:48,840 --> 00:59:00,280 # Born in the USA 702 00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:04,280 # I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the USA. # 58481

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