The Mystery of Picasso
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Claude Renoir, Pablo PicassoPrimary Contributor: Pablo Picasso
Primary Contributor: Claude Renoir
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 75 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-04
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of The Mystery of Picasso
Movie Review: great documentary about a great artist
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw The Mystery of Picasso when I was a teenager. I was fascinated by it. Having watched it recently, I realize why. The film shows that Pablo Picasso was a master painter. In this film he paints on a glass so that you can see what he is doing as he does it. During the course of a painting Picasso changes course sometimes ending up with a different scene than the one he sketched out in the beginning. You get to see him create cubist paintings and also semi-realistic paintings. The director does a good job of capturing the painting skill of one of the greatest of twentieth century artists. If you are an artist you will really learn a lot from this documentary. If you are just interested in art, this film will give you a glimpse of the process behind its creation.
Summary of The Mystery of Picasso
Like a matador confronting a bull, the artist approaches his easel. As he wields his brush, the painting dances into being before our eyes. Pablo Picasso, the most influential artist of the 20th century, is making art, and famous French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear) is making a movie. This entirely new kind of art documentary captures the moment and the mystery of creativity; for the film, the master created 20 artworks, ranging from playful black-and-white sketches to widescreen color paintings. Using inks that bled through the paper, Picasso rapidly created fanciful drawings that Clouzot was able to film from the reverse side, capturing their creation in real time. When the artist decided to paint in oils, the filmmaker switched to color film and employed the magic of stop-motion animation. By contract, almost all of these paintings were destroyed when the film was completed. Unavailable for more than a decade, "The Mystery of Picasso" is exhilarating, mesmerizing, and unforgettable; it is simply one of the greatest documentaries on art ever made. The French government agrees; in 1984 it declared the film a national treasure.Just as visual artists understand the relationship between positive and negative space in their work, France's master filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique) understood--and set about demonstrating via The Mystery of Picasso--the relationship between creation and destruction in the artistic process. In 1955, Clouzot teamed with his friend Pablo Picasso to capture as many aspects of the brilliant painter's working methods as possible. Clouzot innovatively placed the camera in front of Picasso while the latter worked, thus capturing astonishing reverse images of brush strokes and "bleeding" inks in volatile motion. The result is that Clouzot's film--the screen, the frame--become Picasso's canvas, and we find ourselves inside his prodigious genius as works of beauty spontaneously burst forth and are instantly crushed beneath the weight of new images, new ideas. A viewer would be forgiven if, more than once, he felt like screaming at such nonchalant carnage. --Tom Keogh
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