The Enigmatic Mind of Picasso: A Film Review

I believe Pablo Picasso was an artistic genius. But I wonder if I’d look at his drawings and think so, if he’d lived and worked in obscurity rather than being a tireless self-promoting superstar? This is the age-old question about fame.

The Mystery of Picasso, the final documentary in the series “Frame Works: Art on Film” at the was unlike any film I’ve seen before. This doesn’t mean it was great. Directed by Henri-George Clouzot it is more a live, real time museum installation with the camera is positioned on the other side of the Picasso’s transparent canvas.

Each drawing is masterfully rendered with a firm and steady hand and an eye for composition, intrigue, and story telling with a musicality that spans from classical to jazz. And each drawing also included bulls, horses and/or women’s breasts.

Picasso talks infrequently to the director, and it is clear he draws and creates for himself; he is not concern about the audience and says as much. Picasso is focused, self-directed, yet manages a playful innocence on canvas; this is the way to create art great or not.

Picasso was a notorious ladies’ man with three wives and too many lovers to count, and he was an egomaniacal, self-centered, creative mad man. Yet we love him. Art has to be judged on it own merit not on the artist’s personal behavior.

Though each drawing was done real time, they took much longer to complete than the minutes to which the audience was privy.

Picasso says, “They are going to think I did these in minutes when they have taken hours.”

To watch Picasso paint was at once exhilarating and literally as invigorating as watching paint dry. Yet to the art lover, the historian, and Picasso lovers worldwide, this film is a real treat.

While watching, I grappled with the sheer chutzpah of the filmmaker Henri-George Clouzot to think an audience would want to sit for 78 minutes and watch Picasso’s lines magically appear on screen.

But it was 1956 and life moved slower; there were no Internet or action films, and people had longer attention spans. I wasn’t born yet, and visionaries are often misunderstood even fifty-five years later.

The mystery of Picasso remains intact albeit with a few glances into the mind of one of the world’s most renowned artists.