Surviving Picasso (1996)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

James Ivory

Writers (WGA):

Arianna Huffington (book)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 September 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Only his passion for women could rival his passion for painting.

Plot:

The passionate Merchant-Ivory drama tells the story of Francoise Gilot, the only lover of Pablo Picasso who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty and move on with her life.

Plot Keywords:

Pablo Picasso | Lover | Mistress | Painting | Painter

Cast

Anthony Hopkins	...	Pablo Picasso
Natascha McElhone	...	Françoise Gilot
Julianne Moore	...	Dora Maar
Joss Ackland	...	Henri Matisse
Dennis Boutsikaris	...	Kootz
Peter Eyre	...	Sabartes
Peter Gerety	...	Marcel
Susannah Harker	...	Marie-Thérèse
Jane Lapotaire	...	Olga Picasso
Joseph Maher	...	Kahnweiler
Bob Peck	...	Françoise's Father
Diane Venora	...	Jacqueline
Dominic West	...	Paulo Picasso
Joan Plowright	...	Françoise's Grandmother
Laura Aikman	...	Maya

MPAA:

Rated R for a scene of nudity and brief sex-related language.

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:M (TV rating) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Iceland:L | South Korea:15 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:R(A) | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

Merchant Ivory Productions

Trivia:

Merchant Ivory Productions faced strong objections from Francoise Gilot and her son, Claude, when making this film. Claude Picasso met once with the Merchant-Ivory team but then strongly objected to the making of the film, petitioning the studio to stop production. Gilot had written her story in the book "Life with Picasso" in 1964, which Picasso had tried to stop from being published; the filmmakers were unable to acquire the rights. Instead they used Arianna Huffington's "Picasso: Creator and Destroyer" as the basis for Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's script.

Quotes:

Dora Maar: You don't look like someone who lives in Paris.
[then, to Francoise]
Dora Maar: And you... you look like you've been breathing in the air in Picasso's studio. Peculiar air... sometimes it seems like poison gas... and then you find you cannot breathe in any other.
Geneviève: I assure you that is not the case with Francoise.
Dora Marr: I don't like cats. But when my dog died, he gave me a cat. I still have it. It's called Moumoune. He gave it that name. It's a very vicious cat. Look... He'll leave you when he's ready. Even then, you won't be free of him. After him, without him, there is nothing. After Picasso, only God. And Moumoune... that cat just won't die.

Portrait of the Artist as a Monster

It's a pity that many of the user comments on this movie are simply a vehicle for people's dislike of Picasso, and that they treat the film as though it were a documentary. Picasso may have been as sex-mad, egocentric, paranoid and capricious as any Hollywood star (think Chaplin); but first and foremost he was a prodigious artist, who transformed our view of visual art, and dealt with some of the great themes of western culture. And presumably it was those latter qualities which drew women to him, in the same way that women have been drawn to successful, powerful men of dubious character since the dawn of time.

The movie and Hopkins' performance are certainly successful in displaying Picasso's human weaknesses; but there is a failure to adequately convey Picasso's enormous creative power, a weakness compounded by the fact that the makers were not allowed to use much of his work in the film. I see the film as a well made, excellently acted, but partial (in both senses of the word) portrait of the artist. Its real focus is the women in his life, especially Francoise Gilot, and on the two-way exploitative nature of the relationship between a man of this kind and his mistresses/wives.