The Mystery of Picasso

In a style devised for this film about his artist pal, Henri-Georges Clouzot sets up a camera behind a translucent surface, so that the maestro’s every painterly gesture is recorded. Paintings emerge from the seemingly effortless frenzy of flourishes, some successful, some merely a mimicry of Picasso performing himself—“superficial,” he cries out at one point, then revises his failed work, backtracking, shifting the weight, collaging, adding color, imposing new ideas in a continual, fluid process. Now and then the director approves, to which Picasso responds, “At least it’s a painting.” Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, this colorful glimpse of the seventy-five-year-old Picasso captures the fecund nature of his creative process, a spontaneous revelation of form in continual transformation.