Surviving Picasso (1996)
As the title would suggest, Surviving Picasso takes a slightly different approach to depicting the artist, by framing the story through the perspective of French painter and author Francoise Gilot – who was Pablo Picasso’s lover and mother of his two children. The screenplay is based upon Picasso: Creator And Destroyer by Arianna Huffington, and is written by Ruth Prawar Jhabvala. As a Merchant Ivory film, the project is directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant (The Remains Of The Day) – both frequent collaborators with Jhabvala and the lead actor here, Anthony Hopkins.
In the film, we see Picasso as a cold, emotionally distant man who could be characterized as something of a cruel philanderer. Gilot finds that each of the other women that have been in Picasso’s life (or are, currently) have been greatly damaged by the experience, so she seeks to determine why and how she herself can survive such a fate. Though the film itself garnered few accolades, it presents a form of narrative that is unusual in the arena of biographical cinematic tales of great artists.
Published: Oct 21, 2014 10:56 pm