Mystery of Picasso, The

Like a matador confronting a bull, the artist approaches his easel, his eyes blazing. As he wields his brush, we see through the canvas as the artwork unfolds, erupts, dances into being before our eyes. Pablo Picasso, the most influential artist of the twentieth century, is making a painting, and Henri-Georges Clouzot, the famous French director (The Wages of Fearand Diabolique), is making a movie.

In 1955, Clouzot joined forces with his friend Picasso to make an entirely new kind of art film "a film that could capture the moment and the mystery of creativity. Together, they devised an innovative technique" the filmmaker placed his camera behind a semi-transparent surface on which the artist drew with special inks that bled through.

Clouzot thus captured a perfect reverse image of Picasso's brushstrokes and the motion picture screen itself becomes the artist's canvas. Here, the master creates, and sometimes obliterates, 20 works (most of them, in fact, destroyed after the shoot), ranging from playful black-and-white sketches to Cinemascope color murals "artworks which evolve in minutes through the magic of stop-motion animation. Unavailable for more than a decade, The Mystery of Picasso is exhilarating, mesmerizing, enchanting and unforgettable. It is simply one of the greatest documentaries on art ever made. The French government agreed" in 1984 it declared the film a national treasure.

"When we are all dead, you and me and everyone," said Clouzot to Picasso, "the film will still continue to be projected."

Bonus Features

Alain Resnais' short film Guernica.

Commentary track by Peggy Parsons, curator, Film Program at the National Gallery of Art.

Second commentary track by Archie Rand, painter and professor of Art at Columbia University.

Reviews

"The Mystery of Picasso is one of the most unique documentaries ever produced, and because it eschews exposition in favor of direct presentation of the artistic method -- not just the trickery of painting but of cinema as well -- it is easily accessible by an audience that may know little of art history or the iconography of modern art. Cubism may seem obscure when presented in a textbook, but just watching Picasso layer in perspective after perspective answers more questions in a few minutes than a professor likely can in an entire class. Nevertheless, Picasso's work, not to mention his psyche, maintains a degree of mystery, allowing us to read into the paintings what we will. The result is a documentary that allows viewers to learn something new with each viewing -- something few documentaries can claim." -- DVD Verdict