The Mystery of Picasso (1956)

Original title

Le Mystère Picasso

Directed by

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Genre

documentary film

Country

France

Runtime

1h 18m

Rating

7.4 of 10 from 55 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary shows Pablo Picasso creating drawings and paintings in real time. The film focuses on the process of making art as the works develop and change on screen.

observationalintimatecreativeplayfuldeliberatefocusedinventive

What happens

The Mystery of Picasso (French: Le mystère Picasso) is a 1956 French documentary film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. In it, the painter Pablo Picasso produces 20 drawings and paintings, at first using inks that bleed through the paper on which he is drawing, with the act of creation filmed in real-time from the backside of the easel, and later using oil paints, with Clouzot employing a stop-motion-like effect to depict the development and modification of the works. The film begins with Picasso creating simple marker drawings in black and white, and he gradually progresses to full-scale collages and oil paintings. The pieces created before the camera were supposedly subsequently destroyed so they would only exist on film, but there are reports that some survived. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• Picasso, Pablo (1982)
• Picasso (1967)
• Picasso: The Man and His Work (1976)
• Matisse-Picasso (2002)
• Visit to Picasso (1950)
• The Picasso Look (1967)
• Picasso (1954)
• Picasso: A Painter's Diary (1980)