Surviving Picasso (1996)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I found this a highly disappointing film in that it seems to focus almost entirely on the misogynistic side of Picasso's personality, and his selfish insensitivity towards others. While these aspects of Picasso no doubt existed (his treatment of his children was appalling) the film fails to portray a rounded depiction of the man or what drove him. This very one-dimensional and oblique angled view is no doubt due to the fact that the film is based on the memories of his disillusioned wife, and I am reminded of the book written by Deborah Curtis about her husband the singer Ian Curtis, in which she whines on about the domestic reality of their relationship but offers virtually no insight into his art - which was surely the most interesting thing about him. The problem is that the relationships which these women have with their husbands is based on love and its commitments, and has nothing to do with their art or creativity. The world is full of brutal and misogynistic people, but what makes Picasso interesting is what he created. To make a film about an artist which ignores the inner imagination, psychology, and creative aspect of that person is pointless and uninteresting. Anthony Hopkins offers a fairly convincing performance, but this just isn't enough. For an artist biopic with more depth and substance I recommend Love Is The Devil (about painter Francis Bacon).

It's 1943 Paris. Pablo Picasso (Anthony Hopkins) is selling paintings to the Nazis and being the famed artist. Françoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone) meets him as an admirer and becomes his long-time mistress. It's turbulent affair and she would have two kids with him. Her grandmother (Joan Plowright) warns her. The other women in his life includes his bitter wife Olga, Dora Maar (Julianne Moore), and Marie-Thérèse who has a daughter with him.This is the wrong subject for Merchant Ivory. Their safe harbor is mannered people trying to restrain their inner turmoil. Picasso's turmoil is not interior. It is exterior. This movie needs flamboyance. Picasso is excessive in every ways. This contrast completely with the reserved nature of a Merchant Ivory movies. Hopkins has the acting power but the movie struggles to harness that power.

Anthony Hopkins is a very gifted actor,nobody can deny,but ,he was beginning to do any job going:playing Hannibal,Nixon and Picasso,it's much ,too much !Besides,James Ivory 's majestic talent ("Howards end" "remains of the day" "A room with the view" "Maurice") had inexorably waned."Jefferson in Paris" was already unsatisfying,smug and overblown.Still,it was entertaining."Surviving Picasso' is not.Only five minutes -let's be generous- are given over to the process of creation.The essential revolves around Picasso's relationship with women;this is neither rewarding nor entertaining,being trite,hollow and devoid of emotion , violence or/and tenderness.Word to the wise:people interested in Picasso's art -which is more interesting than his private life!who cares?- should try to see Henri-Georges Clouzot 's "le mystère Picasso" (1956):Unlike Ivory,Clouzot films the REAL Picasso while he is creating.He paints on a sheet of glass and we can follow every lick of paint.

A closer look at the controversial life of world famous painter Picasso. A guy who's only intentions are women - a guy to whom marriage doesn't mean anything. The movie isn't too great at all. Actually many times it's boring. But there's a good reason to watch it: Anthony Hopkins, one of the greatest actors alive. Vote: 6 out of 10.