Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Wednesday Wonder: 'The Mystery of Picasso'

French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977) collaborated with Pablo Picasso to produce The Mystery of Picasso. The 1956 work (see below), showing us the great artist's creative process, can be mezmerizing to watch, even when Picasso is doodling, as he does at the beginning of the film. What Picasso created for Clouzot does not exist physically. Amusingly, Picasso did "sign" the film at the its conclusion.


My thanks to OpenCulture, where I first watched this wonderful production, part of the site's collection of free online movies. OpenCulture notes that the French government declared The Mystery of Picasso a national treasure in 1984.

Henri-Georges Clouzot at The Criterion Collection

3 comments:

Valerie Kamikubo said...

This is so wonderful, Maureen! I had to stop to get ready for work, but I'm coming back later to finish it. Thanks so much for posting this!

Deborah Lawrenson said...

Another classic post - and a hurrah for your fantastic blog that is effectively an arts magazine: I've given you a Beautiful Blogger Award over on my blog. (There's no expectation or need to do anything more than accept the appreciation.)

Ruth said...

Incredible. It is such a treat to watch these drawings appear in process. I wonder how Clouzot managed to show the drawings only. And thank you for the Open Culture site!

Riches here, always.