Customer Reviews

Picasso: The Man and His Work - Part 1 (1881-1937) [VHS]

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Bold new insights are bad enough - read Norman Mailer! But at least Mailer, like John Berger (The Success and Failure of Picasso), has a point of view. This sad little video reflects that period in the artist's old age, and after his death, when the only available attitude (even among serious critics) was slobbering sycophancy (misspelled I know). Useless for those trying to come to terms with his work, less than useless for anyone who wants to explore his developement, to trace period and styles.

We have odd glimpses of his life in the "midi" and in his various Paris haunts, including the famous Bateu Lavoir, but the latter (indeed all the earlier images) come via slowly-panned still photographs, almost all of them inferior to those in John Richardson's definitive biography (which see).

One thing that film could and should of done, which no emanuensis ever did, or tried: capture the man at work. Such footage is rare, though no doubt it exists. Problems with the estate meant that Anthony Hopkins (Life with Picasso) could not even use reasonable facsimiles of PP's work for his dramatic re-enactment of his turbulent relationship with Francoise Gilot - so no such records, fictional or factual, exist. That is the gap I was hoping the video might fill, and it fails miserably. Any hope that it might compensate with rich insight, or interesting biographical detail, is dashed in the first five minutes: it is clear that this is a tourist's accompaniment to the Picasso career: rushed, rudimentary and finally insulting. Pricey, too.

This Cannes Film Festival selection takes a comprehensive and fascinating look at the life and art of the legendary Pablo Picasso. During the last 22 years of Picasso's life, film maker Edward Quinn had complete access to the artist. Through a combination of exclusive home movies and intimate photos, as well as over 600 of the artist's works (many never seen in public), a living, breathing scrapbook of Picasso is realized. The film follows the parallel development of the artist's life and work, giving insight into his creative processes. Among other highlights are some of the last pictures ever taken of him.