- Surviving Picasso
Infobox Film | name = Surviving Picasso
caption =
director = James Ivory
producer =Ismail Merchant David L. Wolper Humbert Balsan (co-producer)Donald Rosenfeld (executive)Paul Bradley (executive)
writer =Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
starring =Anthony Hopkins Natascha McElhone Julianne Moore Joss Ackland Peter Eyre Jane Lapotaire Joseph Maher Bob Peck Diane Venora Susannah Harker Joan Plowright Dominic West
music =Richard Robbins
cinematography =Tony Pierce-Roberts
editing =Andrew Marcus
distributor =Warner Bros.
released =20 September 1996
runtime = 125 min
language = English
budget =
imdb_id = 0117791"Surviving Picasso" is a 1996 Merchant Ivory Film starring
Anthony Hopkins as the famous painterPablo Picasso . It was shot inParis and southernFrance .Directed by James Ivory and produced by
Ismail Merchant andDavid L. Wolper . Screenplay byRuth Prawer Jhabvala loosely based on thebiography "Picasso: Creator and Destroyer" by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington.The film starts with Françoise meeting Picasso in
Paris during the German occupation of the city, where Picasso is complaining that people broke into his house and stole his linen, rather than his paintings. It shows Françoise being beaten by her father after telling him she wants to be a painter, rather than a lawyer. Picasso is shown as often not caring about other people's feelings, firing his driver after a long period of service, and as a womanizer, saying that he can sleep with whomever he wants.The film is seen through the eyes of his lover
Françoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone ). Because the producers were unable to get permission (as usual) to show the works of Picasso in the film, the film is more about Picasso's personal life rather than his works, and where it does show paintings, they are not of his more famous works. When Picasso is shown painting "Guernica", the camera sits high above the painting, with the work only slightly visible.The film depicts several of the women who were important in Picasso's life, such as Olga Picasso (played by
Jane Lapotaire ),Dora Maar (played byJulianne Moore ),Marie-Thérèse Walter (played bySusannah Harker ), andJacqueline Roque (played byDiane Venora ).External links
* [http://movies.warnerbros.com/picasso/index.html Official Site]
* [http://www.merchantivory.com/picasso.html Merchant Ivory Productions]
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