In a 1935 issue of Cahiers d'Art, writer Christian Zervos paraphrases a conversation he had with Pablo Picasso, about possible ways to record the creation of a new painting: "It would be very interesting to record photographically," Picasso said, "not the stages of a painting, but its metamorphoses. One would see perhaps by what course a mind finds its way towards the crystallization of its dream. But what is really very curious is to see that the picture does not change basically, that the initial vision remains almost intact in spite of appearances."

Twenty years later, Henri-Georges Clouzot accomplished just what Picasso had envisioned when he directed The Mystery of Picasso (1956), a dream-like documentary in which the painter creates a series of works that exist only on film - most of the paintings were destroyed when shooting ended. Clouzot, who was 12 years old when he first met Picasso, had long discussed the possibility of making a film with his old friend, but neither man could determine how to shoot it in a way that would illustrate the genuine magic of artistic creation. Clouzot was especially concerned that art documentaries had a tendency to direct the viewer's attention to specific details, rather than letting him or her observe a painting as a whole. "To dismantle a work of art into detached pieces," Clouzot said, "to shake these fragments about in a bag, pull them out again and fit them together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, can only be compared to butchery, or conjuring tricks."

Years later, Picasso stumbled upon the solution himself, when he received a promotional bottle of ink from an American company. He noticed that the ink bled through the canvas he was working on, thus leaving a reverse image on the other side. He quickly realized that a camera could be mounted behind the canvas, and a film could be made of a painting as it unfolds, without the interruption of the artist standing in front of the image. After filming began, Clouzot also devised a way to photograph an oil painting by having Picasso add a single stroke at a time, then back away so the camera could record it. Then, the multiple strokes were "connected" through an intricate series of dissolves. The results are startling.

Picasso, Clouzot, and a small camera crew converged at Studios de la Victorine in Nice, during the summer of 1955. Clouzot originally intended to make a 10-minute short of Picasso at work. But he and the crew were so awe-struck by the results of their experiment, Clouzot approached George Lourau of Filmsonor, one of the more powerful production companies in all of France, for additional funding. After a little convincing, he had enough money to make what was, almost by definition, a feature-length avant-garde film.

Clouzot received a great deal of help from his cinematographer, Claude Renoir, who was the nephew of director Jean Renoir. Picasso, however, saw Claude from another perspective, at one point calling him "the grandson of Auguste Renoir." Renoir was responsible for shooting The Mystery of Picasso in black & white, with only the paintings themselves bursting into full color. Through this process, Clouzot wished to convey the sense that the world is in black & white, while painting opens us up to a vast palette of beauty.

Clouzot always drove his crews and actors especially hard during filming, and The Mystery of Picasso was no exception. Picasso, who preferred to work late at night, when inspiration usually struck, eventually grew used to working in fits and starts, between camera and lighting adjustments. He did, however, strip down to just a pair of shorts in an attempt to deal with the boiling overhead lamps. By all accounts, the master's inspiration and commitment only grew as shooting continued. Eventually, such luminaries as Jean Cocteau, Jacques Prevert, and Luis Bunuel began dropping by the set to see what the excitement was about.

The Mystery of Picasso, which won the Prix du Jury at the Cannes film festival, was a sizable hit around the world. Francois Truffaut, who was a critic for Cahiers du Cinema at the time, perhaps put it best when he wrote, "The film is about poetry and we feel overwhelmed by it...A work by Picasso created before our very eyes! That is a miracle that, if need be, would justify the greatness of cinema."

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Producer: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Music: Georges Auric
Cinematography: Claude Renoir
Editing: Henri Colpi
Sound: Joseph de Bretagne
Cast: Pablo Picasso (Himself).
B&W/C-78m.

by Paul Tatara