Pablo Picasso and a few other important artists of the 20th century (Constantin Brancusi is another example) had a love affair mixed with fascination with the photographic and film cameras. They recognized them as a means of artistic expression and not to a lesser extent as communication medias through which they could expand their fame in life and could document for posterity their artistic processes and the way they lived. These artists opened the doors of their studios and homes to photographers and filmmakers inviting them to photograph and film freely the ambience in which they lived and worked. Sometimes they picked the cameras themselves to explore new artistic genres. ‘Le mystere Picasso‘, which I saw as part of the Clouzot retrospective at the local cinematheque, is one of the significant art documentaries that originated from these collaborations.
In Clouzot‘s filmography, this documentary finds its place in-between two of his most famous films – ‘Diabolique‘ and ‘Les espions‘. Clouzot was at the peak of his popularity and success. The whole team is actually carefully selected, with Claude Renoir as a cameraman and director of photography and Henri Colpi in charge of editing. The result is a film that itself is a work of art.
At the beginning of the film, Clouzot makes a promise. He will give us a unique opportunity to enter the mind of a great artist while he realizes his creations. The promise, I feel, is only partially respected. We are, indeed, witnesses to Picasso’s creative process, but the understanding of what happens in the mind (and soul) of the artist is left to the spectator. In the film Picasso speaks few words and when he does they are addressed to Clouzot and his team, and not to the spectators. And he does right, I think, by letting his lines and colors talk. Adopting a technique already used in 1949 by the Belgian director Paul Haesaerts in the documentary ‘Bezoek aan Picasso‘, Clouzot places the camera on the opposite side of a white translucent glass surface on which Picasso draws, paints, applies collages, wipes, paints over, etc. . until he stops and declares ‘this is ready’. Successive layers combine styles and techniques. Spontaneous creation or conception in advance? How does the artist decide when the work is done? These are not explained to us and we have to draw our own conclusions. Most of the works featured in the film (about 20 in number) were destroyed after filming. They only exist in the movie, combined with the music and the editing that accelerates or stops during the creative process, as decided by the director. Each of the sequences is work of art by itself, and together they create one of the most original art documentaries in the history of cinema.