Surviving Picasso

Synopsis: In 1943, a young painter, Françoise Gilot (1921- ) meets Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), already the most celebrated artist in the world. For the next ten years, she is his mistress, bears him two children, is his muse, and paints within his element. She also learns slowly about the other women who have been or still are in his life: Dora Maar, Marie- Thérèse (whose daughter is Picasso's), and Olga Koklowa, each of whom seems deeply scarred by their life with Picasso. Gilot's response is to bring each into her relationship with Picasso. How does one survive Picasso? She keeps painting, and she keeps her good humor and her independence. When the time comes, she has the strength to leave.
Director(s): James Ivory
Production: Warner Home Video
 
IMDB:
6.4
Metacritic:
55
Rotten Tomatoes:
33%
R
Year:
1996
125 min
328 Views


1

Good morning.

Good morning.

Please.

Um...

Let's see.

Here.

Cezanne.

A masterpiece.

You like that?

No.

No?

Pointillist.

Uh, what? What?

Pointillist.

My version of it.

"Pointillist."

Pointillist.

Mmm?

They are your parents?

No.

No.

Why, uh, do you

paint like this?

Huh?

Uh, why do you paint like this?

Well...

Oh, I'm sorry. That's not mine.

That's, uh, my friend

braque, George braque.

It's hard to tell the

difference sometimes.

It's all so long ago.

What is it called?

Guitar, bow tie,

and fruit bowl.

There's the bow tie...

Good.

But, uh, where

is the fruit bowl?

Ah ha-ha.

There.

Good.

Ah.

It is all, uh, fantasy?

All fantasy from up here.

This is also by braque.

Matisse, Henri Matisse.

Officer:
Matisse.

Uh-huh.

This...

Officer:
What is the value

you would put on all this?

It's hard to say.

Unfortunately, nobody wants to

pay me much for any of this.

Why don't you make me

a reasonable offer?

Oh...

My wife would have

something to say to me

if I brought home

a woman like that

to hang on our wall.

Ha ha ha.

What about you?

No, I think not. No.

Man:
Good evening, sir.

Good evening.

Here we are again.

Dora.

Pierre.

My friends.

Friends? Who are they, huh?

They admire you very much.

Of course they do.

Good.

Picasso:
Ah.

Good. Yes.

Oh.

Bon soir.

Great pleasure.

Bon soir.

My dear.

Bon soir.

Ahh.

Bosches.

I showed them everything.

Matisse...

Here, boy.

...rousseau,

braque, everything.

I showed them some early

drafts of guernica.

Last year they ransacked

my house,

and they walked off with my linen

and left my paintings behind.

How insulting.

Preferring my towels and

my sheets to my paintings.

Kazbec! No!

No, no! Bad boy!

How many times

do you have to be told?

You know very well

what your doctor said.

Begging? I'm ashamed.

Who are your friends, Pierre?

Francoise. Genevieve.

What do you do?

I'm a painter.

Painter? Like me. And you?

Painter.

Picasso:
Share the same studio?

Who's your favorite painter?

Van gogh.

Van gogh? Yeah, he's all right.

Yours?

I don't know.

Who are your friends?

Francoise and Genevieve.

They're painters.

What do they paint...

Besides their fingernails?

He's going through

his usual routine.

"Oh, so you're painters.

"I'm a painter, too.

"Come to my studio,

I'd like to show you my work.

"I know your face so well.

I painted it before

you were even born."

You must come to my studio sometime.

I'll show you around.

You know, I've painted your

face before you were born.

No one stops you on the street

and says you're a Picasso?

No? Never?

We have an appointment

to see monsieur Picasso.

He told us to come.

To see his work.

Man:
"That spread over a

sky dripping with herring,

"fished out of

a ploughed-over ocean,

broiling under a myriad sun."

Woman:
"Torso and testicle,

"where's the party you promised

"with fiery men

of eternal erections

"rising out of flaming bushes

"to heat up our cold caves?

"At least get the soup,

so I can warm my feet

in its noodles."

Second man:
"My aunt had a

cat that swallowed a parrot

and cried out all day long in a

voice as dulcet as yours..."

"Food, food, food!"

"Food! Food!"

"Food!"

"Food! Food!"

Good. On.

"Lie down, my sweet

turtle, and"... lie down.

"And let me walk

your starry planet

with my 6-toed feet

of pliant rubber."

"We're respectable,

licensed whores,

"so hold your filthy tongue

and supply us with

your sturdier organ."

"At your service, madame."

"They leap over a tub in which

sea urchins are boiling

in an orgasm

of frenetic excitement."

Ah!

"Bubbling water

scalds the lovers..."

Kind of you to spare me

the time.

Are you cold?

Hmm?

The other night the water

froze in the fish bowl,

so my goldfish is dead.

Imagine, a cold-blooded

creature like a fish

couldn't survive the arctic

climate of my apartment.

Come, let me show you around.

My print room.

This is where I print

my engravings.

You're now in the labyrinth

of the minotaur.

Aren't you afraid

you'll never get out?

No?

You must know that

the minotaur perishes

if he doesn't devour at least

2 young maidens a day.

That's my press.

Help me.

Mmm?

That's good.

So, you're painters?

Who is your teacher?

Genevieve is visiting

from montpellier

where she's a pupil of maillol.

Maillol.

And who is your teacher?

I don't have one,

but I'm very much a painter.

Picasso:
Really?

Maillol is a very good

teacher for you.

When do you go back

to montpellier?

The day after tomorrow.

Oh, so soon?

You'll be lonely

when she's gone.

No.

Come and see me.

But come because you like me...

Not as if you're visiting

the holy shrine of Fatima,

all right?

Let's go. He's not going

to show us any paintings.

Of course he will.

Why else did he invite us?

Don't pretend to be so naive.

Francoise:
After Genevieve

left for montpellier,

I didn't return to Picasso's

studio for several weeks.

I deliberately

held myself back,

perhaps because I sensed that if I

let myself come too close to him,

my whole life

would be totally changed.

It was what happened to everyone

whose life was touched by his.

No one could

ever remain the same.

They come once a week

to see his papers.

Once a week I tell them, let alone

his parents and his grandparents,

even Picasso's great-grandparents

are not Jewish.

30 for the groceries.

They're thieves.

How much was the wine?

Must be German.

Just change the wine merchants.

You said to bring her straight

in whenever she comes.

Well, she's come.

Ah!

Good afternoon.

But the poor girl is all wet.

Look at this, sabartes.

Her hair is all wet.

Ines, get me a towel.

I must dry it for her.

Soaking wet. Huh.

I had a feeling when I woke up

that you would come today.

It may even have been a dream.

Poor girl comes here

drenched to the skin

and in mortal danger

of catching pneumonia,

the least we can do

is dry her hair for her.

Come with me.

I'll do it for you.

This is Ines.

Hello.

Hello.

Here. Sit down.

You could even have a bath.

Look. Hot water.

No, don't! It's too hot.

How many places in Paris today

where there's hot water?

So come have a bath any time.

Let's see how good I am

at drying you off.

Good?

Better?

You do it.

Hmm.

Well?

Well, what?

You're not angry with me?

No.

If you don't even push me away,

I might get the idea I could

do anything at all with you.

If you were a properly

brought-up young lady,

you would feel insulted.

Here I am, an artist

of some reputation,

and you're an innocent

young girl come to visit,

and what do I do?

I take advantage of you.

I insult you.

I don't feel insulted.

Mmm.

Would you let me do it again?

If... if you like.

No.

No, under such conditions...

What pleasure is there

in seducing anyone?

Oh, is that what's happening?

You're seducing me?

You think you're very

sophisticated, don't you?

But I tell you

you don't know anything.

What you looking at?

Nothing.

Yes, well...

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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, (7 May 1927 – 3 April 2013) was a German-born British and American Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. She is perhaps best known for her long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant. After moving to India in 1951, she married Cyrus S. H. Jhabvala, an Indian-Parsi architect. The couple lived in New Delhi and had three daughters. Jhabvala began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a CBE in 1998 and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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