Surviving Picasso and Surviving

By Samuel Gillis

Have you viewed the movie about Pablo Picasso?

Director: James Ivory

Writers: Arianna Huffington (book) (as Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington) , Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (screenplay)

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Natascha McElhone, Julianne Moore

The passionate Merchant-Ivory drama tells the story of Francoise Gilot, the only lover of Pablo Picasso who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty and move on with her life.

More information can be found at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117791/

Made September 20^th 1996

Image provided by: http://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-with-book-1932

It was a dark time for me as an artist in 1996. Thinking my creative life was over, not wanting to continue and loss of any hope for any real existence was unlikely. Then not expected I cleansed my system of alcohol and drugs, this alone was a miracle and a great success for me inner being. The abuse to my mind, body and soul lasted from fourteen until twenty-two. There was not a day that went by where I was not high. A dark and lonely time where all was lost, I had a lapse in reality and fell into depression that lasted for two years. One day during my self-healing time, two years after I cut out alcohol and drugs, I somehow stumbled onto a movie about Picasso called Surviving Picasso. Being the couch potato I had become, my self worth was low and thought I had no chance of being an artist, let alone have any real purpose. This movie opened my creative eyes and I picked up the brush and started to create not knowing where it would lead.

This movie about Picasso had a lot of meaning to me. The way Picasso handled people, clients, dealers and women in his life I don’t agree with. He is still one of the artists I continue to come back to for inspiration. The movie took a snippet of his life and made it come to life thanks to the actors like Anthony Hopkins, Natascha McElhone and supporting cast and crew. My goal is to beat the quantity of art Picasso has created. I am well on my way to surpassing his accomplishment of completed works of art.