Surviving Picasso

Surviving Picasso is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by James Ivory and starring Anthony Hopkins as the famous painter Pablo Picasso. It was produced by Ismail Merchant and David L. Wolper. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay was loosely based on the 1988 biography Picasso: Creator and Destroyer by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. It was a box-office bomb, grossing $2 million at the box office against a budget of $16 million.

Plot
The young Françoise Gilot meets Picasso in Nazi-occupied Paris, 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.

In addition to Françoise, the film depicts several of the women who were important in Picasso's life, such as Olga Khokhlova, Dora Maar, Marie-Thérèse Walter, and Jacqueline Roque.

Cast

 * Anthony Hopkins as Pablo Picasso
 * Natascha McElhone as Françoise Gilot
 * Julianne Moore as Dora Maar
 * Joss Ackland as Henri Matisse
 * Dennis Boutsikaris as Kootz
 * Peter Eyre as Sabartes
 * Peter Gerety as Marcel
 * Susannah Harker as Marie-Thérèse Walter
 * Jane Lapotaire as Olga Khokhlova
 * Joseph Maher as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
 * Bob Peck as Françoise's Father
 * Joan Plowright as Françoise's Grandmother
 * Diane Venora as Jacqueline Roque
 * Dominic West as Paulo Picasso
 * Laura Aikman as Maya Widmaier-Picasso

Production
The film was shot in Paris and southern France.

Box office
In the United States and Canada, Picasso grossed $2 million at the box office, against a budget of $16 million.