A lukewarm animated flick
Antonio Banderas plays Malaga homeboy Pablo Picasso in season 2 of Genius. By
The lives of the two most famous men from Malaga in Spain, artist Pablo Picasso and movie star Antonio Banderas, converge in a dazzling TV series starting today with Banderas playing the title role of his childhood icon. In his 20s and 30s, Banderas had the chance to portray Picasso but only at 57 years old, after a heart attack, did he feel the time was right. Genius: Picasso marks Banderas’s debut in a major TV series, whose first season Genius: Einstein got 10 Emmy nominations.
Picasso’s revolutionary approach to art and unorthodox relationships with women are interpreted in the series with an artistic freedom, even melodrama, which feels true to the subject.
His trajectory as a trailblazer, who cocreated Cubism and shaped 20th-century art, is captured through the eyes of his contemporaries, in scenes shot in dramatic shafts of light and dark.
Picasso rebelled against rules in 80 years of painting incessantly, experimenting with everything from surrealism to expressionism.
His tumultuous love life also defied convention and is splashed across the episodes with abandon, almost eclipsing the portrayal of the prodigy who had a colossal impact on modern art.
“Is that his mistress?” asks one woman in a scene. “One of them,” Picasso’s friend replies. “How many are there?” she asks. “How many women has he painted?” he responds.
Banderas says he was moved by
Picasso’s sometimes “harsh” relationships with his lovers and he doesn’t want to be like that. “I think he was in love with all of them. But how can you do that? How can you live with all of this array of women?” asks the sensual actor. “You can judge it in terms of morality, but I still save him.”
Picasso’s muses were women, and when the flame burnt bright he painted and adored them. When another striking woman caught his eye, he escaped from the current lover to pursue that spark.
One scene shows a clash between two lovers when he refuses to choose between them and says: “You fight it out.” Picasso called this one of his “choicest memories”.
Samantha Colley, who portrays French photographer and painter Dora Maar, says of the brawl scene that the women decided not to use the stunt doubles. “And then we end in this kind of tableau where Dora has her hands up, which I think Picasso then painted into the Guernica.”
Banderas says Picasso treated life as art 24 hours a day and “always behaved like a kid, and kids can be really cruel”.
The younger Picasso, acted magnetically by Alex Rich, worked with Banderas to make sure they synchronised the way they talked and moved to be authentic. They are a seamless match.
Each of the 10 episodes features both the young and old incarnations of the artist, switching between time periods.
Banderas spent two to five hours a day being transformed into the older Picasso with makeup, prosthetics and costumes.
He discovered that the artist walked with open feet while watching rare footage. “When I did a scene, and that kind of walking, my whole body went into Picasso.”
His immersion into Picasso’s character is absolute. Fans of the legendary artist, Banderas or modern history are sure to be absorbed by the imaginative force of fact and fiction in this series of Genius.
Genius: Picasso airs on National Geographic on Sunday with a double billing at 8pm