PICASSO "Pure and delightful enchantment"   THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO will play three times this week at the Charles. Don't miss these rare screenings of Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic film. SHOWTIMES Saturday, March 27 - Noon; Monday, March 29 - 7 PM; Thursday, April 1 - 9 PM. 1956 Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Pablo Picasso. In French with English subtitles. 78 m. "One of the most exciting and joyful movies ever made!" (Pauline Kael) "Pure and delightful enchantment -- a feast for the eyes. A film anyone interested in art or the creative process should see." (Raymond J. Steiner, Art Times) "Amazing. 'Picasso' may be the most original art documentary ever made." (Newsweek) "Rare, precious and irreplaceable. This is an unparalleled opportunity to watch one of the world’s most creative minds -- the Twentieth Century equivalent of watching Michelangelo transform the Sistine chapel." (Catharine Rambeau, Detroit Free Press) Like a matador confronting a bull, the artist approaches his easel, his eyes blazing. As he wields his brush, we see through the canvas as the artwork unfolds, erupts, dances into being before our eyes. Pablo Picasso, the most influential artist of the twentieth century, is making a painting, and Henri-Georges Clouzot, the famous French director (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique), is making a movie. In 1955, Clouzot joined forces with his friend Picasso to make an entirely new kind of art film -- a film that could capture the moment and the mystery of creativity. Together, they devised an innovative technique -- the filmmaker placed his camera behind a semi-transparent surface on which the artist drew with special inks that bled through. Clouzot thus captured a perfect reverse image of Picasso's brushstrokes and the motion picture screen itself becomes the artist’s canvas. Here, the master creates, and sometimes obliterates, 20 works (most of them, in fact, destroyed after the shoot), ranging from playful black-and-white sketches to Cinemascope color murals -- artworks which evolve in minutes through the magic of stop-motion animation. Unavailable for more than a decade, The Mystery of Picasso is exhilarating, mesmerizing, enchanting and unforgettable. It is simply one of the greatest documentaries on art ever made. The French government agreed -- in 1984 it declared the film a national treasure. Watch Trailer Next Week: CHILDREN'S MATINEE: THE YEARLING (1946) Saturday, April 3 - Noon; Ben Russell's LET EACH ONE GO WHERE HE MAY (2009) Monday, April 5 - 7 PM; and A special appearance by filmmaker Phil Solomon (Thursday, April 8 - 9 PM)