Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque's restless Cubist paintings developed in tandem from many sources, especially African and other “primitive” art as well as the new sense of motion engendered by faster forms of transportation and the technological wonder of an age when men learned to fly. And then there was the influence of the nascent medium of motion pictures, the topic of the documentary Picasso and Braque go to the Movies (out on DVD).
Directed by Arne Glimcher (The Mambo Kings) and produced by Martin Scorsese, who provides his usual lucid commentary on film history, the film investigates Picasso and Braque's love of movies and speculates on how filmgoing changed their way of seeing. Some of the artists and historians may be overstating the case, but their words and accompanying images shed light on the environment from which Cubism emerged. Certainly the fearless sense of cutting across space and time and the juxtapositions of film editing bear resemblance to the motion and collage of early Modern art. But were the muted colors of many Cubist paintings really the result of hours spent in darkened cinemas? Well, as one of the painters interviewed for the film puts it, Picasso brought the dark hues of Spanish art with him to Paris.
