Review: ‘Genius’ Paints Picasso by the Numbers

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/arts/television/genius-picasso-review.html

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In its first season, “Genius” introduced Albert Einstein hard at work with his secretary, who yelled “Oh God, oh God” as the great physicist pinned her against a blackboard. Season 2 begins Tuesday with the agonized cries of Pablo Picasso’s mother as she gives birth to the great artist. The background music of male genius, apparently, is female screaming.

The Einstein season of “Genius” drew more attention than anyone expected for a costume drama on the National Geographic Channel, including 10 Emmy nominations. The production values were surprisingly high and Geoffrey Rush was, not surprisingly, fun to watch as the older Einstein. Viewers might have also found current resonance in its portrayals of the rise of German nationalism, attacks on science, American travel restrictions and Einstein’s early dismissals of Hitler.

The most salient feature of “Genius,” however, is its adherence to Hollywood tradition in the depiction of great artists and thinkers, which is to say that it’s about everything but genius.

It’s often about sex, which makes Picasso, with his multifarious, overlapping wives and lovers, a perfect subject. It also continues to be about Nazis, a shared experience for the contemporaneous Picasso and Einstein (born two years apart).

And over all it’s about turning the life of the mind into conventional angry-young-man melodrama, with all the clichés that entails. The early episodes of Season 2 (four of 10 were available) flog the theme of freedom, with the struggling young Picasso (Alex Rich) forced to mouth platitudes such as “I want to be free to paint what I like” and the established Picasso (Antonio Banderas) telling a gardener not to cut back the roses, which need to grow free.

The story toggles back and forth in time, juxtaposing scenes of the headstrong student and the comfortable art-world star to make points about fame and complacency. Dates and locations are put onscreen to help us navigate and to signal historical scrupulousness. The sense of veracity is reinforced by the inclusion of famous biographical anecdotes, though the execution sometimes betrays the production’s tinselly soul.

For instance, it’s on the record that Picasso’s lovers Dora Maar and Marie-Thérèse Walter had a wrestling match in his studio while he was painting “Guernica.” “Genius” includes that scene, naturally, but adds its own detail: The altercation helps Picasso overcome a creative block and gleefully set to work on the gigantic painting. It may be news to scholars that one of art’s greatest testaments to the horror of war was inspired, in part, by the excitement of being fought over by a pair of jealous women.

If you don’t mind its superficialities, “Genius” can be enjoyed for its surface attributes, including Mr. Banderas’s impressive makeup and expectedly seductive performance. (If he suffers in comparison to Mr. Rush, it’s because the show’s conception of Einstein, focused less on seduction, was more interesting.)

The semi-repertory casting means the welcome return of the arresting British actress Samantha Colley, this time as Maar. And Season 2 has the considerable visual advantage of taking place in Spain and France, with gorgeous locations in and around Málaga, Barcelona and Paris.

“Genius” has already been renewed for a third season, and the choice of Mary Shelley as its next subject will require the rethinking of some of the great-man clichés and trivialities the show has banked on until now. Perhaps not too much rethinking, however — the Season 3 news release finds room to note that Shelley lost her virginity at her mother’s graveside.

In the meantime, if you’d like some genuine insight into how Picasso did what he did, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s great 1956 documentary “Le Mystère Picasso” is streaming at Fandor (also available through Amazon Prime). Picasso paints and repaints, seemingly on the movie screen, a process more thrilling to watch than any re-enactment. There’s no substitute for the genius him- or herself.