HOPKINS' FLAWLESS PORTRAYAL BRINGS `PICASSO'S' PASSION TO LIFE.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Writer

It's not every actor in his later years who gets a chance to play a role as rich as that of Pablo Picasso in relation to his women, and Anthony Hopkins certainly makes the most of it.

As the great 20th-century painter whose artistic insight was nearly matched by his faithlessness with his many lovers, Hopkins, in ``Surviving Picasso,'' is full of subtlety and surprise, sly wit and immense charisma.

Not only does he come to resemble the deeply tanned Spaniard to a startling degree, but he persuasively and memorably puts across the personality of a beguiling man who managed to make willing slaves of nearly all who surrounded him.

Add this to his gallery of astonishing portrayals of exceptional men (``Nixon,'' C.S. Lewis in ``Shadowlands,''), one that is nearly sure to bring him repeat notice at Oscar time. Also seen to great advantage is British stage actress Natascha McElhone, who makes her screen debut opposite Hopkins as Francoise Gilot, the young painter who fell in love with him in his 60s but managed to walk away after 10 years and two children.

McElhone, a natural and deeply gifted screen performer, is a great beauty as well as a believable match for her manipulative paramour, and she makes an immediate impression as one who deserves repeat exposure in classy surroundings like these.

The movie, shot entirely in France, was made by producer David Wolper and the Merchant-Ivory team, including screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted the book ``Picasso: Creator and Destroyer,'' by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington.

The screenplay deftly explores the contrast between Picasso's attraction for others and his destruction of them by following his affair with Gilot from the time they meet in 1943, during the German occupation of Paris, to their chummy but wary relationship well after she leaves and he goes on, in his mid-70s, to the next liaison.

The writer is never afraid to reach for a lyric line in conveying the painter's passion: At one point, she has Picasso declare that he is able to work for endless hours because ``when I work I leave my body outside the door, the way Muslims take off their shoes before they enter a mosque.''

At another juncture, he says that to the Spanish, ``The eye is a sexual organ, and to look at a woman is the same as to rape her; the rape of the eye.''

Among the women who reappear in Picasso's life are the ones who directly inspired his ``Weeping Women'' paintings: the artist and intellectual Dora Maar (Julianne Moore) and the simpler Maria-Therese Walter (Susanna Harker) who bore him a daughter and with whom he continued to spend Sundays throughout his years with Gilot.

The always exceptional Moore (Robert Altman's ``Short Cuts,'' Todd Haynes' ``Safe'') is another good reason to turn out for this movie: She is compelling and completely persuasive in this mature and edgy European role. Though her tormented psyche was memorably depicted in Picasso's fragmented likenesses of her, she's nearly always seen here as composed and serene, if brimming with attitude.

Also appealing is the sensual photography by Tony Pierce Roberts, whose Parisian interiors and southern French gardens are as lush and painterly as the subject deserves.

Biographical pictures, past a certain point of interest, all suffer the same fate: We usually know the outcome, and they droop for lack of surprise. This longish but impeccably produced movie also starts to lag after a time, but given the excellent sensibilities involved in every department, it succeeds unusually well.

Interestingly, the filmmakers had to proceed without filming any of Picasso's actual works, which were denied them by his estate. The lesser-known works they commissioned for reproduction stand in quite well, nonetheless.

The facts

The film: ``Surviving Picasso'' (R; nudity, sexuality).

The stars: Anthony Hopkins, Natascha McElhone, Julianne Moore, Susannah Harker, Diane Venora, Joan Plowright.

Behind the scenes: Directed by James Ivory. Written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on the book ``Picasso: Creator and Destroyer,'' by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. Produced by Ishmael Merchant and David L. Wolper. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: Two hours, nine minutes.

Playing: AMC Century 14, Century City.

Our rating: Four stars

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Photo

Photo: Hopkins portrays 20th-century painter Pablo Picassoin ``Surviving Picasso.''