The Artist is an American comedy film directed by Screen International's "Stars of the Future" Jesse Lawrence. It tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker and two starving artist whose lives cross paths when the artists takes a Picasso that the broker stole from MOMA... and the broker, MOMA, the FBI and a hired assassin all want the painting back. The storyline is a modern take on Mark Twain's classic 19th-century novel The Prince and the Pauper. It also bears a resemblance to another of Mark Twain's stories, The Million Pound Bank Note.