Verdades e Mentiras

F For Fake is Orson Welles having a lot of fun. But it is also an example of the power of effective editing – simply put, this is some of the most impressive technical cutting, swiping, panning, scanning, freeze-framing and elaborating ever put on film. It moves quicker than any other Welles film, and in fact according to the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in his excellent Criterion Collection essay, Welles had purposely tried to separate this from his typical directorial style. The result is a film showcasing the limitless possibilities of passionate film-making – Welles was clearly in love with his material, and it shows in every frame. An entire year was allegedly spent just editing this film, and the time was well spent.

The rest of the film is just as unique – nothing like this has been done before or since. Welles called it a "new" type of movie-making: a mixture of documentary and essay. It opens with Welles performing a simple magic trick; the camera is all around him, barely allowing audiences any time to follow what's happening. Soon Welles begins to narrate the movie, but (and this is what really separates it from most documentaries) there is a decidedly theatrical quality to the proceedings. Welles chronicles the true story of the famous art forger Elmyr de Hory (as well as his official biographer and future fraud, Clifford Irving, who penned the Howard Hughes autobiography-that-wasn't-really-an-autobiography), but it doesn't feel like a documentary at all.

If you do not share Welles' passion for the subject of fraud and deception (he even recaps his own infamous War of the Worlds broadcast which nearly cost him his job at RKO), this may be a bit tiring to sit through. As one reviewer noted, it's Welles at his most personal, and this is both good and bad – good because Welles is so gleeful and joyous that it's totally infectious and, if you let yourself, it's easy to be caught up in the free flow of the film. But the bad part of this is that Welles allows himself to dabble in vices – he devotes the opening credits to shots of his mistress Oja Kodar and her back-side as she walks around a Mediterranean city catching the glimpses of men everywhere. And the finale – in which Welles tells an elaborate story about Kodar – turns into a fun and well-edited - but extremely overlong – verbal game between Welles and Kodar, preceded by an even more tiring sequence of Kodar once again walking around in provocative clothing, eventually shedding them and being captured on film in the nude by Welles for an extended length of time.

And, also, as another commentator of the film has claimed, this is a movie riddled with 1970s film-making techniques – many of which seem outdated today.

Yet, despite its flaws, a lot of them work to the film's advantage in the long run. The freeze-frames may be outdated but they help the film to develop a very distinct style which, in turn, enhances the amazing editing job.

If not for anything else, see F For Fake simply because it contains some of the best editing you'll ever see in your life. If you are a fan of Welles or share his love for the topic of deception, you'll find this to be a very enjoyable and fun little detour. It was Welles' last true finished film before his death and it seems somewhat fitting that he'd sign his departure with a project such as this: one crafted from deep passion and filled with joy and wit and wonder.

F is for Fake (1973)

Like many, I'm an Orson Welles fan. Not just his films (the best of them are among the best ever made) but also the man, for his rebellious side and his persistence. And his flaws, undermining his own best purposes.

But this movie struck me as affected, overly long, baroquely complicated, and finally just off-putting. Yes, it's incredibly well edited, and for that, if that's your thing, you should see it. But to me editing is part of something larger, and this larger thing is troubled.

I saw no reason to really care about the subjects here. The deliberate confusions (borne from the editing, in part) are half art and half avoidance, in a way. The documentary truth about the subjects, the supposed subjects, a French painter of forgeries and a writer about Howard Hughes and a forged check, is not really the goal. Nor is it possible. So what we have instead is the ride, the process of talking about these various man and their rich compatriots from all kinds of colorful places.

There is a limited range of footage at use here, most of it home-style 8mm color stock of the two or three main participants (call them suspects, call them actors, call them fakes) which was shot by a different filmmaker and turned over to Welles. This is interspersed with high quality footage of the narrator, Mr. Welles, in his deep voice and characteristic hat. And there is a little additional footage, including the dubiously connected opening scenes where Welles's own young attractive partner parades in a mini-skirt on a public street, only later to comment that such an act came out of her "feminism."

Okay. Maybe this is all part of the lie that gets incorporated as the truth. When you play games with truth and lies some interesting conflicts are intended. But for me, this beginning and the long end where a fictional series of paintings has been made by Picasso (not actually) of this same Welles companion (whose name is Oja Kodar) is pure voyeurism on the part of the director. Why he wanted to share his woman publicly I couldn't say (but can guess), but in fact the filming at these points takes on a very different sensibility.

In style, the rest of the movie strikes me as stunted, though endlessly interesting because of its constant cutting and jumping from one scene and format to another. In content it all seemed circuitous for effect without the necessary thrill of caring. The result avoids clichés beautifully, which is good (in fact, what the film has most of all, in a Welles way, is originality). But it also ends up being at times more style than effect. That is, the effects, which are so evident, are superficial.

Which leaves very little. Without a compelling subject and a convincing formal presentation, what is there?

So what about the huge reputation this movie has? Let's assume it's more than just Welles worship. I think for one it has anticipated the growing public interest in art forgery. It also creates a fascinating zone where a documentary isn't about establishing the truth, and so is a kind of third category--the fiction film using found footage. (To some extent this is the core of it--Welles has used existing footage and led our reading of it to create his own subjective "truth" of it.) There are aspects here all over the place. Aspects and aspects of aspects. For this, there is a formal invention that might have been enough when I was younger. Now, for whatever reason, it feels self-indulgent and, like the first scene in the movie, pure deception.

Maybe that's the point.

Orson Welles's final completed movie deals with fakery, and in particular with two of the most notorious forgers of the twentieth century. "F is for Fakes" (also called "F for Fake") is not really a movie or documentary as much as a look at how we interpret art, and what we WANT to interpret about anything that is essentially fake. Welles proudly calls himself a charlatan while performing magic tricks and coming up with all sorts of ways to play with the audience. I personally had never heard of Elmyr de Hory until watching this, but Welles turns him into a very interesting person.

All in all, the director known as a boy genius had a fine end to his career. Welles created a truly mind-bending look at the concept of art. The fact that the movie came out around the time that Clifford Irving's scandal broke (he wrote a forged biography of Howard Hughes) certainly adds to the documentary's quality. Can there truly be any more definite reality left in the world?

Orson Welles completely changed the face of film with "Citizen Kane." It was precisely right to spawn the revolution in narrative layering. For those who don't know, the Kane experiment was initiated not by Welles but Mankiewicz. But it was Welles who expanded and pulled off the success of managing so many types of narrative layers. (The number and type would be later exceeded by "Annie Hall," but no one would consider it a triggering idea by then.) I don't think Kane was his best film, but it certainly was his most influential, and as such it haunted him all his life. Especially haunting were all the types of layers he discovered after Kane. As he only had that one shot at greatness, it would have been great if he could go back and remake it, adding the new ideas. This project is the next best thing. But to see its beauty, you have to know two things: first that the layers that Kane is missing and that many filmmakers used since is the notion of annotative narrative layers. Second, you should know that several of his "lost" projects exploit just this notion, especially "Other Side of the Wind." Here's the setup in this fake documentary about fakery: You have the layer of Kane, which is based on Hearst. (A story about a storyman.) Now Welles adds the (completely bogus) layer that Kane was to be originally about Howard Hughes, a more intrinsically layered character. (This remark, incidentally, is what triggered Scorcese's interest.) Then to Welles' bogus movie about Hughes' life (itself a bogus notion) he adds another layer: Irving's bogus story about Hughes' life. But he doesn't stop there. Indeed, he goes further into another layer: an Irving story (presumably _not_ bogus) about an artist (Elmyr) who produced bogus artworks, including bogus Picassos. The first two thirds of the project are concerned with getting all these plates spinning at the same time. Some very clever editing is used to merge the layers, even though nearly all the camera-work is mundane. The final third takes all these and weaves another layer that intersperses. It begins with the image of a lovely woman to whom he introduced us in the very beginning. It was a seemingly inexplicable introduction: candid shots of men on the street ogling her vampish walk. This woman is Oja Kodar (aka Olga Palinkas), Welles' lover, companion and screen writing collaborator on all his folded projects — all lost except this one. Around this woman, Welles conflates every layer you have seen before into a story about her seducing Picasso into painting 22 pictures of her, presumably nude, of which he makes her a gift. She subsequently sells Picassos which turn out to have been produced by her grandfather, Elmyr who we saw earlier. In the earlier shots, we actually see him produce bogus paintings which are then burned. But in Welles' confabulation, the originals are burned and the fakes sold. (You should know that in the lore of folded narrative (which goes through cabala to Finnigans Wake), there are exactly 22 folds you can make and no more.) Things are tied together with Orson admitting to being a fake, and the story a fake, but perhaps necessary in the name of art? No one should see "Citizen Kane" without also seeing this annotation. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The magnificent Orson takes us on a whimsical tour of fakery that involves some real fakery, some fake fakery, some fake reality, and... You get the idea.

The point seems to be that all of life is an illusion. The question becomes how much illusion can we buy and how much becomes offensive. We see what we want to see. We ignore the rest.

Orson is in classic form here, reciting poetry with dramatic flare, theatrically roaming about Europe in a wide-brimmed black hat, black cape, and surrounded by a clowd of cigar smoke. Do we get an insight into the real Orson? Is there a real Orson? Is there any point asking?

Orson tilts his head at a humorous angle and looks at us out of the corner of his eyes -- and we are his willing victims in a delightful hoax. Or is it real?