F for Fake

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?

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.

There is so much zest, wit, fun, cheek, energy in this supremely entertaining film, that it's a crime that Orson Welles never directed another one. It's packed with as many ideas and potential future directions as CITIZEN KANE, but bizarrely hasn't received an nth of that classic's acclaim. Indeed only Godard's later documentaries seem to be at all influenced by this delightful fancy.

The film dazzles on so many levels. As a story about five interesting characters - two art forgers, a charlatan biographer, Howard Hughes (famous recluse, and disseminator of misleading information and doubles), and the great Orsino himself, myth-maker and magician. Their stories, fascinating in themselves, mingle, juxtapose and clash, to provide a complex essay on the nature of art, the links between illusion, life, forgery and artifice.

Elmyr is a master forger whose 'works' appear in many galleries. His story makes us ask: what is art? What is it about art that moves us - the thing itself, or its perceived value? In an age of mechanical reproduction, can authenticity survive, is it a viable (or even desirable) option? Does any of this actually matter? Maybe because everything in a post-modern culture is reproduced, the aura of the original work of art (pace Benjamin) becomes even more powerful. Or maybe a proliferation of fakes, doubles, illusions asks us to profoundly question received truths, official versions, 'authorities', who would make us believe in repressive wholes and canons, stories that tell one experience, and deny many others. Art itself is a forgery, of nature or the imagination - the forger is little different from an interpreter (e.g. Welles and Shakespeare): he cannot help stamping his own personality on the work.

These questions are very complex, and cannot be grasped in one viewing. The film's form is bewildering and exhilirating. Welles promises us, in this tale of fakery, truth for an hour, but this is a truth we must make out for ourselves. Breathless narration; visual puns; the weaving of documentary footage, stills, reconstructions, other films; tireless, confusing editing; rapid subject changes; all manage to disrupt and complicate an essentially straightforward story.

Welles the narrator is an absolute delight, a jovial trickster, with his gorgeous hearty laugh, games, aphorisms, comments, allusions; and yet behind it all is an extraordinarily depressing account of his own career, the perception of failure and broken promises, and the onset of mortality.

The last 20 minutes is an extraordinary coup de cinema, as well as a masterpiece of storytelling. The Legrand music is playful and energetic, before finally slowing down for a very melancholy climax. This film is a remarkable one-off: frustrating, irritating, stimulating, astonishing, hilarious. It always pulls the rug from under your feet, and you gleefully await your next tumble. Only Bunuel began and ended his career with the same passion and genius, the same desire to demand the most from his audiences, refusing to rest on his considerable laurels. Absolutely wonderful.

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.

Of the Orson Welles films I have seen, this has to be the most fun to watch. "F for Fake" is about an art forgerer and his biographer who was a forgerer himself. (He faked a biography about Howard Hughes.) What's great about the film is that Welles constantly keeps you guessing at what's real and what's fake and why at all that might be important. I also give Welles credit for pulling the greatest plot twist I have ever not seen coming. And this is a documentary! There's not supposed to be a plot, is there? (wink, wink) Giving the surprise away would ruin all of the fun. What I can say is that you should find this somewhat rare film and watch it with a clock close by.