Has anyone heard about or perhaps seen this 2001 documentary with a section on Welles, where Frances Widhoff (would she be the attractive blonde sitting beside Welles in the restaurant in Fake?) tours Welles's former French estate and shares stories of her years working with him?
"Vies"
a.k.a. "Lives"
2001-France
Type: Documentary
Rating: NR
Running Time: 89 Minutes
Starring: Francoise Widhoff, Yves Pouliquen
Directed by: Alain Cavalier
Documentary filmmaker Alain Cavalier captures on videotape the lives of four remarkable men -- three living, one deceased -- in this feature. Noted sculptor Jean-Louis Faure tells the story of his life in the arts as he offers a tour of his apartment and studio, surgeon Yves Pouliquen performs exacting operations on the eyes of seven patients as he speaks of his life with great good humor, and Michel Labelle, a butcher by trade, shares his story as he turns a side of beef into cuts ready for market. Finally, Cavalier and his camera tour a ramshackle French estate that was once home to Orson Welles, as Francoise Widhoff, once the great filmmaker's assistant, shares stories of the ups and downs of her years with Welles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie
It seems as though she worked for Les Films de l’Astrophore. There's an enigmatic quote attributed to her:
F for Fake co-producer Françoise Widhoff once said of Welles, “He had a kind of nostalgia for reality. Glory had killed him.” ???
Has anyone heard of this doc?
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Glenn Anders
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Yes, Tony, I made a point of seeing this documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival, a couple of years ago.
It is a rather sad film because, in the section devoted to her, Francoise Widoff goes back to a little French cottage, where she says she worked with Welles in various capacities for several years. All over the floor are scatterings of memos, notes, food wrappings, etc. Nothing, it seems, has ever been swept up, or really looked at. She comments rather forlornly on what might have been, what was, and what is left of Welles' dreams.
Glenn
It is a rather sad film because, in the section devoted to her, Francoise Widoff goes back to a little French cottage, where she says she worked with Welles in various capacities for several years. All over the floor are scatterings of memos, notes, food wrappings, etc. Nothing, it seems, has ever been swept up, or really looked at. She comments rather forlornly on what might have been, what was, and what is left of Welles' dreams.
Glenn
Glenn: can you tell from her appearance if she was the blonde sitting next to Welles in the restaurant scene in Fake?
Also, the scene you describes sounds similar to the Oja scene in One Man Band where she returns to, I think, the same house, and Welles's papers, sketches, etc. are floating around: quite strange.
Also, the scene you describes sounds similar to the Oja scene in One Man Band where she returns to, I think, the same house, and Welles's papers, sketches, etc. are floating around: quite strange.
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Glenn Anders
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Gordon: Forgive me for neglecting your plug for my Epinion on AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. [Let's see if I can connect Welles to Al Gore: Young man has brilliant career, falters, turns to an idealistic personal project, gains weight -- Yes, By George, I think -- Wait, where are you taking me? Not back to that cell. Tell Mr. Arkadin I'll implicate him no mo --]
Tony: It was too long ago since I saw Alain Cavalier's LIVES to make that identification you want, and when Francoise Widhoff made the documentary LIVES, she was twenty . . . maybe twenty-five years older. I have F FOR FAKE only on Laserdisc, and the machine is on the fritz, so I can't make that comparison either.
But you are on to something, I think, when you bring Oja's pilgrimage into the mix. I believe that Welles, in a very real sense, believed that he could leave a work in progress, come back from a distant land or in another time, possibly years later, and resume where he left off. Certainly, his whole artistic career, possibly much of his personal life, gives evidence of that of childlike trust. He was always juggling projects from the time he was a teenager. It must have hurt him, as when he came back to THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS after months in Rio, to discover his artistic child so fouly murdered. I won't go into his marriage with Rita Hayworth or Paola Mori, the lost rough cuts and rushes, film scripts, DON QUIXOTE, THE DEEP, or THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, etc.
Tonyw: Hadji is expressing, quite reasonably, what we are supposed to think.
We are introduced to Mrs. Clifford Irving in F FOR FAKE, but is it really Mrs. Irving? Or is it always the same Mrs. Irving? And is it not true that Clifford travelled with a couple of women, including the Baroness Nina van Pallandt? Did he not lead others to regard one or more of these women as Mrs. Irving? Could Francois Widhoff been pawned off by Clifford or Welles as an alternate Mrs. Irving?
Both Welles and Clifford evidently liked a practical joke, and is that not the subject of F FOR FAKE?
Can you not see Welles cock his head, and say with a wicked grin: "Who was the Baroness Nina von Pallant . . . REALLY? An agent of the Zagreb Secret Police has assured me that the real Nina van Pallandt was born plain Nina Palinkas in Croatia, over two decades ago. She may soon be under a personal contract to . . . Howard Hughes!"
Now, forgive me, gentlemen, is it not also possible that Tony and Tonyw -- when we look at you on the same page -- might be one in the same person?
Just a thought for meditation, should I be locked in a cell for years sometime.
Glenn
Tony: It was too long ago since I saw Alain Cavalier's LIVES to make that identification you want, and when Francoise Widhoff made the documentary LIVES, she was twenty . . . maybe twenty-five years older. I have F FOR FAKE only on Laserdisc, and the machine is on the fritz, so I can't make that comparison either.
But you are on to something, I think, when you bring Oja's pilgrimage into the mix. I believe that Welles, in a very real sense, believed that he could leave a work in progress, come back from a distant land or in another time, possibly years later, and resume where he left off. Certainly, his whole artistic career, possibly much of his personal life, gives evidence of that of childlike trust. He was always juggling projects from the time he was a teenager. It must have hurt him, as when he came back to THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS after months in Rio, to discover his artistic child so fouly murdered. I won't go into his marriage with Rita Hayworth or Paola Mori, the lost rough cuts and rushes, film scripts, DON QUIXOTE, THE DEEP, or THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, etc.
Tonyw: Hadji is expressing, quite reasonably, what we are supposed to think.
We are introduced to Mrs. Clifford Irving in F FOR FAKE, but is it really Mrs. Irving? Or is it always the same Mrs. Irving? And is it not true that Clifford travelled with a couple of women, including the Baroness Nina van Pallandt? Did he not lead others to regard one or more of these women as Mrs. Irving? Could Francois Widhoff been pawned off by Clifford or Welles as an alternate Mrs. Irving?
Both Welles and Clifford evidently liked a practical joke, and is that not the subject of F FOR FAKE?
Can you not see Welles cock his head, and say with a wicked grin: "Who was the Baroness Nina von Pallant . . . REALLY? An agent of the Zagreb Secret Police has assured me that the real Nina van Pallandt was born plain Nina Palinkas in Croatia, over two decades ago. She may soon be under a personal contract to . . . Howard Hughes!"
Now, forgive me, gentlemen, is it not also possible that Tony and Tonyw -- when we look at you on the same page -- might be one in the same person?
Just a thought for meditation, should I be locked in a cell for years sometime.
Glenn
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Glenn Anders
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Thank you, gentlemen.
[Your testimony has been sent to a Grand Jury meeting in Nassau County, New York State.]
Let me add this observation:
To our initial question: Will the real Edith Sommer Irving stand up?
A close examination of the IMDb cast list of the movie will show that, if accurate, Edith Irving does not appear in F FOR FAKE, and besides Oja Olga Palinkas Kodar, Nina van Pallandt and Francois Widhoff are the only two women listed. That would seem to mean one or both of them must be impersonating Edith Irving.
Welles loved to ask (with Shakespeare): What's in a name?
[The answer, of course, in practical terms, is . . . EVERYTHING!]
So, we have Clifford Irving, who first married a girl named Nina Wilcox, and later, after a couple of more marriages, had an affair with the Danish "Baroness," Nina van Pallandt, but then married a Swedish/German artist, Edith Sommer. On the island of Ibizia, he wrote a novel, Fake, based on the life of Forger Elmyr de Hory, ostensible subject of Welles' F FOR FAKE. Edith Sommer Irving eventually went to jail, in part, for possibly posing as one "Helga Hughes" who took over $700,000 out of an account in Germany, opened in the name of the reclusive Howard Hughes.
But, in terms of F FOR FAKE, where does Nina Palinkas, sister of Oja, niece of Julio Palinkas, mother of Alexander Welles, come into all of this?
As has been mentioned somewhere here before, THE HOAX, a movie directed by Lasse Hallstrom (WHO'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?), will premier on November 10, 2006. It stars Richard Gere (in a Wellsian false nose) as Clifford Irving, Alfred Molina as his accomplice Richard Suskind, Julie Delp as Nina van Pallandt, Marcia Gay Harden as Edith Irving, Eli Wallach as Noah Dietrich, Michael J. Burg as Truman Capote and Hope Davis as Andrea Tate (an employee of McGraw-Hill, and I gather the innocent on whom the plot turns).
The "buzz" is great about this movie. In fact, it is rumored tha --
Whoops!
Sorry Tony and Tonyw, Larry French is signaling me that Todd Baesen wants to add a word here.
[But you know how elusive he can be.]
Glenn
[Your testimony has been sent to a Grand Jury meeting in Nassau County, New York State.]
Let me add this observation:
To our initial question: Will the real Edith Sommer Irving stand up?
A close examination of the IMDb cast list of the movie will show that, if accurate, Edith Irving does not appear in F FOR FAKE, and besides Oja Olga Palinkas Kodar, Nina van Pallandt and Francois Widhoff are the only two women listed. That would seem to mean one or both of them must be impersonating Edith Irving.
Welles loved to ask (with Shakespeare): What's in a name?
[The answer, of course, in practical terms, is . . . EVERYTHING!]
So, we have Clifford Irving, who first married a girl named Nina Wilcox, and later, after a couple of more marriages, had an affair with the Danish "Baroness," Nina van Pallandt, but then married a Swedish/German artist, Edith Sommer. On the island of Ibizia, he wrote a novel, Fake, based on the life of Forger Elmyr de Hory, ostensible subject of Welles' F FOR FAKE. Edith Sommer Irving eventually went to jail, in part, for possibly posing as one "Helga Hughes" who took over $700,000 out of an account in Germany, opened in the name of the reclusive Howard Hughes.
But, in terms of F FOR FAKE, where does Nina Palinkas, sister of Oja, niece of Julio Palinkas, mother of Alexander Welles, come into all of this?
As has been mentioned somewhere here before, THE HOAX, a movie directed by Lasse Hallstrom (WHO'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?), will premier on November 10, 2006. It stars Richard Gere (in a Wellsian false nose) as Clifford Irving, Alfred Molina as his accomplice Richard Suskind, Julie Delp as Nina van Pallandt, Marcia Gay Harden as Edith Irving, Eli Wallach as Noah Dietrich, Michael J. Burg as Truman Capote and Hope Davis as Andrea Tate (an employee of McGraw-Hill, and I gather the innocent on whom the plot turns).
The "buzz" is great about this movie. In fact, it is rumored tha --
Whoops!
Sorry Tony and Tonyw, Larry French is signaling me that Todd Baesen wants to add a word here.
[But you know how elusive he can be.]
Glenn
Here are some pics from the filming of "Hoax":
http://www.lassehallstrom.com/movies/hoax/pictures.html
Title: The Hoax
Genre: Drama
Status: Post Production/Completed ?
Country: USA 2005
Language: English
Rating: Not yet rated
Release Date: Nov 03 (LA/NY), Nov 10 (nationwide)
cast:
Clifford Irving: Richard Gere
Andrea Tate: Hope Davis
Richard Suskind: Alfred Molina
Irvings's mistress: Julie Delpy
Edith Irving: Marcia Gay Harden
crew:
Director: Lasse Hallström
Producers: Mark Gordon, Leslie Holleran and Betsy Beers
Writer: William Wheeler
Director of Photography: Oliver Stapleton
Production Designer: Mark Ricker
Editor: Andrew Mondshein
And here's the blurb from the on-line publishers who are hawking the real "fake" book, called "The Autobiography of Howard Hughes":
http://www.terrificbooks.com/fullstory/index.html
This is the cover for Irving's real book about the fake book, called "Hoax", which is the basis for the movie about the hoax:
And to return all this craziness to Mr. Welles, here's a poster I just purchased, a poster for "F For fake" which has four titles, but not the official one:
The title of this movie about fakes, including Clifford Irving's, seems to be: ?, or "Question Mark", or "Fake" or "Fraude", but nowhere does it say "F For Fake"; is this poster a fake? And who is that woman in the top left of the poster: is it Edith Irving? Nina van Pallandt? or Francois Widhoff?
???
http://www.lassehallstrom.com/movies/hoax/pictures.html
Title: The Hoax
Genre: Drama
Status: Post Production/Completed ?
Country: USA 2005
Language: English
Rating: Not yet rated
Release Date: Nov 03 (LA/NY), Nov 10 (nationwide)
cast:
Clifford Irving: Richard Gere
Andrea Tate: Hope Davis
Richard Suskind: Alfred Molina
Irvings's mistress: Julie Delpy
Edith Irving: Marcia Gay Harden
crew:
Director: Lasse Hallström
Producers: Mark Gordon, Leslie Holleran and Betsy Beers
Writer: William Wheeler
Director of Photography: Oliver Stapleton
Production Designer: Mark Ricker
Editor: Andrew Mondshein
And here's the blurb from the on-line publishers who are hawking the real "fake" book, called "The Autobiography of Howard Hughes":
http://www.terrificbooks.com/fullstory/index.html
This is the cover for Irving's real book about the fake book, called "Hoax", which is the basis for the movie about the hoax:
And to return all this craziness to Mr. Welles, here's a poster I just purchased, a poster for "F For fake" which has four titles, but not the official one:
The title of this movie about fakes, including Clifford Irving's, seems to be: ?, or "Question Mark", or "Fake" or "Fraude", but nowhere does it say "F For Fake"; is this poster a fake? And who is that woman in the top left of the poster: is it Edith Irving? Nina van Pallandt? or Francois Widhoff?
???
Glenn:
I just saw a book called, I think, "Reader's Digest Fakes and Fakers" in a book store; in it is a chapter on Elmyr, as well as a section on Irving; in the latter there is a photo of the Irvings being formally charged, and the woman in the picture is definitely the same woman in "F For Fake" identified as Edith Irving. Why she isn't credited in the film, I don't know.
I just saw a book called, I think, "Reader's Digest Fakes and Fakers" in a book store; in it is a chapter on Elmyr, as well as a section on Irving; in the latter there is a photo of the Irvings being formally charged, and the woman in the picture is definitely the same woman in "F For Fake" identified as Edith Irving. Why she isn't credited in the film, I don't know.
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Glenn Anders
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Very interesting, Tony. Could the explanation be another of Welles' little jokes? Perhaps Welles' leaving out Edith Irving's name on the cast list was an on purpose missing part of the puzzle. An intentional crack in one of his rare perfect Ming vases.
While speaking of biographies, documentaries, and tributes, thank you and/or Larry French for calling attention on the News Page to the TCM documentary this coming Thursday night, "The Edge of Outside," which features Welles prominently in a group of maverick independent directors. The synopsis points out that the clips of Welles was taken from a BBC documentary, OW: STORIES FROM A LIFE ON FILM.
Has that one ever been discussed here?
My as well (since I "lost" a lengthy comment of mine earlier) also mention the new books you've put up, and the lovely poems by Chris Welles Feder (with an interview of her) and Jean Cocteau. I loved in the former the image of Welles working all night at the typewriter, a cigar stub clenched in his teeth. One can almost see an awe-struck little girl in pajamas peeking around a bedroom door at her Father in the small hours of a morning.
Beautiful and revelatory.
Glenn
While speaking of biographies, documentaries, and tributes, thank you and/or Larry French for calling attention on the News Page to the TCM documentary this coming Thursday night, "The Edge of Outside," which features Welles prominently in a group of maverick independent directors. The synopsis points out that the clips of Welles was taken from a BBC documentary, OW: STORIES FROM A LIFE ON FILM.
Has that one ever been discussed here?
My as well (since I "lost" a lengthy comment of mine earlier) also mention the new books you've put up, and the lovely poems by Chris Welles Feder (with an interview of her) and Jean Cocteau. I loved in the former the image of Welles working all night at the typewriter, a cigar stub clenched in his teeth. One can almost see an awe-struck little girl in pajamas peeking around a bedroom door at her Father in the small hours of a morning.
Beautiful and revelatory.
Glenn
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Roger Ryan
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Glenn Anders wrote:The synopsis points out that the clips of Welles was taken from a BBC documentary, OW: STORIES FROM A LIFE ON FILM.
Has that one ever been discussed here?
I'm fairly certain this is the in-depth interview conducted by the BBC in 1982 that has been excerpted extensively in other documentaries whenever a producer needs a quote from Welles himself. It has been discussed most recently here:
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....2;t=504
TNT showed an edited version in the U.S. back in 1989. The interview allowed Welles to comment on all of his films sequentially which he did in relatively good spirits.
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