Criterion F For Fake DVD

[Jaime N. Christley]

Couldn't you crib from Gary Tooze on DVDBeaver.com?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews11/f_for_fake_.htm

Incidentally, I'm sending him the Japanese disc for comparison as it seems to be nearly on par with the Criterion, as far as video quality is concerned.

[Wilson]

The screen grab on DVD Beaver isn't the same shot, so I'd rather not use it. As for the Criterion and Japanese discs being of equal video quality, no way, at least not on my set. I put in the Japanese disc since I hadn't looked at it in a while, and it has a faded, soft, dark picture. I then put in the Criterion, and it's like having someone wipe the grime off a window. Colors are much brighter, and the print isn't so dark. For example, on the Japanese disc I could not see the folds in Welles' cloak when it first appears onscreen, yet in the Criterion print, they're clear as day.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Haven't seen the film in any form in over a year, but it looks like one of Tooze's caps are from the same shot, albeit not the same frame.

Compare this



to this



I'm actually glad the Japanese disc isn't as good as the Criterion (while clearly superior to the French and [ugh] Brazilian discs), because it'll make for a good comparison for Gary.

[atcolomb]

I noticed that there is one difference between the Criterion
laserdisc and the Criterion dvd. On the laserdisc the words
F for Fake are shown as the films starts but on the dvd the
scenes at the train station starts the film. Also comparing
both the dvd is much brighter, sharper and with more info
on both sides of the image.

[L French]

Here's the review from The NY Times for F FOR FAKE, which had it's "official" NY premiere at the N.Y. Film Festival in 1975, after playing at Filmex in Los Angeles in March of 1974. Although Welles had finished work on the editing by October, 1973, when in was screened in Paris, it didn't open in New York commecially until February of 1976, after in had already opened in San Francisco and Boston (where Welles appeared with the film and answered questions, which was filmed and used as footage in FILMING OTHELLO).


September 28, 1975

Film Festival: A Welles Question Mark: 'F for Fake' Is an Illusionist's Trick With Bogus Heroes and Expert Villains


By VINCENT CANBY


"I'm a charlatan," says Orson Welles, looking very fit, his manner that of the practiced con artist who knows that if he confesses to everything, he will be held accountable for nothing. Or is it the other way around?

This is the beginning of Mr. Welles's latest film, "F for Fake," a charming, witty meditation upon fakery, forgery, swindling and art, a movie that may itself be its own Exhibit A.
The opening sequence is set in a fine old European railroad station, the kind with a peaked glass roof that romantics cherish, that Mr. Welles used in "The Trial" and that urban renewal people tear down. On a colder, snowy day, Anna Karenina might throw herself under some wheels here, but now it's sunny and warm. The mood is cheerfully skeptical.
Mr. Welles, the master of ceremonies, the credited director and writer as well as star of "F for Fake," welcomes us with some sleight of hand, turning a small boy's key into a coin and back again. "The key," says the charlatan, "is not symbolic of anything." The warnings keep coming, and you may be reminded of the late Old Gold slogan: "It's fun to be fooled, but more fun to know." Perhaps sometimes.
"F for Fake" is a documentary compounded of tricks, reversals, interviews with real forgers and re-creations of events that never happened. It's as much magic show as movie, a lark that is great fun even when one wishes the magician would take off his black slouch hat and his magician's cape and get back to making real movies. But did he really make this one? And is "F for Fake" not a real movie?

There are amused rumors to the effect that Mr. Welles did not actually direct a large part of "F for Fake." This part is an extended sequence set in Ibiza involving interviews with Elmyr de Hory, the well-publicized art forger, and Clifford Irving, who wrote Mr. de Hory's biography ("Fake") and later went on to make his own name by attaching it to Howard Hughes's.

The rumors are that these scenes were shot by François Reichenbach, one of the first practitioners of cinéma vérité, who himself shows up throughout "F for Fake," for which he receives credit as the production coordinator. "F for Fake" is so stylish in all its parts, in its editing and particularly in a final fiction sequence that, if it is a fake, it's a marvelous one, and to hell with the signature on it.

Which is one of the things that "F for Fake" is all about. Midway through the film, after we've listened to stories that may or may not be true about Mr. de Hory's sucess in supplying the art world with fake Matisses, Picassos and Modiglianis, Mr. Welles reminds us that there are no signatures on the cathedral at Chartres. Chartres needs no "experts" to authenticate its grandeur, he says. "Experts" are the villans of "F for Fake"—people who must tell us whether we should swoon when looking at a particular painting or turn up our noses in disgust.

Mr. Welles, who has been the subject of a lot of such expertise and takes a dim view of it, has a grand time with the film's final. This is the fanciful story of how Picasso was tricked by a ravishing Hungarian model, whose grandfather, an art forger, confesses on his deathbed to a furious Picasso that his dearest desire has always been to create "an entirely new Picasso period."

I have some minor reservations about "F for Fake." I don't share Mr. Welles's affection for either Mr. de Hory or Mr. Irving. Unlike the generous Mr. Welles, they are small potatoes. When Mr. Welles asks, "Doesn't it say something about our time that Cliff [Irving] could only make it through trickery?," my answer is no. It says more about Mr. Irving, who as far as I can tell, hasn't made it at all.


F FOR FAKE, directed and written by Orson Welles; directors of photography, Christian Odasso and Gary Graver; production coordinator, Francois Reichenbach, editors, Marie-Sophie Dubus and Dominique Engerer; music, Michel Legrand; a S.A.C.I. production by Janus Film (Frankfurt) and Les Films de l'Astrophore (Paris). Running time: 90 minutes. At the New York Film Festival, Alice Tully Hall, Broadway at 65th Street. This film has not been rated.
WITH Orson Welles, Clifford Irving, Oia Kodar, Elmyr de Hory, Edith Irving, Francois Reichenbach, Joseph Cotten, Richard Wilson, Paul Stewart, Sasa Devcic, Gary Graver, Andres Vicente Gomez, Julio Palinkas, Christian Odasso, Francoise Widoff.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Larry, for adding the assessment of a master reviewer.

I was drawn to this paragraph:

"I have some minor reservations about "F for Fake." I don't share Mr. Welles's affection for either Mr. de Hory or Mr. Irving. Unlike the generous Mr. Welles, they are small potatoes. When Mr. Welles asks, "Doesn't it say something about our time that Cliff [Irving] could only make it through trickery?," my answer is no. It says more about Mr. Irving, who as far as I can tell, hasn't made it at all."

In a real, intellectually honest sense, Canby was correct, but Irving is still alive and working, writing publishable books, and perhaps Our Man in the History of Our Time, Welles, was prescient once more. Look around at our mass culture, the delusions our fellow citizens harbor, our Art, our Music, our Politics, the History we are creating currently. Trickery has become the Zeitgeist.

BTW, I notice that the IMDb lists the release date for F FOR FAKE as 1974. Perhaps, that would be an appropriate compromise.

Glenn

[NoFake]

I also note the listing of "Julio Palinkas" in the cast credits at the end of the review. Is this the little blond boy who, in this or another thread (I can't find it at the moment), a member speculated was the child of Orson & Oja (nee Olga Palinkas), but who was instead (per another member) the son of Oja's sister?

[L French]

Thanks Glenn...

Actually, I think it's important to note that F FOR FAKE was finished in late 1972, when the whole Clifford Irving-Howard Hughes affair was still timely. Unfortunately, by the time the film actually got released and shown in America, several years had already passed. The same thing happened with OTHELLO and MR. ARKADIN (which didn't open in America until 1962! - seven years after it was made).

So I like to think of the film as a 1972 production, although to be accurate, the film's finishing touches and first showings to distributors in Europe apparently didn't really happen until October of 1973, when Variety reviewed it under the title of "Question Mark"...

It seems to have remained fairly dormant until May of 1975 when it was shown at the Cannes film festival, and played for the in New York for the first time at the NY Film Festival in Sept. of 1975. However it didn't open commercially in the US until Jan. 1976, making it's official US release date 1976. Although it's copyright date is listed as 1973.

And yes, the little boy with the key is Oja's nephew...
Oja identifies him on the commentary track.

[Tony]

Thanks Lawrence:

a. I was wondering why "One Man Band" is the German version, whereas I myself own the English version; by a strange coincidence, the other documentary on the disc about De'hory is narrated, I believe, by the same guy who narrates the English version of "One Man Band"! Very weird coincidence.

b. A poster on this board (I believe from a German film institute) said he had created a colour version of the trailor for "F For Fake", but that he hadn't quite finished it when Criterion said they were going with the black and white; a lot of Welles fans were waiting for the colour version, but the poster said it came down to a couple of weeks difference: Criterion wanted it by a certain date, and he needed another week or two. It seems a strange reason, if true, to just go with the black and white to keep on schedule.

c. Why isn't there a visual for the press conference with Hughes?

Perhaps you could ask about these questions,
thanks,
Tony

[Wilson]

The color trailer was not at issue with Criterion, but a restoration of MR ARKADIN. And I assume they used the German ONE MAN BAND because it was the original version of the film.

[etimh]

Hey sorry for this duplicate but I posted this question as a new topic with no responses. But since L French asked for questions here, here goes: who is the blonde woman in the tan leather jacket who is working with Reichenbach's crew in 'F for Fake?' She's also sitting next to Welles in the restaurant sequences. Thanks, Tim

[Glenn Anders]

I can answer Tony's last question, perhaps. The reason that there are no visuals for the Howard Hughes' interview is that he would not show himself. He held a telephone conference call with the publishers reps, press, etc, to denounce Irving's book. That's why there is that little inside joke of Welles holding a telephone conference call with the man he identifies as the producer of F FOR FAKE.

Tim: As for the blonde woman, I believe her to be Nina Van Palandt, who at times seems to double in the movie as Edith [Thanks, Tim] Irving, Clifford's wife. The Baroness Van Palandt also appears to have doubled, on occasion, for Edith [Thanks, Tim] Irving in the negotiations with Hughes and his representatives, and the publishers, which resulted in the fraud case that eventually sent Irving and his wife to jail. The wife served little time, but Clifford Irving quite a lot. Nina Van Palandt became, for several years, a talked about movie star, notably in Robert Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE.

As Larry suggests, this Hughes-Irving case was the International scandal story of the season in 1972, when Hughes had become one of those mystery men that Welles so loved to depict. Welles may have felt he had found in his old playboy acquaintance another Zaharoff (Arkadin), Harry Lime or Charles Foster Kane (representing the mystery in all of us).

Glenn

[etimh]

Hey Glenn, isn't Clifford's wife's name "Edith," as in Edith Irving? I think so. And you may be right about the blonde, but the woman I'm talking about doesn't really look like Van Palandt. Being an obsessive fan of The Long Goodbye, I'm sure I'd recognize the Baroness. The woman I'm talking about appears to be working as part of Reichenbach's crew in the beginning of the film, and then is seen in extensive shots sitting with Welles and Reichenbach in the seafood restaurant scenes. I'm working on a project to attribute all "participants" in the film and she seems to be someone that nobody knows. But thanks for the thoughts and suggestions nonetheless. Tim

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Tim. I should have checked that. I made a couple of revisions, credit to you.

The blonde woman eludes me then, but Nina Van Palante is the only unaccounted for woman listed on the IMDb cast list of F FOR FAKE. And I clearly remember her beside Irving in one of the interview clip. [Of course, when she is not there, he has a monkey on his back!] It would please me if both Nina and . . . EDITH acted inter-changeably in the film, as they did in real life. But that may be too much to hope for -- even from Welles.

Now, as I should look at F FOR FAKE again, however, you need to look harder at THE LONG GOODBYE. Nina Van Pallante plays a prominent femme fatale as the wife of the writer (Sterling Hayden). Just ocurred to me: Might that be type casting on Altman's part?

Anyway, Tim, believe me on that one.

Good luck on your project. Someone here will help you out, I'm sure.

Glenn

[etimh]

RE: Does anyone know the name of the blonde woman in the tan leather jacket who is working with Reichenbach's crew in 'F for Fake?' She's also sitting next to Welles in the restaurant sequences.

No help with this question yet--is anyone in contact with Graver or maybe even Kodar? Maybe you could informally inquire about this. Perhaps they could provide some relevant info. Thanks, Tim