F is for Fake

[sinatra70]

I'd be curious to read the comments of other members of this list with regard to the documentary "F is for Fake." I found it difficult to get into at first, viewing it (for good or bad) as un-Wellesian -- not in the sense that it wasn't his work ([i]everything[/i] he did was Wellesian), but that it was far beyond the conventions of what he had done in the 40s and 50s. I recognize that he was cleverly keeping up with advances in filmmaking and the trends of the early 70s, but it was a film that was difficult for me to get into at first (although I very much enjoyed the last 17-minute scene regarding Picasso and Oya that was the film's "curveball" moment).

[Glenn Anders]

Welcome to Wellesnet, Sinatra70!

I'll start off:

What may throw you, at first, is "the newsreel" about DeHory he slips in at the beginning, but in my opinion, F FOR FAKE is Welles' second best film. Others may talk about THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, OTHELLO, THE TRIAL, TOUCH OF EVIL, MR. ARKADIN, etc, but good as they may be, there always must be a caveat:

If RKO hadn't hacked 20 minutes out of it; if the sound track could be fixed; if the original version had been restored; if the ending hadn't been changed; if Murch hadn't been quite so faithful to the memo; if that London copy could have been found; and so on.

F FOR FAKE is the film Welles wanted to make. It is his creation, and neither he nor anyone else need make excuses for it. The film, as you suggest, is a new departure for him, his first in color; a film essay suitable the 1970's and the medium of Television.

Not only that, but F FOR FAKE is Welles' testament, as close to obvert autobiography on film as he got. It recapitulates all his former interests, and introduces a consuming interest of his later life: Oja Kodar.

The film resembles a CITIZEN KANE with the Director/Magician coming out from behind the green curtain. That first hour you found hard going -- "the truth" -- shows us all his interests: Art, Magic, Story Telling, Europe, America, History, Beautiful Women, Eating, Drinking, Old and Powerful Men, Intrigue, Mystery, Artifice, Editing. And the last 17 minutes that you like shows the gorgeous sausage, the observations on the nature of Art that he makes out of his materials. He ends with that sublime meditation upon what Reporter Jerry Thompson said about Charles Foster Kane, what Tanya said about Hank Quinlan.

As in the case of CITIZEN KANE, and a number of other Welles' films, I see something new in F FOR FAKE every time I watch it.

I hope that you will, too.

Glenn Anders

[sinatra70]

Glenn:

Thanks very much for your thoughts on this (and for the welcome to the list). I've gone out and purchased several of the Welles sets that include extras, including F is for Fake, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm going to give F another go soon; I'm sure that your comments about seeing something new in it each time are accurate, and I look forward to seeing what I find!

Best,
Matt

[Alan Brody]

The thing I admire about F For Fake is that it shows that Welles was not content to do the kinds of things that had worked for him in the past, but was always trying to strike out in new directions in an attempt to constantly redefine himself. It's unlike anything he had made before in that it incorprates "found footage" that he himself had not even shot, but still managed to weave into the general fabric of the film in a way that made it his own. That insistence on rejecting the safe formulas of the past in order to expirement with the potentials of the medium's future is what made Welles so special as a filmmaker and artist. What better tribute could there be to such a great artist then that he should remain so youthful in his later years.

Here's a nice piece from Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUrKCUTUSPo

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, Alan, I agree.

And the Youtube clip gives us the recapitulation, the essence, of all he had learned about Art and Life.

I would say, however, that just watching those few minutes of Welles at Chartres in F FOR FAKE remains somehow incomplete without experiencing all the elements which brought him to that wisdom. In other words, the artistic recreation of all those elements in the first hour or so of the picture. All the interests and obsessions which made up his life.

You sense that in some of the reactions to the clip on Youtube, which range from worshipful admiration for a near miracle to suspicion of a too easy truism. I think we need the whole film in order to savor Welles' summing up.

Glenn

[tonyw]

Exactly, Glenn. Each time I run FOR FOR FAKE in my classes usually towards the end it is amazing how many of the younger generation of students appreiate that film and Welles's creativity in an era of hostility towards classical cinema and its achievements.

[Alan Brody]

You have a good point, Glenn. It's better to see that Chartres scene in the context of the film. Of course, on the other hand, one of the comments says

"If it weren't for the attention grabbing pronouncement I wouldn't have caught this video."

So maybe the Youtube clip will inspire him and others to want to check out the whole movie. Hopefully that's the case.

[ToddBaesen]

+++++


Here is Orson Welles talk on Chartres from F FOR FAKE:

ORSON WELLES: Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash; the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.

[Roger Ryan]

I wouldn't call it Welles' second best film, but am in agreement with most of what Glenn posted (apart from the idea that F FOR FAKE is Welles' first color film - don't forget THE IMMORTAL STORY and other work unreleased at the time - MERCHANT OF VENICE, etc.). Having viewed F FOR FAKE numerous times, I think there is some flab that could have been trimmed down, but as a whole it is so strikingly original and so very Wellesian that I consider it a great success. I am very pleased that the work continues to be highly rated.

[ToddBaesen]

***


Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan. Picasso once said he could paint fake Picassos as well as anybody, and someone like Picasso could say something like that and get away with it. But an Elmyr de Hory? Elmyr is a profound embarrassment to the art world. He is a man of talent making monkeys out of those who have disappointed him. This film doesn't exalt the forger. It denounces the art market, because it is elementary, isn't it, that if you don't have the market, then fakers couldn't exist.

--Orson Welles

***

Brian Cady wrote this article for TCM’s website when F FOR FAKE was shown as part of the TCM Orson Welles tribute. Unfortunately, while generally quite accurate, it still contained several factual errors. Rather than complain about them, I’ve simply corrected these mistakes and present this new and “improved” version here:

F FOR FAKE

In the summer of 1968, while Orson Welles was living in Madrid, Spain sent the police to arrest an aristocratic Hungarian living in a villa on the island of Ibiza, off the eastern coast of Spain. His name was Elmyr de Hory. His criminal act was painting forged art works in the style of such great artists as Matisse, Modigliani and Chagall. Normally that wouldn't be a crime, but Elmyr was in the habit of forging the artists signatures onto his paintings, and then selling them as newly discovered "masterpieces." Art experts had validated his forgeries as authentic and, since de Hory wasn't talking, there was no telling how many museums had forged Matisses, Picassos and Monet’s on their walls.

De Hory spent a couple of months in jail and was exiled for a year. By the time he returned to Ibiza he had gained the attention of two other artists, French filmmaker Francois Reichenbach and an American author who lived on Ibiza, Clifford Irving. Reichenbach began shooting film for a documentary on de Hory while Irving interviewed him. It was Irving who got his work out first as a book called Fake! in 1969. As subsequent events showed, Irving may have learned a bit too much from his subject.

Meanwhile the great director Orson Welles was in Europe trying to get more money from European and Iranian backers for his never-to-be-completed feature THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. His bank account way overdrawn after the I.R.S. had seized tax payments when Richard Nixon had become President in 1968. Welles was desperate for cash. It was in 1971 while he was in Paris that he saw the Reichenbach footage of the de Hory interviews. Welles was impressed and wanted to use the footage for his own "personal essay movie."

As Welles was editing the footage, the Clifford Irving-Howard Hughes story broke. Irving had received an advance of $765,000 from publishers McGraw-Hill for the purported autobiography of long-time recluse Howard Hughes. To prove he was in communication with this titan no one had seen in years, Irving produced documents containing Hughes's signature. Handwriting experts declared the signatures authentic. Of course, just like de Hory's "masterpieces," the signatures were fakes. Hughes, or at least what was presumed to be the voice of Hughes, held a news conference over speaker phone to deny ever speaking to Irving. The phony autobiography became a gigantic media scandal with Time magazine even using a de Hory portrait of Irving on their cover.

Since Reichenbach had also interviewed Irving in his material on de Hory, Welles knew he was making a movie that could attract attention. He talked Reichenbach into giving all the additional material he shot on de Hory so that Welles could use it as he pleased. The result took nine months to edit, and from the finished film it is obvious that the time was needed. F FOR FAKE is still one of the most daringly edited movies of its time. Unfortunately, by the time it reached theaters, the scandal was long over and many American critics were put off by Welles's play of truth and lies. Or was it art experts in the press standing in defense of their brethren? In any case it was mostly dismissed as a minor film in Welles's later period and bombed at the box-office.

Sadly, on December 11, 1976, Elmyr de Hory was discovered dead in his home. Strangely enough, at this very time in Los Angeles, Orson Welles was filming a short film about Elmyr, to help promote the upcoming release of F FOR FAKE in the United States. Press reports said Elmyr had committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. However, there was some mystery concerning his funeral and a bit of uncertainty whether he was actually dead or merely "faking it." Some of Elmyr's friends believed he planned his own phony suicide in an attempt to escape a jail sentence. It seems likely that Elmyr did indeed commit suicide, and he now lies in his tomb on Ibiza, the island that he loved so much. He will forever be noted as one of Ibiza's most illustrious inhabitants. And thanks to Orson Welles's movie F FOR FAKE, Elmyr has become one of the most talented art forgers the world has ever known.

F FOR FAKE also became Orson Welles's last masterpiece, a playful movie essay on the questions that post-modernists were just then beginning to ask. Where does art gain its meaning? Who is the "author" of a work of art and why is that important to the value of art? Years after his death the true worth of this last major work of Orson Welles has finally been recognized, even by art critics.

[Glenn Anders]

Toddy: Thank you for the information.

If I remember correctly, Clifford Irving makes the same point, that if the art market did not exist, there would be no need for art fakers.

I might add that it would be useful if you would indicate where you have corrected Mr. Cady's "several factual errors," either within the text, or in the form of footnotes. Otherwise, you open yourself to charges of plagiarism. Or is that an extrapolation of your point?

If so, how do we know that Nick Badseed (or is it Birdseed?) did not write the article . . . or your revision of it?

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

Glenn: You've been drinking your Martini's too dry again. Please let Carl add just a bit more Vermouth to them!

How can I be guilty of plagiarism unless I try to pass off what I've written as my own work. It's usually only the big boys at the New York Times who try to do that!

You can see Mr. Cady's essay complete with errors at the TCM website.

[ZenKaneCity]

First saw it when I was in college in the early '80s. I wasn't expecting much; how good could it be? Some latter-day effort by the Master, past his prime, using "found" materials, self-referentially exploiting his cheesy "magician" persona (or so I thought at the time — now I appreciate how central and genuine an element "Welles the Magician" was to Welles, the man). And, I thought, as famous a filmmaker as he was, it hadn't even gotten that much attention when it was released! How could it be any good? (Was I really that naive? Guess so...)

So, I was absolutely amazed at how wonderful it was, and how much I enjoyed it. I put it alongside LADY FROM SHANGHAI as a great source of Wellesian good fun. (Of course, there's lots of good fun in all of Welles' work, even in paradoxically dark moments, but those two always strike me as being especially light-hearted and sunny in places.) I remember being impressed by the breakneck pace of the editing towards the beginning, and thinking, "That's interesting, I wonder how long he'll be able to keep that up and how he'll transition out of it." I soon realized that, as with the harrowing dreamlike sense of dread and frustration in THE TRIAL, he could keep it up as long as he wanted, and bring me along with him.

I confess I don't even remember if I noticed that the title never appeared in the film. Regarding Lawrence French's suggestion that a literal reading of the title sequence may be QUESTIONS ABOUT FAKES, I wonder if something like ? (ABOUT FAKES) might be another possibility.

In all, it's just amazing that this complex, convoluted work actually exists and made it out to us in finished, unexpurgated form, given the fate of so many Welles projects that, on the face of it, seem more straightforward and traditional in their means of preparation.

A couple of things: As I remember the look of the film, I think the Criterion DVD has done wonders for the appearance of, especially, the Reichenbach footage (and Gary Graver's comments on the commentary seem to bear this out). I wonder how much the grainy look of the original may have turned off viewers, or prejudiced them against it in some way?

And finally, as a young twenty-something, I remember being totally creeped out at the spectacle of this old guy leering at his young girlfriend. Alas, now that I am an old guy leering at Ms. Kodar, it seems a little more reasonable...

[Glenn Anders]

Your reactions to F FOR FAKE, early and late, ZenKaneCity, help explain why the film is a classic.

F FOR FAKE is not only a film which may help wrest, to a greater or lesser degree, the imagination of the young from boredom with its magic, but interprets our understanding of experience, as we grow older. In a sense, it is a film which encapsulates the wisdom of CITIZEN KANE, and in a more intimate way, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. [Whatever our place in society, and however we live our lives, whether creatively or destructively, it is what we leave behind which counts.] In F FOR FAKE, Welles finds a way to deliver a later vision of that wisdom in an entertaining and disarming fashion, which eschews the need for melodrama (LADY FROM SHANGHAI) or classical vehicles, either from the canon (FALSTAFF: CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT] or modern (THE TRIAL).

Yes, F FOR FAKE is a superb film essay, one of the first of its kind, full of whimsical and trenchant metaphors for why our egotism means little in the great flow of time.

Thank you, ZenKaneCity, for clarifying what can so often become murky here.

Glenn

[Christopher]

Glenn,

Thank you for the wonderfully perceptive comments you've made in this thread about F FOR FAKE. I agree with you one thousand percent. It is a remarkable film that is still not as widely appreciated as it should be except, curiously, with very young students of film. It was Welles's hope, as I am sure you know, that the new genre he had invented, the essay film, would be a box office sucess, enabling him to raise the money needed to make more essay films. Unfortunately, when F FOR FAKE was first released, few people understood or appreciated what he was trying to do. In fact, it was the last film he would complete in the years remaining to him -- the only one he completed in his collaboration with Oja Kodar. One small point for the record. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Welles's first film in color was not F FOR FAKE but THE IMMORTAL STORY.