F for Fake - Criterion Collection

Starring:William Alland, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Peter Bogdanovich, Joseph Cotten, Gary Graver, AndrÃ©s Vicente GÃ³mez, Laurence Harvey, Clifford Irving, Oja Kodar, Christian Odasso, Julio Palinkas, FranÃ§ois Reichenbach, Paul Stewart, Nina Van Pallandt, Alexander Welles, FranÃ§oise Widhoff, Richard Wilson, Elmyr de Hory
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
To call Orson Welles's F For Fake a documentary would be somewhat deceitful, but deceit itself is very much the subject of this curious film essay. Welles ruminates on the nature of artistic fakery through two examples, that of infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory and the writer Clifford Irving, whose bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes set off a minor media flurry in the 1970s. Postmodernist that he is, Wells then proceeds to narrate and edit the film in such a perversely frenetic way as to blur the lines between what is real and what is deception, making for an often confusing but engaging work of art in itself. We even see the footage we've been watching as it's being spliced together in Welles's editing room. The specter of Welles's often maligned later career hangs over the proceedings like a challenge--is he going to actually complete this strange movie about chicanery, or will it become one of the many unfinished experiments of his twilight years? Happily, Welles concludes the proceedings with a delightful sequence about Picasso, lust, and what constitutes real art. F For Fake is a fine example of a master filmmaker who had at least a couple tricks left up his sleeve. --Ryan Boudinot
Description
Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles' free-form documentary, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career-the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles goes on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes-not the least of which is Welles himself. Charming and poignant, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema. Criterion's two-disc DVD edition also features an introduction by Peter Bogdanovich, audio commentary by director of photography Gary Graver, an hour long documentary on Welles' unfinished projects, a documentary on the life and works of de Hory, and the theatrical trailer.

F for Fake - Criterion Collection
Average customer rating:

"f" is for fun, fast,and frolicsome

One of Orson's great final film creations - a miracle of editing

Classic Welles, A Real Gem...

I'm not an expert, but this movie sucks

watching this must have been karmic penance for badly boring someone in a past life

F for Fake - Criterion Collection
Starring: William Alland , Jean-Pierre Aumont , Peter Bogdanovich , Joseph Cotten , and Gary Graver
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0007M2234
Release Date: 2005-04-26

Amazon.com

To call Orson Welles's F For Fake a documentary would be somewhat deceitful, but deceit itself is very much the subject of this curious film essay. Welles ruminates on the nature of artistic fakery through two examples, that of infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory and the writer Clifford Irving, whose bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes set off a minor media flurry in the 1970s. Postmodernist that he is, Wells then proceeds to narrate and edit the film in such a perversely frenetic way as to blur the lines between what is real and what is deception, making for an often confusing but engaging work of art in itself. We even see the footage we've been watching as it's being spliced together in Welles's editing room. The specter of Welles's often maligned later career hangs over the proceedings like a challenge--is he going to actually complete this strange movie about chicanery, or will it become one of the many unfinished experiments of his twilight years? Happily, Welles concludes the proceedings with a delightful sequence about Picasso, lust, and what constitutes real art. F For Fake is a fine example of a master filmmaker who had at least a couple tricks left up his sleeve. --Ryan Boudinot

Description

Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles' free-form documentary, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career-the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles goes on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes-not the least of which is Welles himself. Charming and poignant, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema. Criterion's two-disc DVD edition also features an introduction by Peter Bogdanovich, audio commentary by director of photography Gary Graver, an hour long documentary on Welles' unfinished projects, a documentary on the life and works of de Hory, and the theatrical trailer.

Customer Reviews:

"f" is for fun, fast,and frolicsome.......2007-07-02

Should I be ashaned to admit I watched a pirated version of this film? Those who have seen the film will understand the meaning of that confession. The copy was a damned good one--but was it a forgery?

This film works because, like all good art, it provokes questions.

For instance, Why is an original masterpiece of static art, say, a Vermeer, worth millions, while an identical copy, exact in every detail, is hardly worth sneeze-dust? Doesn't the viewer have the same subjective experience looking at the same content?? While on the other hand, why is a copy of a dynamic art form, say, a movie in DVD format, just as valuable as the original print of the movie? There is no stigma attached to the COPY of a movie---is there?

Another great effect of this film is that it challenges you to stroll through any prestigious mainstream art gallery with this worm gnawing the art-processors of your cortex:
"any one of these masterpieces may be a fake, but we don't know which one..." Well, how does this rusty thought-nail scratch your pereceptions of each painting? of the gallery? of art in general????

In addition to the many questions it raises,the film is great because it is just so much fun--especially watching Orson Welles do his greatest parody of Orson Welles. In the movie The Third Man, when Harry Lime jaunts around the corner towards the ferris wheel, there is a knowing gleam in his eye, as though he's going to have one off at the expense of Joseph Cotten, AND at the expense of the viewer. Welles has that gleam in his eye all through this movie--and I don't know about the rest of you, but when Orson Welles is having fun, I'm having fun.

If it is true, as is said in this film, that no one could produce a forgery of Picasso's work nearly as well as Picasso could, then it is also true of Welles that no one could parody his over-the-top guffy self-seriousness like he did, with a twinkle in his eye. And the parody becomes recursive as the film progresses, all those Wellesian images of Welles multiplying just like they did in the house of mirrors in Lady from Shanghai.

One last thought about forgery: the Argentine writer Borges wrote a story called "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quijote." In this story, a French author named Pierre Menard writes (n.b.:he does NOT copy)Don Quijote in the nineteenth century---it is word for word identical with Cervantes'Don Quijote written in the early 1500's. But BECAUSE it was written in a different time, by a different person under very different circumstances, it is NOT the same book--in fact, it was much more difficult for Menard to write Don Quijote in the 19th century than it was for Cervantes in the 16th...but was it a forgery???

One of Orson's great final film creations - a miracle of editing.......2007-06-10

Life is short and everyone knows that Orson Welles was a genius - flawed or otherwise - so let me say that F FOR FAKE is a great and very wise film about . . . film. It's a Mobius strip - it keeps turning back on itself so that its primary subject takes turns with secondary and tertiary characters and ultimately mirrors the film's own creator. It's a film about how the truth of art is often conveyed through lies, and vice versa.

Let me also say that the overheated editing from a variety of disparate elements and different film stocks preceded Oliver Stone's own brain-fever techniques in films like JFK, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, and NIXON by nearly twenty years. Just imagine what Welles would have produced if the circumstances of his project financing had not been so dire.

As ever, Criterion has produced a marvelous version of this "only" color film from Orson Welles (another reason to see this movie - every other Welles film was in black and white).

Buy this DVD, along with Criterion's recent release of MR. ARKADIN (complete with the original novel on which Welles based the film). Great stuff . . .

Classic Welles, A Real Gem..........2007-05-12

This film is perhaps my absolute favorite by Orson Welles as he co starred and edited this rather complex movie/documentary on forgers and the craft of forging. Set in far flung 70's hot spots such as Ibiza, Las Vegas, and Nassau, this film is carefully edited in such a way as to provide a fast paced, entertaining look into the seamy underside of the art and publishing worlds in the late 60's and early 70's. Welles even had the stones to include his mistress Oja Kodar as his co-star in his own piece of trickery as displayed in this fast paced masterpiece. This is a great film for anyone who watched Richard Gere in "The Hoax" and who would desire to know the real story of Clifford Irving. A great film by a master of the art!

I'm not an expert, but this movie sucks.......2006-11-19

Seriously, I am an expert, and this movie sucks. But, imagine for a moment--yes, stop and withdraw from your metaphysical prejudices--a movie whose premise is truly profound, strikingly engaging, and culturally challenging--that art is only such relative to those individuals, those `experts', whose tastes, likes and dislikes, decide it so. Given that aesthetic claims are empirically nonsensical--a matter of pure subjective opinion--why is it that some art is valued at all while some not at all? Besides this interesting question, which is put forth explicitly, without the pretentious riddles of terrible poetry, and in about 60 seconds, the rest of the movie is obnoxious editing and narration. Avoid at all costs.

watching this must have been karmic penance for badly boring someone in a past life.......2006-11-19

Whether lounging in a field of mustard flowers, waxing drunk in an affected "traveler's accent" on the, ahem, realness of reality, or mumbling about Chartres Cathedral and the fallibility of man, "who must, in the end, die," Orson Welles slurs his way through this pathetic attempt to embody his "Grand Old Boy" superego like that drunken brother in law, tolerated, but only for your sister's sake. Every five minutes I expected apneatic snoring to interrupt his incessant, rambling narration. I can only conclude that these disturbances were removed in post-production. Too bad -- like drunk uncle Zane passing out in the middle of explaining the whole, damn 9-11 conspiracy, these somnolent interruptions would have provided a blessed intermission during which to run to the other side of the house and hope to god he sleeps it off.

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