F For Fake.
1975 Written and Directed by Orson Welles With the recent new release of Michael Moore's latest effort, Capitalism, A Love Story, I thought it would be a good time to talk about a seldom understood yet truly great documentary film, F For Fake.
F For Fake, a film documentary about truth and authorship in art by Orson Welles released in 1975, is almost as much a narrative film as it is a documentary.
It covers two "fakes", famed art forger Elmyr De Hory and pretend Howard Hughes Biographer Clifford Irving.
The film, narrated by Welles in different scenes from train stations, a studio sound stage, and in the actual editing room, follows several stories all dealing with the same concept, truth in art.
First we follow the story or Elmyr De Hory whom we come to learn has forged possibly hundreds of art master pieces over a period of twenty years.
De Hory states the reason for his career's vehicle for success is that the "so called experts" are in fact no experts at all and his body of work is the proof.
It's not clear which of De Hory's claims are really true but the film's evidence of De Hory's guilt alone in enough to validate at least the idea that he would be guilty of nothing if forging a masterpiece was not possible.
Later we discuss Clifford Irving who is present in many of the scenes with Elmyr and who gives his own account of De Hory's adventures in a book he recently wrote.
Clifford's hoax with Howard Hughes actually unfolds in the middle of the making of F For Fake and makes for a pretty intriguing plot twist.
Welles explains that until Irving actually confesses, there was still doubt as to Irving's guilt and this is difficult to prove either way due to the mysterious nature of Hughes himself.
But these two men are not quite on trial.
What seems to be more interesting to Wells in this film isn't whether or not what these men did we're right or wrong but whether or not the truth in art is even a real concept to begin with.
Welles seems to question just about everything relating to the truth in the film including the film its self which says something about the truthfulness of all documentaries.
Not only does Welles question the "tropes of veracity" in documentary film making, he completely reinvents it as a new form of storytelling.
Film movements in the past have used forms from reality to help make narrative films of fiction like the films of the Italian neo realist's use of ordinary people and real time events to John Cassavetes's films made spontaneously in the streets of New York.
But Welles has introduced something new here as he employs the use of fiction elements to enhance his cinema verite.
And it could be argued that no documentary has ever simply been without some alteration or tampering of the facts.
But never has it been put to use in such a deliberate effect of style and purpose.
Welles also wastes no film tool or under utilizes any technique from photo stills and stock footage to shots in front and behind the camera showing his film making process.
This is also fitting because the film is widely recognized as a masterpiece in film editing.
Welles, a film icon who rarely gets involved with a project with a halfhearted effort, spares no less the effort in this film as the subject of truthfulness expands to include Welles himself.
In 1938, Welles perpetrated on of the greatest hoaxes in the 20th century by reporting the invasion of the planet Earth by Martians.
So many people believed Welles broad cast that it became a media frenzy itself and launched Welles into fame (or infamy).
Knowing this makes it no surprise when during the film Welles mentions this as he presents himself as a "charlatan".
There is also a segment of the film where as it begins Welles states "for the next hour everything you are about to see is absolutely true" as Welles tells the story of Clifford Irving's "hoax" biography of Howard Hughes.
Shortly after this we are told the story of Oja Kodar's encounter with Pablo Picasso, which in fact is a fabrication and we only understand this after Welles himself confesses to this by stating "for the last 17minutes, I've been lying my head off".
This segment proved to be extremely personal for Welles.
Kodar, who not only worked with him in writing F For Fake but was personal inspiration for the final segment of the film.
As one of my film professors Joseph McBride explains in his book What Ever Happened to Orson Welles: "What could be called Welles's "Oja period" lasted until his death in 1985, and it marked profound changes in his filmmaking style.
Under Kodar's influence, Welles's work underwent a Picasso-like late flowering of sexual themes and imagery.
The Immortal Story contains an actual lovemaking scene; although filmed obliquely, its arguably more erotic for its concentration on suggestive details.
The connection between Welles and the older Picasso is drawn explicitly in F for Fake, with Welles ingeniously "directing" the artist by interacting still photographs of him seemingly ogling Oja as she strolls past his window in skimpy outfits.
As "Picasso" paints nude pictures of Oja, Welles intercuts ravishing shots of her body in sensuous poses and rhapsodizes about the artist's reaction to her lush figure: "Was he...
tenpted? Perhaps inspired...
[T]he results of this encounter were, to say the least of it, extremely fruitful.
Figs sweetened on the trees-grapes burst into ripeness on the vines-and twenty two-twenty-two!-large portraits of Miss Kodar were born under that virtile brush.
" It has often been explained that truth is an abstract concept that has many meanings.
And depending on the person and their point of view, the truth can change from one to another.
I believe Welles's final point for F For Fake is that truth is an abstract idea but honesty is the faithful telling of one's own feelings.
There can be no truth in art only honesty.
Honesty is the courage to be bold.
And in that sense there has never been a more honest documentary than F For Fake.
by Jason A.
Hill