F for Fake

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth - Pablo Picasso

Elmyr de Hory was a Hungarian painter who convincingly forged the works of Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, and others.  Often in mere minutes and in plain view of others.  One of them was writer Clifford Irving, who wrote a book about this notorious forger.   Makes great fodder for a documentary.  Auteur Orson Welles decided to do just that, though.....not in the traditional sense.  The genius behind at least two films considered essential classics of cinema would of course be interested in exploring the very nature of what art is.  How is it defined? Who is qualified to define it? Is de Hory merely a charlatan or has he created his own art? Aren't all artists liars? Welles does not spare himself, devoting a section of his 1973 film F FOR FAKE to his involvement with the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.  The one that sent some Americans into a panic, believing that an alien invasion was really happening.  "Amazing I wasn't put in jail", he muses as the film's narrator.

And Welles' formidable presence: his engulfing frame and commanding yet soothing voice, is part of the reason why F FOR FAKE was so enjoyable for me.  Well, I did appreciate the discussions of the pretensions of art.  The attempts to value it.  We see the director holding court at dinner, the future Paul Masson hawker clutching wine glasses and spilling wine as he spouts bon mots and anecdotes to appreciative guests.  We also see him in an editing bay, playing with celluloid, his favored medium.  He wanders outdoors and quotes Kipling.  He includes generous footage of his main subjects and details their stories.  F FOR FAKE took on unexpected dimension when it was discovered (during the making of this film) that Irving's Howard Hughes biography was inauthentic.  How delicious and appropriate! Then Welles spends some time on Hughes himself, another mysterious trickster.

This movie does not follow any traditional documentary structure.  There are numerous freeze frames, which at the time felt too numerous but nonetheless very were effective.  There are also the usual talking head shots but not merely to recount events or attitudes about them.  Rather, to act out the orchestrator's points.  Welles has created a visual essay on the value and chicanery of art and the art world.  Of what is "real".  The notion of genius.  Of the value of an artist's signature.  Late in the movie, a tale involving Picasso and Oja Kodar (Welles' girflfriend) is presented with editing and animation tricks with suspicion as to what it is doing in this movie. How does it fit?  The director promised authenticity. Something afoul?

My favorite moment in F FOR FAKE is Welles' lament of the finite life of art, its eventual fate as dust.  Moreseo, those who create it.  We see images of the cathedral of Chartres in France.  It, however has endured for centuries.  The architects' and artists' names who built it are lost to time.