ironhorse_iv Review of F for Fake

F for Fake (1973)

Here is the truth. The last major film written, directed and featuring legendary director Orson Welles was F for Fantastic. A unique yet somewhat awkward watch.

[8/10 · 10 September 2016]

Known in France as 'Truths and Lies'; 'F for Fake' is far from serving as a traditional documentary. Made in 1974, the film is a blend of quick time, dreamlike French New Wave attention-deficit editing. Remind me of Jean Luc Godard and René Clair who used editing to alternately build and deconstruct. It was very surreal, yet somewhat annoying. The whole overused of dated freeze frame was irritating. Despite that, I did like the breaking the fourth wall style filmmaking, with a flair of very questionable information journalism by an unreliable narrator. Welles's rambling is spell-bounding. I like that Welles also draws parallels between the main subject and his own brush with early notoriety. Orson Welles does wonders as the voice of God for this film. I also, kinda dig the fictional movie re-enactments with him, using film noir styles. All of the smoke and mirrors, work for this film, very well. Even if some of them, were cut with odd unrelated footage such as opening staring/airport scene. I guess, Orson Welles just wanted showcase how hot his companion, Oja Kodar, was with the endless amounts of butt shots and nudity. Welles even filmed a trailer that lasted for nine minutes and featured several shots of a topless Kodar. The trailer was rejected by the US distributors to no surprised. I think, Welles went a little overboard with the whole 'trophy wife' concept. In truth, her presence in the film wasn't really needed, as she has nothing to do with the main stories. While, her scenes are somewhat pointless. It's still somewhat fit with the theme of the film. So, it's really hard to say, if this movie was documentary at all. It really broke the standards mode of what is documentary with. For me, it felt more like a participatory docufiction. It's clear by the recent events that happen during production that is impossible for original director François Reichenbach to make an observational type film about fame art forger, painter Elmyr de Hory. So, he first hired B-movie cinematographer Gary Graver to help finish the film. While, he did contributes all footage filmed in the U.S., his work was very choppy. His interviews with Hory and Irving barely explain, anything about the guy, such as Elymr de Hory's jail-time and his open homosexuality. What we are left with is an incomplete picture of de Hory, a complex, but highly enigmatic man unable to shed his outlaw persona, whose notions of morality conformed to the exigencies he believed, that helps with his survival. Sadly, we will never truly know, who the real guy is, as he commit suicide, shortly in 2 years after this movie wrap. Fearing that no audience member, would take the film's seriously. Reichenbach then hired fame director Orson Welles to edit the documentary to include Elmyr de Hory's biographer Clifford Irving, who was revealed to be a forger himself, when his fame Howard Hughes "autobiography" came out to be, a hoax. It soon become aware to Welles, with the circumstances of the production, he can instead, turn the documentary into a meditation on the nature of fakery particularly with regards to authorship and authenticity within the three main media of art: writing, illustration and filmmaking. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, this performative documentary was very exceptional for its thought provoking subject. You really don't know, what to believe. It's hard to know, what's real and what's not, with this film and whether, does it ultimately, even matters. After all, Welles reflects on this in-film, so well. He suggest that maybe authenticity isn't important to art, because everything will finally wear away by time. No matter, if it's fake or not. It doesn't matter all that much, in the long scheme. In many ways, that was the perfect way to end the film. However, it wasn't. In short, I guess, Orson Welles wanted to troll his audience, a little more, by adding 17 more minutes to the runtime, to show how fake, this movie can get. In the end, he wanted the final laugh. Overall: For a long time the film was Welles' final film, until the posthumous release of 'The Other Side of the Wind' in 2015. In a way, it's should had been. It was a wonderful entertaining film. Remind me, so much of 2010's documentary, 'Exit through the Gift Shop' with its questionable confusing artist style. Highly recommended. It really deserves to be in the Criterion Collection, big time.