F for Fake (1973) User Reviews

Contains some of the best and most invigorating editing you'll ever see

[MovieAddict2016 · 9/10 · 5 January 2007]

F For Fake is Orson Welles having a lot of fun. But it is also an example of the power of effective editing – simply put, this is some of the most impressive technical cutting, swiping, panning, scanning, freeze-framing and elaborating ever put on film. It moves quicker than any other Welles film, and in fact according to the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in his excellent Criterion Collection essay, Welles had purposely tried to separate this from his typical directorial style. The result is a film showcasing the limitless possibilities of passionate film-making – Welles was clearly in love with his material, and it shows in every frame. An entire year was allegedly spent just editing this film, and the time was well spent.

The rest of the film is just as unique – nothing like this has been done before or since. Welles called it a "new" type of movie-making: a mixture of documentary and essay. It opens with Welles performing a simple magic trick; the camera is all around him, barely allowing audiences any time to follow what's happening. Soon Welles begins to narrate the movie, but (and this is what really separates it from most documentaries) there is a decidedly theatrical quality to the proceedings. Welles chronicles the true story of the famous art forger Elmyr de Hory (as well as his official biographer and future fraud, Clifford Irving, who penned the Howard Hughes autobiography-that-wasn't-really-an-autobiography), but it doesn't feel like a documentary at all.

If you do not share Welles' passion for the subject of fraud and deception (he even recaps his own infamous War of the Worlds broadcast which nearly cost him his job at RKO), this may be a bit tiring to sit through. As one reviewer noted, it's Welles at his most personal, and this is both good and bad – good because Welles is so gleeful and joyous that it's totally infectious and, if you let yourself, it's easy to be caught up in the free flow of the film. But the bad part of this is that Welles allows himself to dabble in vices – he devotes the opening credits to shots of his mistress Oja Kodar and her back-side as she walks around a Mediterranean city catching the glimpses of men everywhere. And the finale – in which Welles tells an elaborate story about Kodar – turns into a fun and well-edited - but extremely overlong – verbal game between Welles and Kodar, preceded by an even more tiring sequence of Kodar once again walking around in provocative clothing, eventually shedding them and being captured on film in the nude by Welles for an extended length of time.

And, also, as another commentator of the film has claimed, this is a movie riddled with 1970s film-making techniques – many of which seem outdated today.

Yet, despite its flaws, a lot of them work to the film's advantage in the long run. The freeze-frames may be outdated but they help the film to develop a very distinct style which, in turn, enhances the amazing editing job.

If not for anything else, see F For Fake simply because it contains some of the best editing you'll ever see in your life. If you are a fan of Welles or share his love for the topic of deception, you'll find this to be a very enjoyable and fun little detour. It was Welles' last true finished film before his death and it seems somewhat fitting that he'd sign his departure with a project such as this: one crafted from deep passion and filled with joy and wit and wonder.

nothing is real

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 27 May 2011]

Orson Welles's final completed movie deals with fakery, and in particular with two of the most notorious forgers of the twentieth century. "F is for Fakes" (also called "F for Fake") is not really a movie or documentary as much as a look at how we interpret art, and what we WANT to interpret about anything that is essentially fake. Welles proudly calls himself a charlatan while performing magic tricks and coming up with all sorts of ways to play with the audience. I personally had never heard of Elmyr de Hory until watching this, but Welles turns him into a very interesting person.

All in all, the director known as a boy genius had a fine end to his career. Welles created a truly mind-bending look at the concept of art. The fact that the movie came out around the time that Clifford Irving's scandal broke (he wrote a forged biography of Howard Hughes) certainly adds to the documentary's quality. Can there truly be any more definite reality left in the world?

The masterful legacy of the man who changed the history of modern cinema

[Marc Ambit · 9/10 · 17 September 2000]

"F for fake" stands for the last movie Orson Welles really directed and, as for many artistic legacies it's the final demonstration of the genius of the artist, becoming some kind of briefing of his entire career.

It's hard to explain this movie and why I really enjoyed because, as many other Welles's movies, it's full of surprises and twists.

Filmed as a Documentary, this film introduces us the personae of Elmyr, a painter who lives out of painting copies of famous pictures of Van Gogh, Picasso, Vlaminck and many others and making them look like they're the original one. Welles also introduces to us two more people; an actress and a biographer.

With many resemblances to Welles's own life, the director of such wonderful pieces as "Citizen Kane" and "Touch of Evil" plays with the audience some sort of magical trickery. What is real and what is not? If Elmyr is able to paint a perfect copy of a famous picture and fool the world greatest experts, is he as good artist as the originals he's copying?

Working as a perfect metaphore of Welles own experiences in art (he's not only been movie director but radio speaker and even painter) "F for Fake" remains as a perfect legacy of the ideas of one of the greatest and most gifted cinema artists. Don't miss it!

Orson Welles as a Cretan?

[BrandtSponseller · 10/10 · 30 April 2005]

Writer/Director Orson Welles' F for Fake is a fast-paced, complex, surrealistic and philosophically thought-provoking documentary about fraud, fakery, and fictions. Even though its style is still novel when seen now, 30 years after F for Fake's first, quiet release in Europe, it was even more unusual in the context of the 1970s, and it presaged "MTV-style editing" by almost 10 years (considering that the style wasn't even the norm on MTV when that cable channel first appeared).

Even trying to tell someone what the film is literally about is quite complex (fitting for something that gives its title on screen as "?: About Fakery"), but we could say that it circles around six primary personalities, if we include Welles himself, who is frequently present on screen as a narrator/tour guide/resident magician. The core focus may be famed art forger Elmyr de Hory, who is supposedly responsible for a large number of fake Matisses, Modiglianis, Picassos, and so on that are hanging in museums around the world. Next up we have Clifford Irving, who wrote a biography of Elmyr de Hory, but who is perhaps more famous for writing a fake "authorized" biography of Howard Hughes. Next, we have Howard Hughes himself. Then there's Picasso. And finally, as a bookend to the film, we meet co-writer and long-time Welles confidant/partner Oja Kodar, who has many functions with respect to Welles in the film--assistant, surrogate, object of desire, and so on, and who had many more, perhaps questionable, functions with respect to Welles outside of the film.

Welles moves from topic to topic in a quick, stream of consciousness fashion, which is fascinating to think about in the context of the film, since stream of consciousness is by its nature spontaneous and unplanned, whereas the kind of meticulous editing that Welles does here takes months to plan, experiment with and finalize. So the apparent stream of consciousness is itself fakery, as suits a film that explores such ideas on countless levels.

Welles also weaves fact and fiction in F for Fake seamlessly, often without comment. The story of Oja Kodar and Picasso is fabricated, but much of the other material is more documentary in nature than one might think. It just happens to be documentary about creating fictions, whether impostors, as in de Hory's paintings (and amusingly, Welles himself--who had formal visual art skills--does a cartoonish portrait of Howard Hughes and signs it "Elmyr"); deceptive statements covering fictions, as in Irving's fake biography of Howard Hughes; manipulating public perceptions, as in the case of Hughes' and Picasso's public relations; creating artificial situations, as in Kodar's "piece" involving recording the reactions of men to her stroll through traffic; or combinations of all of these tactics, as in Welles' own work as an artist/entertainer, including the War of the Worlds radio broadcast (1938), which is portrayed here with clips from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) without identifying the conflation, Citizen Kane (1941), which was a thinly veiled portrayal of William Randolph Hearst but which Welles claims here was initially intended to be about Hughes, and of course, F for Fake itself. There are many other ways in which "fakery" is broached (even including subtle references to simulacra with items such as maps). The above are just the most conspicuous threads in the film. There is also a lot of criticism of "expertise"--Welles even conveys a kind of thoroughgoing skepticism as to its verisimilitude.

There are many ideas to be gleaned from F for Fake, but one of the most important, and certainly one intended by Welles, is that perhaps we're a bit too harsh when it comes to the conventional wisdom on frauds and fakery. Welles invokes the more accepted forms of fraud/fakery such as fictions and magic, and suggests that perhaps what is most important isn't the status of a work in terms of whether it is derivative or has precursors, or an artist's intent when it comes to originality and such, but merely the aesthetic quality of the work in question. If we believe a painting to be good, aesthetically, is it any less good aesthetically when we later learn that it is "merely" a copy of a Matisse, or a fake Picasso? The work itself didn't change--only our background knowledge has changed. Is our background knowledge part of the art object that we're judging? These are not easy questions to answer. A lot of ink has been spilled in the philosophical field of aesthetics over such issues. Even if we have an answer we're comfortable with--and mine happens to agree with Welles'--we have to admit that it's not a very clear-cut issue. At least not as clear-cut as the popular attitude towards frauds/fakery has it.

But even if you were to watch F for Fake without cognizing the ideational content, it would still be a fascinating and rewarding experience. The cinematography is as varied as a typical Oliver Stone film, and it's frequently beautiful (just look at the marvelous shots of Welles sitting on the bench in a park at "different times of the year"). The cuts from one shot to the next are captivating, with Welles even using edits to construct sentences. Welles will say a few words, he'll immediately cut to Irving, then to de Hory, and maybe back to himself, with all the words flowing together as a single line of "dialogue". There are also stark contrasts with this style, as in the latter section of the film, which has longer periods of Welles and Kodar simply standing in a large empty space, talking to each other, verbally relaying the story of Kodar, Picasso and Kodar's grandfather.

While F for Fake isn't exactly "light viewing", and anyone not acclimated to documentaries might have difficulty appreciating it, it is a masterpiece that any cineaste should be familiar with.

F For Fantastic, Farouche, Fanciful, Farcical, Fabulous.

[alice liddell · 6 September 1999]

There is so much zest, wit, fun, cheek, energy in this supremely entertaining film, that it's a crime that Orson Welles never directed another one. It's packed with as many ideas and potential future directions as CITIZEN KANE, but bizarrely hasn't received an nth of that classic's acclaim. Indeed only Godard's later documentaries seem to be at all influenced by this delightful fancy.

The film dazzles on so many levels. As a story about five interesting characters - two art forgers, a charlatan biographer, Howard Hughes (famous recluse, and disseminator of misleading information and doubles), and the great Orsino himself, myth-maker and magician. Their stories, fascinating in themselves, mingle, juxtapose and clash, to provide a complex essay on the nature of art, the links between illusion, life, forgery and artifice.

Elmyr is a master forger whose 'works' appear in many galleries. His story makes us ask: what is art? What is it about art that moves us - the thing itself, or its perceived value? In an age of mechanical reproduction, can authenticity survive, is it a viable (or even desirable) option? Does any of this actually matter? Maybe because everything in a post-modern culture is reproduced, the aura of the original work of art (pace Benjamin) becomes even more powerful. Or maybe a proliferation of fakes, doubles, illusions asks us to profoundly question received truths, official versions, 'authorities', who would make us believe in repressive wholes and canons, stories that tell one experience, and deny many others. Art itself is a forgery, of nature or the imagination - the forger is little different from an interpreter (e.g. Welles and Shakespeare): he cannot help stamping his own personality on the work.

These questions are very complex, and cannot be grasped in one viewing. The film's form is bewildering and exhilirating. Welles promises us, in this tale of fakery, truth for an hour, but this is a truth we must make out for ourselves. Breathless narration; visual puns; the weaving of documentary footage, stills, reconstructions, other films; tireless, confusing editing; rapid subject changes; all manage to disrupt and complicate an essentially straightforward story.

Welles the narrator is an absolute delight, a jovial trickster, with his gorgeous hearty laugh, games, aphorisms, comments, allusions; and yet behind it all is an extraordinarily depressing account of his own career, the perception of failure and broken promises, and the onset of mortality.

The last 20 minutes is an extraordinary coup de cinema, as well as a masterpiece of storytelling. The Legrand music is playful and energetic, before finally slowing down for a very melancholy climax. This film is a remarkable one-off: frustrating, irritating, stimulating, astonishing, hilarious. It always pulls the rug from under your feet, and you gleefully await your next tumble. Only Bunuel began and ended his career with the same passion and genius, the same desire to demand the most from his audiences, refusing to rest on his considerable laurels. Absolutely wonderful.

Welles' last film is rambling, full of montage, and as provocative as ironically spellbinding

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 19 November 2005]

Orson Welles's last full-length theatrical (ahem, emphasis on theatrical) film released before his death at times is almost like the 'News on the March' segment of Citizen Kane spread out in various spurts, and then totally played upon. Like the magician and prankster that he is (arguably one might consider Welles more of a prankster than as a textbook faker), F For Fake is as much about illusion as it is about the people who create the illusions. The film examines, chiefly, art, and not just the paintings by its subject Elmyr de Hory, but also film-making, writing (which includes signatures), architecture, and in a way a kind of lifestyle in general. It's extremely appropriate that Welles, who is always trying for a pure cinema (which is his genius, past the occasionally diverting hubris), can tackle on his 'true' subjects, Elmyr and writer Clifford Irving with such tact. And, somehow, like magicians probably have to, he slips by following the rules, fooling you every step of the way.

If this was just a film about its principal subjects- not including Welles himself as he has done (this is one of many films he starred, wrote and directed, but rarely has he been so candid about himself)- it would still hold some surface fascination. Coming from a generation that grew up after Elmyr had already passed on, and only knew mildly of the whole Howard Hughes story (of which Irving was apart of), this was all news. Which in a way made it hard to focus on here and there on the first viewing. Coincidentally with Welles's takes on the 'experts', I decided not to jump right away to conclusions like some critics even with film-making do. On the second viewing it all gelled together, like the deception in all the lines in Elmyr's Matisse's. We learn about some of Elmyr's history (including one historical note that gets only one brief mention as part of Welles's use of hints in all of his work). But it's not necessarily about that which becomes fascinating.

Just watching Elmyr, and him with Clifford Irving, the hoax author of a biography on Howard Hughes (err, the old-timer in a shrouded Las Vegas hotel Hughes), is enough to make it worthwhile for the whole hour which Welles promises at the start. Then, when Welles brings back a certain femme fatale in the form of his real-life love Oja Kodar, things become further mysterious. For a man whom mystery was the subject he loved most in films aside from Shakespeare, the last ten to fifteen minutes of the film are some of his most ambiguous, seductive, nearly pointless, but oddly cool scenes filmed. Suddenly, after getting inundated with sound-bytes and trickery with the editing style (which ranks with the best Welles and his team), verite camera-work (by a talented Gary Graver), and images that freeze up, zoom in, get inopportune poses from monkeys, and bits and pieces of a French villa and dozens of paintings, things slow down. If for nothing else, F For Fake is a masterpiece of tempo.

That's not to say that some of this will appeal to everyone. It won't. It doesn't have the instant accessible entertainment appeal of a Citizen Kane or intense ambiguity of the Trial. However for a certain viewer, there is a good deal of entertainment value- certain things that are mentioned, or even in just the way it's said by Welles, can be quite funny. Which helps considering the bits that might become top-heavy with Welles's love of quotes and pondering style of narration. It's a blend of character study, history, investigative journalism (both of the human subjects and of the ideas of forgery and painting and what is real in the mid 20th century society), and some fantastic styling. If you are a film student, even if you couldn't give a damn about Elmyr or the Howard Hughes hoax or Welles's own past of hoaxing with theater/radio/cinema, just to see how the film moves at times, how images fold and bend to another, the progression, it's rather exhilarating. And the only special effect is right up the sleeve, so to speak.

Incredible

[funkyfry · 10/10 · 9 October 2002]

Excellent pseudo-documentary about the art of fakery. Elmyr D'Hory the art forger and Clifford Irving, his biographer are profiled, as well as Welles' own career as a faker. Irving apparently perpetrated a scam to collect money for a check written, supposedly, by Howard Hughes as a deposit on a biography they would write together. I've listened carefully and I believe it really IS Hughes' voice on the telephone saying that Irving is a faker and that he had never heard of him before. Anyway, 100% editing genius makes a fake movie out of a TV special (made for French public Tv, as I understand it) by tacking on 40 minutes of inspired nonsense by Welles himself, proving that he truly is a magician for the masses.

Not a major Welles film, but a heck of an entertaining one!

[zetes · 8/10 · 21 November 2001]

F for Fake is perhaps Orson Welles' least famous film. It's easily eclipsed by such masterpieces as Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Touch of Evil. Also, the lesser-known masterpieces The Trial and Chimes at Midnight, which are as good as the previous three. Still, F is quite brilliant in itself, even if it's little more than an exercise in stylized editing. In fact, there's a little more to it than that. F is ostensibly a semi-documentary about forgery and fakery. Its main subjects are Elmyr, a pre-eminent art forger, Clifford Irving, who faked the Howard Hughes biography, Orson Welles himself briefly (chiefly the War of the Worlds broadcast), and Elmyr's precursor, another Hungarian forger who is supposedly the best forger who ever lived. There is a lot of play in the film about what is real and what is not. A lot of the documentary footage appears to be real, and some is open to question.

All in all, the film's subjects are enormously interesting, especially Elmyr. It's simply amazing watching him effortlessly, and I MEAN EFFORTLESSLY, reproducing the paintings of Picasso and Matisse. Elmyr gloats how no expert on Earth could tell his fakes apart from the real thing.

Clifford Irving's segments are somewhat less fascinating, but still worthwhile. His first major success was the biography of Elmyr (which was honestly produced), so Welles intermingles his story, more or less, into Elmyr's. After that, Welles talks a lot about Howard Hughes.

The final segment, about a woman who seduced Picasso into producing portraits of her which she then seduced away from him, is mostly re-enacted. Since it is not made up of documentary footage, but re-enacted, it proves very interesting. Welles himself participates in the segment, where he role plays the part of the dying old forger, with the girl, the real-life Picasso seductress, playing Picasso, who came to Paris to root out the master art forger who produced some original "Picassos." Once again, Welles puts on yet another performance of a lifetime. What was it at this point, his one thousandth? He also has a great scene at the beginning of the film putting on a magic show for a little boy.

I deliberately skipped the part of the film, quite short, where Welles talks about himself. He speaks about War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane, a forgery of William Randolph Hearst's (and Marion Davies') life. He claims that one of his original ideas was to do a pseudo-biopic of Howard Hughes. I've never heard of it. Is he making this up, too?

There is also, though, this sad undertone of the film about Welles' own life. He seems to be wondering whether it was all worth it. He talks about forging a career as a Broadway star in order to get work in Ireland. But wasn't he? He was a director, at least, but wasn't he also a stage actor? If not, he was always a famous and successful film actor, even in movies that he didn't direct himself. He speaks of his War of the Worlds radio production in very demeaning terms, joking that, if it were produced for a medium other than radio, he would have been laughed at (he shows clips of, I believe, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, or one such 1950s UFO movie, where UFOs are wasting Washington D.C., clips which he also runs under the closing credits).

As for the film's style, it has very complex but sometimes annoying editing, very rapid. I would suspect that even people raised on MTV might get a little dizzy watching it. There is also a lot of repetition of bits of interviews, clips, and the like. It's all in fun, but it also can't help but seem a bit silly. What it really ends up doing is subtracting the illusion of abundant substance. Oh well. Like I said, it's enormously entertaining. I think all of Welles' films were, really. People tend to forget that this master crafstman, rightfully thought of as one of the pre-eminent artists of the medium, was, first and foremost, an entertainer. That's not something you can say about the majority of cinematic auteurs. 8/10.

Like magic, this is all show and no meat--which means it's a brilliant empty success

[secondtake · 6/10 · 6 October 2012]

F is for Fake (1973)

Like many, I'm an Orson Welles fan. Not just his films (the best of them are among the best ever made) but also the man, for his rebellious side and his persistence. And his flaws, undermining his own best purposes.

But this movie struck me as affected, overly long, baroquely complicated, and finally just off-putting. Yes, it's incredibly well edited, and for that, if that's your thing, you should see it. But to me editing is part of something larger, and this larger thing is troubled.

I saw no reason to really care about the subjects here. The deliberate confusions (borne from the editing, in part) are half art and half avoidance, in a way. The documentary truth about the subjects, the supposed subjects, a French painter of forgeries and a writer about Howard Hughes and a forged check, is not really the goal. Nor is it possible. So what we have instead is the ride, the process of talking about these various man and their rich compatriots from all kinds of colorful places.

There is a limited range of footage at use here, most of it home-style 8mm color stock of the two or three main participants (call them suspects, call them actors, call them fakes) which was shot by a different filmmaker and turned over to Welles. This is interspersed with high quality footage of the narrator, Mr. Welles, in his deep voice and characteristic hat. And there is a little additional footage, including the dubiously connected opening scenes where Welles's own young attractive partner parades in a mini-skirt on a public street, only later to comment that such an act came out of her "feminism."

Okay. Maybe this is all part of the lie that gets incorporated as the truth. When you play games with truth and lies some interesting conflicts are intended. But for me, this beginning and the long end where a fictional series of paintings has been made by Picasso (not actually) of this same Welles companion (whose name is Oja Kodar) is pure voyeurism on the part of the director. Why he wanted to share his woman publicly I couldn't say (but can guess), but in fact the filming at these points takes on a very different sensibility.

In style, the rest of the movie strikes me as stunted, though endlessly interesting because of its constant cutting and jumping from one scene and format to another. In content it all seemed circuitous for effect without the necessary thrill of caring. The result avoids clichés beautifully, which is good (in fact, what the film has most of all, in a Welles way, is originality). But it also ends up being at times more style than effect. That is, the effects, which are so evident, are superficial.

Which leaves very little. Without a compelling subject and a convincing formal presentation, what is there?

So what about the huge reputation this movie has? Let's assume it's more than just Welles worship. I think for one it has anticipated the growing public interest in art forgery. It also creates a fascinating zone where a documentary isn't about establishing the truth, and so is a kind of third category--the fiction film using found footage. (To some extent this is the core of it--Welles has used existing footage and led our reading of it to create his own subjective "truth" of it.) There are aspects here all over the place. Aspects and aspects of aspects. For this, there is a formal invention that might have been enough when I was younger. Now, for whatever reason, it feels self-indulgent and, like the first scene in the movie, pure deception.

Maybe that's the point.

A Behemoth of Self-Reference

[kurosawakira · 10/10 · 19 October 2014]

I've seen almost everything there is to see from the man, and if I'm convinced of something it's of the fact that Orson Welles was a genius. Not only a man with promising skill, who made a few great films and wandered the desert for the rest of his life; no, he made utter masterworks to the very end, actual innovation, reinvention and rethinking what cinema is, and I don't think we give him enough credit for what he has done if we speak of him only in relation to "Citizen Kane" (1941) or speak of him as a tragic figure who could have made a difference.

The last of his feature films, only followed by "Filming 'Othello'" (1978) five years later, "F for Fake" (1973) is such a remarkable tour-de-force trip through the secret passageways of the possibilities of cinema I think it'll take one lifetime to really get over it: hyper-sensory to the extreme, "Fake" shows that bodacious cinema is accomplished not through expensive digital effects (not that there's anything wrong with expensive digital effects per se, note!) but through rhythm and expectation in editing. Promises, not explanations. Hesitation and release. The narrative is a profoundly multidimensional behemoth of self-reference it's near- impossible to delineate them all in relation to each other, an attribute that reiteratively underlines the impossible cognitive capacities Welles had to guide the film material into the film it now is, all this both premeditatedly before and during shooting but especially in the editing room.

Imamura's "Ningen jôhatsu" (1967) and Kiarostami's "Nema-ye Nazdik" (1990) join this film in enriching our lives and making them a little bit less… fake?

It's become a running joke that this film, too, was badly received at the time. But you know, "The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius." Wild words, Oscar, but I agree.

Leave it to Orson

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 31 May 2014]

"F for Fake" is a documentary by Orson Welles, who thought this movie had commercial prospects. Welles had a tough time in his filmmaking life, especially once he went to Europe. He knew art, he knew creativity, he didn't know business. The saddest thing about the book Barbara Leaming wrote about Welles is toward the end, when he has dinner with Steven Spielberg in the hope that Spielberg would help him find a distributor for his latest film. But all Spielberg wanted to do was talk about Citizen Kane. Leaming's recounting of her phone call with Welles is heartbreaking -- a great artist with nowhere to go with his art. Today, had he lived, his films would be widely accepted. His later ones were too out there for American audiences, and I don't think that Steven Spielberg, even if he had tried, could have gotten him a distributor.

F for Fake has unusual editing that we wouldn't see again for another 10 years, and that is the remarkable thing about it. It's very ahead of its time. The documentary is about fakes, mainly two big ones: Elmyr de Hory, who could replicate the great art masters such as Modigliani, Picasso, Matisse, etc., and actually sold these works to museums; and the con man extraordinare, Clifford Irving, who wrote a book about de Hory and then wrote a bio of Howard Hughes, based on interviews and meetings with him, none of which had ever taken place.

There's a free-wheeling, improvised feeling to this documentary. For me, it ran a bit long and was a little too disjointed. Welles' beautiful girlfriend in his last years, Oja Kodar, is showcased in one story at the end of the film. Welles is a wonderful narrator and guide.

Part of Welles' problem, in my humble opinion, is that he hated structure, rebelled against the confines and demands of the studios, and yet needed the discipline in order to finish anything. People say that he couldn't finish anything. He would run out of money and steam. I don't think it's that he didn't want to finish his films. I think he was a rebel with a cause. The cause was filmmaking. The business side? Couldn't handle it.

Thoroughly "Modern" Art

[fideist · 10/10 · 4 March 1999]

F FOR FAKE is arguably Orson Welles's greatest film work. Just as CITIZEN KANE was exemplary of Baroque art, F FOR FAKE is the celluloid version of a Picasso painting.

And in the Modern world where truth is relative, and art is subjective, Welles forces us to ask -- "When the authority says fake is real, what is real and what is fake?"

This film works on many, many levels. Pure, unadulterated genius.

I wanted to like this but really just a mishmash of editing

[goods116 · 6/10 · 24 July 2017]

As a hardcore 70s film buff I really wanted to like this 7.8 rated film by a master, Orson Welles. Unfortunately, there is really nothing here, it's just a complex editing job that initially seems interesting but in the end is tedious. You can sort of listen to the narration and be intrigued, and the editing was painstakingly handled, but again, there is nothing much going on here. I consider this simply a curiosity for 70s film fans or Orson Wells completists. For everyone else, move along.

A+ Concept, C- Execution

[drqshadow-reviews · 4/10 · 23 August 2011]

A dissertation on liars, cheats, counterfeiters and forgers by Orson Welles that never settles on a subject, shooting style, genre or personality. Is it a documentary, a fantasy, a historical drama or an art film? Welles employs a crazed guerrilla documentary style, splicing half-conversations with notorious scammers on top of one another while concentrating on awkward close-ups, unflattering angles and incomplete thoughts. Orson handles most of the narration himself from a seat at the editing table, apparently in the process of chaotically piecing the final product together. It's a manic blend of jumbled thoughts that seems like something thrown together on a whim after filming every instant of a lavish European vacation, then poring over the resultant footage for its most quizzical moments. For what it's worth, I could watch Orson carry on conversation with nobodies for hours at a time, and on the few occasions the film delivers just that, it reaches a certain peak. If Welles could've let this story tell itself without overproducing every instant and later forcing himself into unnecessary dramatizations, it would have had my rapt attention. Instead, the second half nearly put me to sleep. A solid concept that's been overcomplicated and spoiled.

Hard to Believe This Was Welles Final

[Michael_Elliott · 12 April 2012]

F for Fake (1973)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Orson Welles' final major picture started off as a documentary on art forger Elmyr de Hory but when that project led to an interview with Clifford Irving, the man who wrote the fake Howard Hughes biography, the documentary took a new turn and decided to look at fakes all around. This really isn't your typical documentary and many critics of the film will say it makes very little sense and all in all is nothing more than an incoherent mess. I wouldn't go that far but I think F FOR FAKE is certainly more style than actual substance. I say that because Welles visual style here is something that you didn't see in documentaries at the time and I'd say that nothing that followed really looked the same. The documentary has an avant garde feel to it and most of them comes from the editing. The editing goes all over the place with all sorts of weird edits, different styles of cameras being used and the editing usually takes the story and tells it in a different time frame and I think this is where people get lost. The look of the film is certainly something impressive and you really can turn the volume down and be entertained just by the look that Welles made. However, this "style" is so good that it really takes away from the stories being told and I think it really kills most of the interest in the subjects. I think the way the story goes back and forth does make the film incoherent but this is also due to the fact that the material just isn't worth following. I think had Welles made a more traditional documentary then the story would have been more entertaining. As is, the story just gets lost in the style and in the end you really don't learn anything about either man. We even get a quick clip about The War of the World hoax that landed Welles not in jail but in Hollywood. What actually keeps the film entertaining is the performance of Welles being himself and hosting. He comes off so good and charming that it at least keeps you awake even when the story itself goes under. F FOR FAKE is considered by some to be horrid while others see it as another Welles masterpiece. I'm in the middle thinking it shows some signs of greatness but in the end it's just too rough around the edges to really work.

F for Fake

[Scarecrow-88 · 10/10 · 31 December 2010]

An art forger, a biographer who faked having wrote from a legitimate source(Howard Hughes himself), and some 17 minutes about a Oja Koder's deathbed grandfather wanting Picasso's approval over 22 paintings of his beautiful daughter--Orson Welles sure knew how to weave quite a compelling film. F for Fake was given birth thanks to a fraud, Clifford Irving, who also put together a biograph on the skilled art forger, Elmry de Hory, known for creating such close resemblances to those who inspired him that supposed art experts were even fooled. François Reichenbach, who shot a documentary about Elmry, partnered with Welles over footage with both Irving and de Hory, and the rest is history, F for Fake a dedicated film to the art of charlatanism. I can't imagine this being as entertaining without the larger-than-life presence of Welles. He spends time in his editing room showing us pieces of footage, spending time with that marvelously gifted narrative voice, poking gleeful fun at his subjects, in mostly subtle, yet amusing ways. Welles had a genius I so admire and a wit I pine for but will never attain. He even admits to being a sort of fraud himself, the whole fiasco concerning martians attacking across the radio in his "War of the Worlds" broadcast, telling the Irish that he was a star on the Broadway stage, and how CITIZEN KANE was in fact supposed to be about Howard Hughes, not that other guy. The way Welles chides critics of art and how Elmry may've been a forger but the dealers who benefited from his fraudulence were just as crooked as their client. I just couldn't get enough of Welles moving about in a cape, performing magic tricks, or sitting in a café talking about the men in his film to a chuckling audience, not to mention his brilliant tale of Picasso and the luscious, elegant Kodar's inspiring him into a mad frenzy(along with Kodar's "trombone jazz playing brother in the French village of Houdan)supposedly bringing to life a "new period" which yielded those portraits she's said to have taken away with her. I could make mention of the way Welles edited the film in a breakneck pace, but that's been covered on numerous occasions and how its an essential part of compelling the audience, keeping us from being bored to tears with his subjects(the humor and personality of Elmry, as well as, Welles' presence keep that from happening, however). It bounces about and I figure many will consider it haphazard and aggravating, but I didn't mind Welles' structure in the slightest, it all still has a central focus in regards to truth and fiction and how it's not necessarily always easy to distinguish between the two. My favorite scene(besides Welles and Kodar in a performance as Picasso and her dying father respectively)has to be when either Elmry or Irving is caught in a lie over whether or not the artist put a signature at the bottom of his works, a pause from both as if neither were correct in what they were saying(and, as Welles had successfully done, we can not trust either men, because both made income from deception). In the end both men's reputations were tainted so karma got somewhat even.

Strange but excellent

[KnightsofNi11 · 8/10 · 2 April 2011]

Where to begin with this strange little film here? Well basically it is just a documentary by famed director Orson Welles. In this documentary, which has been tagged under the style of "free form," Welles discusses fraud and fakery and the role it plays in art. He does this by telling the story a fraudulent painter and his biographer. The painter paints famous paintings that have already been painted by other well known names like Picasso, Matisse, and Da Vinci, signs them using the original painters name and claims they were painted by that painter. He then sells them as if they were originals. His biographer is in on the hoax as well, documenting his life as if he were really a painter. All the while Orson Welles narrates about the profundities of playing tricks on the mind and how we are so easily fooled by tricks that lay right under our noses. He even plays a few tricks of his own on his audience so that the film accumulates into one big allegorical maze. It is head scratchingly fascinating.

The structure of this film can be very difficult to get behind as it is very quick and has almost a stream of consciousness type of flow to it. You have to keep up and you have to really take in everything Welles throws at you from start to finish. The movie is only an hour and a half but there are copious amounts of information thrown at you that you must follow to understand it all by the end of the film. Welles does do a fantastic job at putting the film together though and his meticulous nature in editing becomes very evident after the first ten minutes of the film. I'll admit that I wasn't as invested in this film as I probably should have been, thus I got lost a few times but was, for the most part, able to catch back up and understand it by the end.

This film is such a strange departure for the norm for Welles. If you are expecting a Citizen Kane type Welles film you will be disappointed. If you are expecting something different than anything you've seen before then you should be very entertained. Welles is having a great time with this film, boasting his profound ingenuity in all things art and human nature. He wants very much to provide a strange and multi layered experience for his audience and he definitely accomplishes that. He knows what he wants to do with this film and he keeps it very lively and mind bending. The films quick pace never lets up and Welles never ceases to narrate the film with the utmost spite and poignancy. This is a film for those who want to think, and think hard.

There are a lot of things at the beginning of this film that could put you off from wanting to finish it. The structure, flow, and tone of the film is all very bizarre and takes some effort to adapt to, but once you do you won't regret it. In fact after that point you will be sucked into the film and you will surely have a keen interest in finding out what it is all leading up to. And when you do find this out I guarantee it will put a smile on your face and make you realize just what a profound genius Orson Welles was. He does something so different with F for Fake, so how could you not like it?

One of Welles strangest and finest films

[jeremiawsterkel · 10/10 · 31 December 2006]

Welles makes great films there is no doubt about that. I think that most critics would agree that his films are some of the finest of American directors, but why is this film so good? It seems like a simple answer at first but Welles' films never have simple reasons for their quality. I think what makes this one of Welles greatest films is three major reasons the editing, the humanness of Welles, and the spectacle that the film creates. The editing gives this film its base and gives the misinterpretation of a documentary feel. I'm not sure why people think this is pre MTV editing, but I would think it has something to do with the switching and fast-paced attitude that the editing offers. I think this editing is just simply documentary editing at its finest because documentary are suppose to give the illusion that it is real events that are being filmed when it is only an interpretation of reality. The humanness of Welles astounds me in this film as well. I think that Welles left in scenes that made him look bad simply to make that movie have a human touch of the director, who had a long history of fantastic films, to make you feel that you are his friend and that the movie is personal. Which I believe that it is Welles' most personal of all the films he made. The spectacle can only be described by actually watching the film, which if you like art movies, is sure not to disappoint. Welles felt in the film that all art is subjective and easy copied. Find out for yourself if you agree with Welles and this masterpiece of modern cinema.

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.

[ironhorse_iv · 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.

Welles Light

[dtidball · 6/10 · 10 August 2006]

F For Fake is reasonably entertaining, but hardly a classic effort. I first saw this as part of a series of Welles films in a university level film course. The course instructor used Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, MacBeth and F For Fake - screened in that order - in an effort to show how Welles relationship with Hollywood powers changed the way he made films. Certainly, by the time Mr. Welles made this film, he was well past having big studio resources available for his efforts. The result is a documentary that seems slapped together in places, and whose central idea concerning perceptions of what is real comes off as an elaborate, if witty, joke. While entertaining, there is none of the emotional impact that marked his great early works. By the end of the film, the viewer is all too aware that they have been watching Orson Welles - noted film maker, magician and one time star - having a bit of fun. It is a bit of fun for the viewer, but hardly memorable.

Orson Welles Tackles Frauds and Fakes

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 20 November 2014]

A documentary about fraud and fakery, which focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger.

Clifford Irving is something of a legend, and definitely belongs in this film for his work as author of a fraudulent Howard Hughes authorized biography. This film purports that Irving and deHory both worked their schemes from the same tiny island, and yet were in no way connected.

Sadly, De Hory would commit suicide a few years after the release of Welles' film, on hearing that Spain had agreed to turn him over to the French authorities.

"F for Fake" faced widespread popular rejection. Critical reaction ranged from praise to confusion and hostility, with many finding the work to be self-indulgent and/or incoherent. "F for Fake" has grown somewhat in stature over the years as cinephiles revere almost anything the notorious filmmaker made.

The question remains: how much of this film itself is true or just one big hoax?

clever, perceptive, but ditch the last 17 minutes

[didi-5 · 7/10 · 31 January 2009]

'F for Fake' was one of Orson Welles' follies of his later film making years, where many promising projects got abandoned or were left unfinished. This film is no exception, and leaves the viewer feeling a little bit cheated at the end - of course, that may well have been the point! Much of the film is devoted to an art faker who claims he has never signed his paintings, despite them hanging in every major gallery, with clear signatures of the great masters; and his biographer, Clifford Irving, who himself perpetuated the great Howard Hughes hoax. Everything is fake, claims Welles, and nothing we see is real.

But does this also mean that this film is fake - and nothing can be believed throughout? A little too much of Ms Oja Kodar as well for my liking, who adds nothing to what has gone before and feels out of place. As an hour's play and expose of the art world, it is good - but as a piece with the Kodar section, it doesn't hang together that well.

Fitfully entertaining essay film about art forgery

[EddieK · 9/10 · 4 January 2006]

Long after Orson Welles lost the clout to produce Hollywood feature films, he managed to cobble together this idiosyncratic essay film from documentary footage shot by French filmmaker Francois Reichenbach. Initially, the subjects are master art forger Elmyr de Hory and his would-be biographer Clifford Irving, also author of the infamous Howard Hughes biography. Welles eventually transforms the film into an analysis of the question of authorship: who is truly the "author" of a work of art?

Welles packs "F for Fake" with guest stars, anecdotes, and witticisms... even a magic trick! It's not perfect: the film changes gears perhaps one too many times, and Welles can't resist including gratuitous shots of his mistress, Oja Kodar. But Welles aficionados will delight in the director's foray into deconstructionist cinema. "F for Fake" lies somewhere between the realms of fact and fiction. Welles the magician conjures up an altogether new form of movie, one that can't be easily classified.

Comments on the Criterion Collection DVD

[bandw · 7/10 · 15 March 2015]

The Criterion Collection DVD has a wealth of material that will delight any fan of Orson Welles, and maybe a lot of others as well. First there is the film "F for Fake." Welles narrates, directs, and appears as himself. He opens with a magic trick and performs a few more in the film. The thrust of the movie concentrates on Elmyr de Hory (the master art forger) and Clifford Irving (the author of the fake biography of Howard Hughes). Welles puts himself, as a filmmaker, as a faker as well, noting that movies and actors are engaged in creating illusions--this is the thread that pulls the somewhat disjointed elements of the movie together. There is documentary footage of de Hory at work--he could toss off a fake Picasso in a matter of minutes. His work fooled many an art expert and was accepted by museums and art auctions. His work was not just a copy of originals, but done "in the style of." His work was so good that fake de Hory's started turning up. If a fake is so good as to be taken for the real thing, is it of any less value? Of course the movie would not be complete without Welles ultimately pulling a fast one on the audience before it is over.

Also contained on the DVD is the 90-minute film "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band." This is a collection of archival material of some of Welles' work, including things that had never been released before. There are some real highlights here, like Wells reading passages from "Moby Dick" and as Shylock from "The Merchant of Venice." These are examples of Welles' commanding presence. I came away from this movie with a greatly altered opinion of Welles. He could be quite playful and whimsical. There is a sketch that has him being measured for a suit by a couple of Pythonesque tailors that had me laughing out loud. There is documentation about the difficulties Welles had in getting funding for his projects and how frequently funding would be withdrawn before film completion. Apparently "The Merchant of Venice" was completed but the film disappeared. The film "The Other Side of the Wind" was close to completion in the 1970s but it ran into production difficulties--it is supposed to be completed and released in May of 2015. After watching this material of Welles I was saddened by thoughts of what might have been.

Welles is shown accepting an American Film Institute life Achievement Award. I was expecting some sharp words or some evidence of anger in his acceptance, but he was quite sincere and gracious. There is an extended segment that has Welles answering questions from a large audience. Here again I was surprised to see how affable and quick witted Welles could be.

The DVD contains an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, who obviously admires Welles. There is a 60 Minutes interview with Richard Irving (after he had been exposed as a fake biographer) that is interesting. There is also a straight one-hour documentary on Elmyr de Hory.

You get your money's worth from this DVD.

M is for mediocre

[FilmOtaku · 4/10 · 12 July 2005]

Orson Welles' 1974 documentary "F for Fake" examines trickery and fraud, mainly focusing on two men who have been exposed as frauds themselves. Clifford Irving is a biographer who wrote the allegedly fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, yet, at least it seems, purports his innocence. The other main subject of the film is artist Elmyr de Hory, a man who has spent his life painting fakes of famous masterpieces, sometimes selling them to museums as real works by the original artists. Interspersed among these stories are bits where Welles does magic tricks to illustrate points, etc., and he also addresses the fact that his career began as a fraud when he first lied on his resume and then created a radio sensation with "War of the Worlds".

I really wanted to love this film and find it profound since I am such a Welles devotee, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Part of the problem lied with the fact that it was not just non-linear, it was completely scattered. While I appreciate stylish editing and quick jumps and zooms, particularly when used in an unusual format such as a documentary, there was simply too much of it going on in "F for Fake". They created a distraction as opposed to lending style. If the story had been more clear and comprehensive, I think that the editing probably would not have been as annoying. The scattered storytelling was made all the more obnoxious by the fact that these were truly interesting subjects, particularly Elmyr de Hory. His artistic fakery brings up the topic of fraud in the art world, and who is truly able to determine the authenticity of certain works; and if the works are not authentic, what does it say about those who admire the pieces in museums? This is one documentary that I would say to at least give a shot, but don't be afraid to turn it off if you're not enjoying it. It is certainly the most discombobulated documentary I have ever seen; it is a cross between a documentary, an art film and experimental film, none of which is properly represented or isolated. I don't have any lesser opinion of Welles after seeing it, but it certainly, in my opinion, doesn't stand out as a glowing specimen in his oeuvre. 4/10 --Shelly