F for Fake

This is the last completed film of Orson Welles and probably his most underrated work. The film reels you in and gives you a hint of what you think is real and what is not though the warning was already given on the title. Most of the accounts are either fake or not but I still thought it was a great film.

It innocently starts on a train station with Welles in his "Charlatan" disguise performing magic tricks on a little boy, Welles probably did this opening sequence to surprise the audience right away and also put a little mystery behind the documentary that we are about to see. Like a metaphor for a magician doing tricks, Welles is the mysterious wizard and we are the little children watching him weave his magic spell on us. He is accompanied by a film crew and his companion the sumptuous Oja Kodar who provides sensuality to the film.

It tells the story of a professional  painter and art forger Elmyr de Hory and his personal struggles due to his reputation. His life connects with author Clifford Irving, the author of the fake autobiography of billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes.

The documentary shows a quick cutting style that is now often used in Music Videos and this helps in telling the story since we are hearing it from Welles and the point of view of Elmyr and Irving. Though they seemed to be close friends Elmyr is often contradicted by Irving by how his personal life was being told, his point of view vastly differs from the true accounts by Irving and Welles' narration. I think Elmyr fashions himself as a "true artist" and thinks art forgery not as a crime but also art, Irving's involvement in the meantime is also documented as well as his supposed connection to the fake auto biography of Howard Hughes that led him to jail.

Elmyr and Irving's story somehow also connects them to Oja Kodar and her fictitious account of Pablo Picasso's involvement on her life and Orson Welles who also thinks his own success was a fake.

It was astounding how Welles was able to put himself and Oja in the middle of this whole scheme of things as if though we are really watching fiction although some of the parts of the story about the characters are true. Welles was brilliant in making the most of his resources and by constructing different archival footage of 50's sci fi films and live footage of Hughes when he was still visible to the public eye.

The scene that I found interesting was the reenactment of the confrontation between Oja's grandfather and Picasso  played by Oja and Welles who was brilliant and haunting in his impersonation evoking the Shakespearean ghost in him for the last time. I found it fascinating to think that this film made from a  shoe string budget can take you away and put ideas to your head that you might think actually happened. Orson Welles the master, the man who brought us probably the greatest film ever made in "Citizen Kane" was apparently not out of tricks but showed us what a few fakery and quick edits can do to a film. He not only made a fascinating film but he helped create a new medium.

Grade: A