Film review: Orson Welles' 1974 mockumentary, "F for Fake"
Orson Welles is legendary for his writing and directing in the early days of radio and film. His 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast frightened thousands across the country, as many listeners believed that space aliens truly were landing on Earth with the intent to take it over. In the film world, Welles's first feature film, "Citizen Kane" (1941) is to this day at the very top of most lists of the greatest feature films of all time. Welles was far from a one hit wonder, though, directing other acclaimed films such as "The Magnificent Ambersons", "Othello", "Touch of Evil", and "The Trial". His final film was his only documentary, "F for Fake".
Released in 1974, "F for Fake" focuses through most of the film on two fakes: a professional art forger named Elmyr de Hory, and writer Clifford Irving. Irving wrote a real biography about de Hory, but his true claim to fame was a fake biography of reclusive multi millionaire, Howard Hughes. Late in the film, Welles develops another narrative thread about Oja Kodar, his partner from 1966 to his death in 1985.
Welles begins with shots of himself doing magic tricks for a mesmerized child in a train station. A beautiful woman (Kodar) gets off the train and walks away. In this early part of the film, with Welles's imposing presence, made all the more grand as he towers over the inquisitive child, and his deep, rich voice (a classic radio or newscaster's voice) I was immediately amused and intrigued that this master of illusion who had fooled many people with his "War of the Worlds" broadcast was on screen to tell me about faking people out.
Oja Kodar is then shown walking the streets of Paris in a short cut dress, and Welles cuts away to numerous Frenchmen on the sidewalks who hold nothing back as they check Oja out. Every film gives us no choice but to watch it in the context of its time. We don't have to accept certain things that once were considered acceptable, but absent censorship, there's no changing the final choices that a filmmaker makes at the time of post production. In the case of "F for Fake", Welles selected numerous shots of Oja Kodar. Most of the shots are of Oja from the waist down, wearing a mini skirt, or nothing at all. Welles choses variations of this shot throughout the film, and it could fairly be read as blatant objectifying (albeit in the name, or under the guise of art). Not your typical documentary content in any era, but acceptable at the time, especially in a film directed by the great Orson Welles. Kodar herself would later claim that she came up with the idea of the girl-watching scene, and that it was inspired by her own feminism. Whatever the case, that many butt shots would probably only make it into a mockumentary these days.
After the relatively lengthy girl watching scene is over, Welles promises the viewer that everything we would see in the next hour would be true. Actually, there are some debatable "facts" presented during the first hour, which serves as yet another example of Welles's world gone mad with, as he put it, "trickery, fraud… lies". We're left to decide whether, despite their lies, de Hory is truly an artist, and whether Irving is ever a truth teller. Are these two mere frauds, or is the truth about them much more complex? Although some reviewers of this film believe that Welles is questioning whether de Hory, with his precise forgeries, is really any less of an artist than the original painters, I felt that Welles was more focused on the craft that is part of every artist's work. Welles was a king of both artistic creation and crafting his work. In the case of de Hory, his brilliant imitations were not his own creations-- it was his brilliant craftwork that set him apart. That craftwork, however, gave the illusion that the painting was a real original. Hence the occasional cut aways to Welles sitting at his editing station-- here we have a true artist, craftsman, and illusionist.
After an hour, Welles has told the stories of de Hory and Irving, and he then launches into a story involving Kodar, her grandfather, and Picasso. In this post-truth-telling segment, we see Welles and Kodar act out a story in which we're told that Kodar had modeled for Picasso when she was twenty and he had fallen in lust with her. Then we are told that the paintings were actually forgeries painted by Kodar's grandfather (who always wanted to meet Picasso), and that Kodar eventually brings Picasso and grandpa together as her grandfather is on his death bed. There is a tense exchange between the two men,as Picasso is angry with Kodar's grandfather for copying his style. Welles then informs us that "for the last 17 minutes, I've been lying my head off."
"F for Fake", even in its title, is neither the whole truth or entirely fake-- but what is? Unlike "Citizen Kane" and its stature as one of the greatest feature films ever made, "F for Fake" is neither high on the list of the greatest documentaries, nor is it completely absent from some top 50 or 100 best documentary lists. It's a film about illusions, full of twists and turns, directed by one of the greatest illusionists of the 20th Century.