F for Fake (The Criterion Collection)
by Orson Welles
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: François Reichenbach, Joseph Cotten, Oja Kodar, Orson Welles, Richard WilsonDirector: Orson Welles
Brand: Image Entertainment
Writer: Orson Welles
Writer: Oja Kodar
Cinematographer: François Reichenbach
Producer: François Reichenbach
Editor: Dominique Engerer
Producer: Dominique Antoine
Producer: Richard Drewitt
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-26
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of F for Fake (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: Film Unlike Other Films - A Cinematic Thesis...
Summary: 5 Stars
Society consists of symbols with a wide range of meanings within the world. The alphabet is one of most commonly used code systems of symbols. The letters in the alphabet have the power to form words and every single word has a meaning. When a number of words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives fuse together, they form a sentence. The structure of a sentence is to produce a contextual meaning, which sometimes uses symbolism to enhance the sentences in regards to the theme of the topic. Several joined sentences create a paragraph, which usually focuses on one idea that also could be a symbol. A number of ideas compiled into a narrative form makes a thesis for readers to contemplate, which could help the person either assimilate, or adapt the new ideas to previous knowledge and wisdom. This is due to the notion that new ideas comprise a symbolic meaning for the individual. Orson Welles seems to have used this concept when he made the film, F for Fake.
F for Fake playfully utilizes every single scene while maximizing the symbolic value of words, images, and behavior among the individuals portrayed in the film. These scenes offer several representational impressions to the audience, as Welles' meticulous editing seems to have the same meaning a typewriter has to a writer. In this sense, F for Fake does not offer a conventional film or documentary, as Welles uses both authentic film clips edited with stage performances. Instead, Welles advocates his ideas in neither a fictionalized nor a non-documentary manner, as he fuses these two into a notion of deceit, forgery, trickery, and any other way that could deceive the audience. In 1972 over a Parisian lunch with writer and film essayist Jonathan Rosenbaum he expressed that he was working on this film, which Welles referred to as a new kind of film. The structure of the film brings the notion of a thesis where the candidate attempts to support his or her own thesis from a wide range of angles. Each visual symbol has a meaning while the scenes form the visual sentences, as the different acts form paragraphs in this cinematic thesis. The heavy editing, which Welles spent over a year on, describes Welles' cerebrally complexity while trying to defend this extraordinarily cinematic thesis.
In the beginning of the film Welles implies that a key he used for a magic trick "...was not symbolic of anything." This, however, suggests another deceit, as the audience has already seen the sequence and had time to ponder the meaning of the key to which Welles is fully aware. The pondering has already caused the audience to give the key a visual meaning, which the viewer has either assimilated or adapted to previous knowledge. There is also a scene where the audience gets to follow a stunning woman in high heels and a short miniskirt , as several people open their eyes starring while salivating and car horns honk in the background. Suggestively, the scene causes the audience to think that all the men probably are secretively wishing for the woman's company. This too is a clever lie, as Welles simply has edited together a number of scenes which insinuate that people are starring while horns can be heard in the background. Welles seems to suggest that what one sees cannot be believed, as what one sees might only be a fabricated version of the truth.
To comfort the audience Welles informs that the viewers that they will not be victims to deception as he places in writing that "For the next hour everything in this film is strictly based on the available facts." This portion of the film leads the audience through a two-piece sequence about a famous art forger named Elmyr de Hory, Cliff Irving, and the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. One focuses on Elmyr while the second part emphasizes Elmyr's biographer Irving who also was into forgery, as he wrote a forged autobiography by Howard Hughes who then lived secretively in a luxury Las Vegas penthouse. This brings several of the previous notions back, as Welles continues to discuss the idea of deceit. One of the interesting ideas in this sequence explains the meaninglessness of experts, as fakers cannot be troubled by experts. One thing that Elmyr advises of is that no one should have the ultimate power to decide quality, as he himself probably fooled many so-called experts with his own forgeries. This also implies that the expert could as well be the faker, if this one person knew what was good. This notion would also suggest that this very review would be a fake, as it also does not express anything unique while it merely retells the design and purpose of the film.
F for Fake offers an intriguing cinematic thesis that crawls within the brain causing an itch that does not seem to want to leave. The film is nothing like anything that Welles has done before, or after this film, which also supports what he has said in regards to the film. One reason that no other film that he created since did not mimic this film could be the concept of the film, as it provides an opportunity for him to play with his own ideas in a visual manner. This film took over a year for him to make, as it also seems to be a film of personal growth and understanding of the world as a whole. The personal aspect of the film seems to saturate the whole experience, as he refers to himself while acting and making comments in regards to the people in film from behind the cutting board. Ultimately, Welles attempts to erase the idea of him being the "expert", as he provides examples of his own forgery from when he provided the War of the Worlds over the radio, which caused mass hysteria throughout the United States.
Summary of F for Fake (The Criterion Collection)
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