F for Fake (The Criterion Collection)
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Movie Reviews of F for Fake (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: One of Orson's great final film creations - a miracle of editing
Summary: 5 Stars
Life is short and everyone knows that Orson Welles was a genius - flawed or otherwise - so let me say that F FOR FAKE is a great and very wise film about . . . film. It's a Mobius strip - it keeps turning back on itself so that its primary subject takes turns with secondary and tertiary characters and ultimately mirrors the film's own creator. It's a film about how the truth of art is often conveyed through lies, and vice versa.
Let me also say that the overheated editing from a variety of disparate elements and different film stocks preceded Oliver Stone's own brain-fever techniques in films like JFK, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, and NIXON by nearly twenty years. Just imagine what Welles would have produced if the circumstances of his project financing had not been so dire.
As ever, Criterion has produced a marvelous version of this "only" color film from Orson Welles (another reason to see this movie - every other Welles film was in black and white).
Buy this DVD, along with Criterion's recent release of MR. ARKADIN (complete with the original novel on which Welles based the film). Great stuff . . .
Movie Review: F for feat!
Summary: 5 Stars
The first sequence if the film shows us one the most alluring women ever existed: Oja Kodar, and through these traveling, the eye-camera invites us to participate with Welles through a particular journey: the fake.
The inextinguishable genius of Orson Welles is carved once more in relief through this admirable of two well known fakers , Elmyr and Irving. As it's well know, Elmyr was regarded the most astute, fine and intelligent artist of the falsification, his immense skills as painter allowed him to copy Modigliani, Matisse or the same Picasso, his reproductions were bought for many art dealers; on the other hand, Irving is closely linked with Howard Hughes.
Orson Welles acts as the master of ceremonies, his voice in off and some other important reflections about himself and so other issues.
The movie is deeply absorbing and engaging, but the rest of its charm runs for you; it would be a crime to tell you the rest of this original masterwork.
Movie Review: Classic Welles, A Real Gem...
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is perhaps my absolute favorite by Orson Welles as he co starred and edited this rather complex movie/documentary on forgers and the craft of forging. Set in far flung 70's hot spots such as Ibiza, Las Vegas, and Nassau, this film is carefully edited in such a way as to provide a fast paced, entertaining look into the seamy underside of the art and publishing worlds in the late 60's and early 70's. Welles even had the stones to include his mistress Oja Kodar as his co-star in his own piece of trickery as displayed in this fast paced masterpiece. This is a great film for anyone who watched Richard Gere in "The Hoax" and who would desire to know the real story of Clifford Irving. A great film by a master of the art!Movie Review: A man who loved movie making
Summary: 5 Stars
I agree with most of the above but for me the best part of this excellent package is the "One Man Band" (Known in Europe as "The Lost Films Of Orson Welles".
It's an 88 minute look at a person truly in love with the art of movie making and I found it very touching and remarkable.
As an additional surprise some of the scraps of home shot movie included the finest acting I've seen from Welles. They also showed an acting range I had not realised he was capable of and hearing his offscreen direction of Oja was fascinating.
A very nice experience.
Marc
Movie Review: Up his sleeve
Summary: 4 Stars
Orson Welles, nearing the end of his career, built a philosophical fun house with "F for Fake," stuffed full of questions about the nature of art and authorship, illusion and reality, lies and truth.
Welles took an unfinished documentary shot by someone else, tacked on some hocus-pocus at the beginning and end, mixed in spicy footage of his mistress and called it his latest movie. View the movie as one of the director's great works -- or just another Wellesian goof.
The 1972 movie -- a head-spinning piece of modern video art -- more or less profiles the Howard Hughes book faker Clifford Irving and the brilliant art forgerer Elmyr de Hory.
Welles, of course, was uniquely qualified to handle the intertwined stories of these con men, having perpetrated the great hoax of "War of the Worlds." "We hanky-panky men have always been with you," Welles says.
Criterion brings "Orson Welles's F for Fake" to DVD in a typically generous double-disc set. Image quality varies, from the crisp scenes of narrator Welles wandering around in his cape to the grainy 16mm docu segments. (Most of the film is in color, unusual for Welles). The feature unspools in anamorphic widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. On surround sound set-ups, the DVD's strong mono audio roosts in the center speaker.
Disc 1 offers a 6-minute introduction by Welles' pal Peter Bogdonovich, who provides much-needed orientation. "It's sort of like visual music," Bogdonovich says of the movie's dizzying quick-cut editing and narrative quantum leaps. "If you get on the film's wavelength ... it's riveting. If you fight it and expect it to be a linear thing, then you're not going to enjoy it."
Oja Kodar, the director's mistress and co-writer of "Fake," says the film is "not just about fakery, it's about Orson." Cameraman Gary Graver, who shares the DVD commentary with Kodar, says "Fake" is "as close as you'll get to the real Welles."
The cameraman turns actor in the 9-minute trailer for "F for Fake," included on disc 1. More of a short film than ad, it was built around new footage shot by Welles. The "Fake" trailer's absurd length and nude shots of Kodar ensured rejection from the U.S. distributor.
On disc 2, the 1995 docu "Orson Welles: The One Man Band" spends an hour and a half profiling the director in his final years. It's shot in the style of "F for Fake" and produced by Kodar, who appears throughout.
The docu, in English and German, follows Welles around the globe as he attempts to finish his many projects, all rejected by Hollywood and its financiers. "In Los Angeles, everyone only talks about 'crazy old Welles.' ... I must start over from scratch," the onetime prodigy sighed.
The docu shows extended clips from the director's aborted projects, among them "The Merchant of Venice," the thriller "The Deep" and the wrapped but unedited "The Other Side of the Wind." Most look like decent but unreleasable student films. There are broad comedy bits starring the old man, some kind of funny.