Orson Welles goes full Godard with F for Fake, a documentary (of sorts) that’s ostensibly about art forger Elmyr de Hory, but burrows deeper and deeper into itself to consider the deception at the heart of all art—movies included. Welles presides over all of this from both behind and in front of the camera, lending an impish smile and theatrical baritone to the proceedings. There is ample footage of the slippery de Hory, as well as an interview with the possibly slipperier Clifford Irving, who published a biography of de Hory and was later revealed to have faked a supposedly authorized biography of Howard Hughes. Welles reflects on all of this artifice, at one point bringing in his own infamous hoax: the 1938 radio broadcast inspired by The War of the Worlds, a stunt that caused an alien panic across the United States. Playful in form as well—tricky editing techniques and incriminating freeze frames abound—F for Fake manages to just barely stay on the right side of pretentious, a word Welles himself throws out at one point, with a wink.
(1/25/2023)
