I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The Criterion Collection DVD has a wealth of material that will delight any fan of Orson Welles, and maybe a lot of others as well. First there is the film "F for Fake." Welles narrates, directs, and appears as himself. He opens with a magic trick and performs a few more in the film. The thrust of the movie concentrates on Elmyr de Hory (the master art forger) and Clifford Irving (the author of the fake biography of Howard Hughes). Welles puts himself, as a filmmaker, as a faker as well, noting that movies and actors are engaged in creating illusions--this is the thread that pulls the somewhat disjointed elements of the movie together. There is documentary footage of de Hory at work--he could toss off a fake Picasso in a matter of minutes. His work fooled many an art expert and was accepted by museums and art auctions. His work was not just a copy of originals, but done "in the style of." His work was so good that fake de Hory's started turning up. If a fake is so good as to be taken for the real thing, is it of any less value? Of course the movie would not be complete without Welles ultimately pulling a fast one on the audience before it is over.Also contained on the DVD is the 90-minute film "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band." This is a collection of archival material of some of Welles' work, including things that had never been released before. There are some real highlights here, like Wells reading passages from "Moby Dick" and as Shylock from "The Merchant of Venice." These are examples of Welles' commanding presence. I came away from this movie with a greatly altered opinion of Welles. He could be quite playful and whimsical. There is a sketch that has him being measured for a suit by a couple of Pythonesque tailors that had me laughing out loud. There is documentation about the difficulties Welles had in getting funding for his projects and how frequently funding would be withdrawn before film completion. Apparently "The Merchant of Venice" was completed but the film disappeared. The film "The Other Side of the Wind" was close to completion in the 1970s but it ran into production difficulties--it is supposed to be completed and released in May of 2015. After watching this material of Welles I was saddened by thoughts of what might have been.Welles is shown accepting an American Film Institute life Achievement Award. I was expecting some sharp words or some evidence of anger in his acceptance, but he was quite sincere and gracious. There is an extended segment that has Welles answering questions from a large audience. Here again I was surprised to see how affable and quick witted Welles could be.The DVD contains an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, who obviously admires Welles. There is a 60 Minutes interview with Richard Irving (after he had been exposed as a fake biographer) that is interesting. There is also a straight one-hour documentary on Elmyr de Hory.You get your money's worth from this DVD.

F is for Fake (1973)Like many, I'm an Orson Welles fan. Not just his films (the best of them are among the best ever made) but also the man, for his rebellious side and his persistence. And his flaws, undermining his own best purposes.But this movie struck me as affected, overly long, baroquely complicated, and finally just off-putting. Yes, it's incredibly well edited, and for that, if that's your thing, you should see it. But to me editing is part of something larger, and this larger thing is troubled.I saw no reason to really care about the subjects here. The deliberate confusions (borne from the editing, in part) are half art and half avoidance, in a way. The documentary truth about the subjects, the supposed subjects, a French painter of forgeries and a writer about Howard Hughes and a forged check, is not really the goal. Nor is it possible. So what we have instead is the ride, the process of talking about these various man and their rich compatriots from all kinds of colorful places.There is a limited range of footage at use here, most of it home-style 8mm color stock of the two or three main participants (call them suspects, call them actors, call them fakes) which was shot by a different filmmaker and turned over to Welles. This is interspersed with high quality footage of the narrator, Mr. Welles, in his deep voice and characteristic hat. And there is a little additional footage, including the dubiously connected opening scenes where Welles's own young attractive partner parades in a mini-skirt on a public street, only later to comment that such an act came out of her "feminism."Okay. Maybe this is all part of the lie that gets incorporated as the truth. When you play games with truth and lies some interesting conflicts are intended. But for me, this beginning and the long end where a fictional series of paintings has been made by Picasso (not actually) of this same Welles companion (whose name is Oja Kodar) is pure voyeurism on the part of the director. Why he wanted to share his woman publicly I couldn't say (but can guess), but in fact the filming at these points takes on a very different sensibility. In style, the rest of the movie strikes me as stunted, though endlessly interesting because of its constant cutting and jumping from one scene and format to another. In content it all seemed circuitous for effect without the necessary thrill of caring. The result avoids clichés beautifully, which is good (in fact, what the film has most of all, in a Welles way, is originality). But it also ends up being at times more style than effect. That is, the effects, which are so evident, are superficial. Which leaves very little. Without a compelling subject and a convincing formal presentation, what is there?So what about the huge reputation this movie has? Let's assume it's more than just Welles worship. I think for one it has anticipated the growing public interest in art forgery. It also creates a fascinating zone where a documentary isn't about establishing the truth, and so is a kind of third category--the fiction film using found footage. (To some extent this is the core of it--Welles has used existing footage and led our reading of it to create his own subjective "truth" of it.) There are aspects here all over the place. Aspects and aspects of aspects. For this, there is a formal invention that might have been enough when I was younger. Now, for whatever reason, it feels self-indulgent and, like the first scene in the movie, pure deception.Maybe that's the point.

It's fitting that this gem should be reissued in the very month that the academic-pseud axis finally managed to oust Citizen Kane from its rightful Number One position in the International Best Film Poll conducted by Sight and Sound, itself pseud heavy, on behalf of pseuds everywhere. F For Fake is old Awesome at his most playful, most creative, most imaginative, three qualities sadly lacking in Pretender Hitchcock as evidenced by the pretentious Vertigo, new Number One (for all of five minutes). Against both the odds and the laws of nature Welles contrives to cram a quart of genius into a pint pot of screen, entertaining, instructing, amusing, diverting at one and the same time and always with a firm grasp on Style. A great bookend to Kane and one to savor.

that Welles said was that he's been in decline his whole career.There was an interesting story here. Unfortunately, Welles seemed completely incapable of telling it. Instead, he was trying to tell a bunch of different stories, about Elmyr, about Clifford Irving, about his pompous view of critics and experts, oh, yeah, and trying to jump start his current girlfriend's career by giving her unneeded screen time. (Oja, honey, when they told you to sleep with the director, they didn't mean one washed up like a whale on a beach!) Welles was probably trying to cash in with a bunch of footage of Clifford Irving as Irving was becoming a household name with his role in the faked auto-biography of Howard Hughes. Unfortunately, it means the subject of his film, Elmyr, didn't get the time he deserved and he was probably the more interesting story.The great tragedy of Orson Welles was that he peaked early, and then spent the rest of his career sputtering, finally doing wine commercials and awful documentaries...