288 F for Fake

[atcolomb]

I also have the Criterion laserdisc copies of The Magnificent Ambersons (both clv & cav), Confidential Report, Citizen Kane ( both clv & cav), F for Fake, and Othello. All of them are my holy grails and will keep them until i die. In May TCM will show the one Welles film that i have a lousy copy and that is The Immortal Story, i hope they show a good print of it!!

[J Wilson]

For those without region free players who want to see some rarer Welles, TCM will be running a month-long tribute to Welles in May. They're playing a wide variety of titles, including THE IMMORTAL STORY. MACBETH, FILMING OTHELLO and CHIMES are the only missing Welles-directed titles, the latter due I suppose to the never-ending legal struggles over it. The schedule is as follows (these are all Wednesdays, EST): May 3: Citizen Kane (8PM); Magnificent Ambersons (10:15 PM); The Lady From Shanghai (12:00 AM); Touch of Evil (1:30 AM). May 10: Tomorrow is Forever (8 PM); Man in the Shadow (10PM); The Tartars (11:30PM); Is Paris Burning? (1AM); Shadowing the Third Man (documentary, 4AM). May 17: Othello (8PM); Mr Arkadin (9:45PM); The Immortal Story (11:30PM); F for Fake (12:45AM); The Trial (2:15AM). May 24: Journey Into Fear (8PM); The Stranger (9:15PM); Casino Royale (11PM); The V.I.P.s (1:15AM).

Re MACBETH: it didn't have funding cut, it just didn't have much funding to start with. It's currently being restored in both its original cut and shorter release version for eventual release on DVD.

[Doug Cummings]

Are you sure about those dates? TCM have other films listed in those time slots on their current schedule.

Edit: Yes, it's actually the 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th

[porquenegar]

Thanks for the TCM news. One of my co-workers with cable and a DVR is going to hook me up!

[J Wilson]

They must have screwed the dates up originally, because I had gotten them off their site to begin with. At any rate, glad to see the correct dates.

[DrewReiber]

Thanks for the TCM news. One of my co-workers with cable and a DVR is going to hook me up!

Is there any way you could hook me up?

[essrog]

Re MACBETH: it didn't have funding cut, it just didn't have much funding to start with. It's currently being restored in both its original cut and shorter release version for eventual release on DVD

Very good news. Where did you hear this? With this, the upcoming Criterions, plus an eventual Warners' release of The Magnificent Ambersons, this would get all Welles' finished work, other than The Immortal Story, on R1 DVD.

EDIT: Like a chump, I forgot that Chimes At Midnight also isn't on R1.

[J Wilson]

I'd have to dig up the link again, but the info came from an article on UCLA's restoration program.

[oldsheperd]

Back is up at Criteriondvd.com. Looks fresh.

P.S. 2 discs. 60 minute interview with Clifford Irving, plus a 1972 press conference exposing Irving's Hughes biography as a fraud.

[tavernier]

Just got the set.....the movie looks great! The special features on disc 2 are incredible, and Oja Kodar's commentary on F for Fake is entertaining. Even the perennially smug Bogdanovich contributes some interesting info in his brief preview. This is a great way to introduce Welles to the collection!

[jorencain]

Damn, how are you getting all of these so early???

[tavernier]

Damn, how are you getting all of these so early???

I know someone who receives review copies, so I get to see most of the new Criterions early (time permitting, of course) ....

[Napier]

Review is up at the Beaver. I can't wait.

[Gordon]

I can't wait either. I wonder if One-Man Band is the 90-minute version with the clips from The Other Side of the Wind? I think I'll email Mr T...

[porquenegar]

I'd have to dig up the link again, but the info came from an article on UCLA's restoration program.

I just watched the Image (uncut) LD of Macbeth last night. The video quality was actually pretty good. The audio track was inconsistent with some portions being very hissy while others were free from any noticeable defects. I think the basis is there to provide a very high quality dvd using modern restorative techniques.

[THX1378]

DVDtalk just posted another review of the film http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=15404 this sounds really good but I guess it's not for everyone.

[ellipsis7]

What's interesting about this release (I'm really looking forward to it too) is that the focus on Welles shifts away from the early films and the image (partially created by Welles himself) of the 'genius enfant terrible who couldn't be contained by Hollywood' to a really rich, if restricted, subsequent output, produced despite incredible, multiple frustrations... In the end this output may, alongside CITIZEN KANE et al., cement his permanent position in the Pantheon... F FOR FAKE is where the trickster stops playing games and gets serious, or not, and that's the brilliance of the construction and deconstruction... A mature work! I write this as a longtime OW admirer, watching the ebb and flow of his reputation...

[analoguezombie]

dvd review from CNN.com

[Napier]

I finally saw this last night,and have not been able to stop thinking about this film since.This is truly a masterwork,I can't even begin to go into the web of fakery that is weaved in this searing(essay).All I can say that this is one of my FAVORITE Criterion's,and a must have for any serious film buff or DVD collector.This absolutely will not disappoint!Can not recommend this enough!Now I'm off to listen to the Commentary.

[oldsheperd]

Got this on Friday. I can't say which is more the MindF&#k of the year, this or Primer.

[emcflat]

Anybody else think the red spine is ugly? Would have looked a lot cooler with that navy/black all around.

[Gordon]

Red spine? Why did they do that? I naturally assumed that it was, like you say, navy/black. Weird decision.

[Steven H]

This has been my favorite Welles for a while now, I think mostly because it's so unique (every time I see it I notice something new and think about it for days, and I may have fallen prey to his unavoidable charisma. Many people in the film have this magnetism of being extremely comfortable in their own skin: de Hory, Kadar, Irving, Welles. They all seem to be enjoying themselves, and I wonder if liking himself and seeing the qualities in himself that he likes in these other people (characters) wasn't what attracted him to the idea of this movie in the first place? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but Welles was probably a megalomaniac, and I could imagine him thinking like that. Orson Welles the character in F For Fake gets the best lines, wears interesting clothes, broods directly into the camera and then laughs it off, chuckling at the audience. Irving and de Hory are honored with a documentary about them (that seems to praise them), and Kadar both begins and ends the film as an object of desire (in the later case I would call it "mythic"). So what drives this film is personality instead of story, I guess...

This film falls directly into the category of experimental cinema, I'm not sure it's even a narrative film. The "story" seems just as illusory as the subjects it contains. It changes directions every ten minutes or so, goes on tangents, though it does revolve around a topic. I certainly can't think of any other narrative feature film in the Criterion Collection that breaks this kind of boundary (the closest thing that comes to mind is Idi Amin Dada, which is relatively tame).

...what Peter Bogdanovich calls a "documentary essay" on the subject of truth and lies.

But oh so much more, I think.

[cbernard]

...So what drives this film is personality instead of story, I guess...

This film falls directly into the category of experimental cinema, I'm not sure it's even a narrative film. The "story" seems just as illusory as the subjects it contains. It changes directions every ten minutes or so, goes on tangents, though it does revolve around a topic...

I hope you're implying, beneath all this, that "it's cool." Great films often get by without great stories, on so-so stories, or without stories, period. And seeing that we are asked to call it an 'essay film,' I think the implicaiton is that we give up searching for a proper story and instead explore the filmmaker's structure of ideas. I mean, when I took an essay class in college, a serious one rather than a la-de-da creative writing class, the word "idea" was pounded into our heads again and again and again. I can't remember if we ever talked about stories in our work. But ideas can be terrifically exciting, in works like F for Fake and others.That's why I think the film is about more than the sum of the charming personalities.

[Steven H]

I hope you're implying, beneath all this, that "it's cool."

This is my favorite film by Orson Welles. I think I was trying to approach how Welles was delivering his "documentary essay", and came up with some crackpot theories in the process. Thanks for the info regarding essay writing; I think it fits in nicely with what the film is going for and the Bogdonavich quote. Maybe saying that personality is what "drives the film" is going too far, but I can't imagine the film being entertaining, or existing in the first place, without them. Charisma and entertaining characters seem to be extremely important to Welles (I don't think this should go without saying because of the context of "experimental cinema" certainly wouldn't preclude these factors).

Not sure why, but another film that keeps creeping up in my head when I think of this one is Jaques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse. Maybe it's all the notions of art, or it's similarities in plot to the last bit in F For Fake. I wonder how Welles would have filmed The Beautiful Troublemaker? Would Piccoli have turned into a sly seducer? I bet Orson would have ended up engaged to Beart.