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F for Fake



Reality and artifice, truths and lies, the means and the ends — these are the poles traversed by Orson Welles in his landmark examination of the nature of authenticity and artistic essence: F for Fake. Described by Welles as "a new kind of film,"? F for Fake — a.k.a. Fake!, a.k.a. About Fakes, a.k.a. ? ("Question Mark"?) — is a prism of a movie, a kaleidoscope in which fiction, documentary, and the poetic essay interlock, fragment, and recombine to form one of the most entertaining and profound works in all of cinema.

How to describe a film so unlike any other ever made? In a nutshell... — F for Fake opens with a couple of magic tricks, segues as though by sleight-of-hand into the story of master art-forger Elmyr de Hory and his relationship with biographer Clifford Irving (a sequence 'remixed' by Welles with extant footage from François Reichenbach’s documentary work-in-progress, Elmyr), then hones in on Irving when word gets out that his purported biography of recluse-mogul Howard Hughes is a first-class hoax in its own right. Here the film erupts in all directions, as Welles contrasts the sprawl of '70s Hollywood with the halcyon Tinseltown that produced Citizen Kane; contemplates the continent that provided him with an artistic refuge some 800 years after the anonymous construction of the cathedral at Chartres; and, lastly, recounts a meeting between that most un-anonymous of artists — Pablo Picasso — and Welles' companion Oja Kodar, which took place in her youth, and during which...... — The nutshell here clamps shut; the film itself, however, opens up onto infinite space.

Exhilarating, hilarious, and marvellously idiosyncratic, F for Fake comes to us from that late period of Orson Welles' cinema which, although perhaps less widely known than his Hollywood years, nevertheless found one of the movies' greatest masters at the top of his powers.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Glorious progressive transfer from a new high-definition restoration
• Exclusive audio commentary by the film's cinematographer Gary Graver and Bill Krohn (US correspondent for Cahiers du cinéma)
• Jonathan Rosenbaum on F For Fake – a 28 minute video piece
• 40-page booklet featuring the writing of Fred Camper, Jean Cocteau, Craig Keller, Joseph McBride, & Peter Tonguette

Will the trailer be any better looking than the one on the Criterion set?

Watch THE HEARTS OF AGE here

HEARTS OF AGE: My god, this lite conversation piece (which few would actually watch if OW wasn't a participant) is getting released & rereleased... and re-released. All over the course of under a year. First Kino's Avante Garde EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (from Rohauer) gave us a moderately speckled print , then Image's UNSEEN CINEMA just provided us with a much better print of it; now MoC.

A little off-topic, but here are the famous Paul Masson outtakes.

HerrSchreck wrote:HEARTS OF AGE: My god, this lite conversation piece (which few would actually watch if OW wasn't a participant) is getting released & rereleased... and re-released. All over the course of under a year. First Kino's Avante Garde EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (from Rohauer) gave us a moderately speckled print , then Image's UNSEEN CINEMA just provided us with a much better print of it; now MoC.

Ditto. I'm not normally one to look an extra in the mouth (on or off set), but I must admit that the connection between F for Fake and this curio eludes me completely! Did MoC have a transfer of it lying around and no other Welles releases on the horizon?

No doubt the booklet will be as sumptuous as ever, but I expect I'll find it hard to justify double-dipping this time.

HerrSchreck wrote:HEARTS OF AGE: My god, this lite conversation piece (which few would actually watch if OW wasn't a participant) is getting released & rereleased... and re-released. All over the course of under a year. First Kino's Avante Garde EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (from Rohauer) gave us a moderately speckled print , then Image's UNSEEN CINEMA just provided us with a much better print of it; now MoC.

Yeah, that's a good point. I'd rather see Vienna (1968) and/or London (1971) on the F for Fake disc. Those films are now unlikely to appear on any Welles DVD.

Any chance of MoC releasing Chimes at Midnight thru Studio Canal, now that Warner are no longer their UK distributor?

Or a Really Nice transfer of the sublime RETURN TO GLENASCAUL (aka ORSON WELLES GHOST STORY on the old Kino FEIND WITHOUT A FACE vhs) featuring a nice turn by Welles.

A more interesting extra, rights permitting, would have been Reichenbach's original film on Hory, which does still exist, or even Reichenbach's film on Welles from 1968.

zedz wrote:I must admit that the connection between F for Fake and this curio eludes me completely!

Well, the only connection that I can think of is that HEARTS OF AGE was Orson's very first film and F For FAKE was his last. Just a thought.

HerrSchreck wrote:Or a Really Nice transfer of the sublime RETURN TO GLENASCAUL (aka ORSON WELLES GHOST STORY on the old Kino FEIND WITHOUT A FACE vhs) featuring a nice turn by Welles.

The UK edition of Othello contains Return To Glannascaul. Currently £8.97 at Amazon.co.uk HERE. Transfer quality is quite good, as I recall (I rented the disc).

Annie Mall wrote:

zedz wrote:I must admit that the connection between F for Fake and this curio eludes me completely!

Well, the only connection that I can think of is that HEARTS OF AGE was Orson's very first film and F For FAKE was his last. Just a thought.

FILMING OTHELLO was his last completed work, so that isn't it.

davidhare wrote:Given Orson's longevity as an industry you may as well say the Rosenbaum/Krohn etc Touch of Evil is his last completed film.

Actually, given the recent Arkadin re-cut on the Criterion's set, I think that now qualifies as his most recent finished film...

And it's a dream given Beatrice's insistence that her botched version of Othello is the "official" one, but a release with the original European cut and undoctored American cut would be fantastic, with Filming Othello as a third disc.

davidhare wrote:"Pull ze Strink, Pull ze strink!" (which movie with Bela?)

"S for Sexchange"

Has anyone here seen the animated short film parable, Is It Always Right to Be Right? (1970, Warren H. Schmidt, Lee Mishkin) narrated (very powerfully, apparently) by Orson? I would love to see it, but it has been elusive over the years.

davidhare wrote:Given Orson's longevity as an industry you may as well say the Rosenbaum/Krohn etc Touch of Evil is his last completed film.

Which leads me to another suggestion for MoC: how about the 1958 studio cut of Touch, ideally in combo with the 70s reissue including the few extras Welles shots plus the mundane Harry Keller footage, both versions in Academy Ratio, plus a commentary by someone who prefers them both to the 98 version. I know this appears to "go against the grain" of restoration theory but I think MoC would be doing the cinephile community a very big favor.

If they are going to include commentary by people who are campaigning for their own favorite/preferred version, then they should probably have commentary tracks for each version, including one supporting the '98 version. However, I have my doubts that MoC can get the UK rights to all versions of Touch of Evil.

Gordon McMurphy wrote:

HerrSchreck wrote:Or a Really Nice transfer of the sublime RETURN TO GLENASCAUL (aka ORSON WELLES GHOST STORY on the old Kino FEIND WITHOUT A FACE vhs) featuring a nice turn by Welles.

The UK edition of Othello contains Return To Glannascaul. Currently £8.97 at Amazon.co.uk HERE. Transfer quality is quite good, as I recall (I rented the disc).

I'm preparing a pretty big PAL order right now... so will probably chuck that in. I knew about those discs but needed a little push. RETURN TO... is it. I've needed OTHELLO for awhile.

Gordon McMurphy wrote:Has anyone here seen the animated short film parable, Is It Always Right to Be Right? (1970, Warren H. Schmidt, Lee Mishkin) narrated (very powerfully, apparently) by Orson? I would love to see it, but it has been elusive over the years.

Welles narration surprise:

What flipped me out was the tidbit in this bizarro "Directors Cut" of THE WARRIORS (which removes the character & story setup which identifies the soldier's "titles" i e Soldier Of The Middle, War Chief, etc, which I like very much) that Welles was originally slated to do the v/o intro to the film (now added by Hill himself).

Will there be any advantages of the MOC version compared to to excellent Criterion release ?
(Exept one of your superb booklets, of course)

Please someone from MoC, I watched F for Fake for the first time today and loved it. Need you folks to give me a reason or two to wait for your release rather than ordering the Criterion.

jamie_summers wrote:Please someone from MoC, I watched F for Fake for the first time today and loved it. Need you folks to give me a reason or two to wait for your release rather than ordering the Criterion.

Same here. I want to get the MoC version but the Criterion just looks totally superior.

Our dilemma is that we don't want to repeat the extras on the Criterion version. We are still finalising the specifications, but it is currently looking like a one-disc set, with the extras mentioned above and perhaps with commentary (different to Criterion's).

As far as the film itself goes, we have licensed Criterion's superb HD master.

Malpertuis or Welles Merchant of Venice, PLZPLZPLZPLZPLZPLZPLZ, not on any dvd i know of, chimes after midnight as a new MoC disc?

forget a rationale for dvd extras the rationale is Welles! cram as much of it in as possible plz

tony wrote:Peerpee: In addition, you could include the restored colour trailer; Here's part of a post from Wellesnet, posted here on the Criterion forum by Jeff Wilson, the moderator of Wellesnet:

In a post on the Wellesnet message board, Stefan Droessler of the Munich Film Museum responded to a post about the upcoming Criterion release of CONFIDENTIAL REPORT, and provided some further info on the release of F FOR FAKE as well:

"...but I also had problems with the Criterion F FOR FAKE DVD for which I did some research. We were able to trace the original ELMYR-film by Reichenbach which was the basis of F FOR FAKE. Could you imagine that Criterion didn't even try to include this very revealing item? It's not the only thing I miss on this DVD, there also won't be Oja Kodar or the restored color trailer for F FOR FAKE..."

We've been in touch with Droessler. He doesn't have the material but pointed us towards who does. They pointed us to someone else, and the costs involved are too prohibitive at the moment (ie. more than the cost of licencing FFF in the first place), so we're sorta stuck at the moment.

We have however just recorded a new commentary track with Bill Krohn and Gary Graver.

More over the next coupla months.

December 4, according to Play.com. The only specs listed so far are the previously listed commentary and a booklet.