F For Fake

Orson Welles' free-form documentary about fakery focusses on the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr's biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote the celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, then touches on the reclusive Hughes and Welles' own career (which started with a faked resume and a phony Martian invasion). On the way, Welles plays a few tricks of his own on the audience.



Overview
The last feature film Orson Welles completed (as a director) in his lifetime, F for Fake is a wildly underappreciated title in his oeuvre, a bold, breezy, and muscular look at the fine art of fraud with plenty of asides about the nature of filmmaking, art, and the culture of expertise tossed in along the way. The film has never been especially easy to see in the United States, so The Criterion Collection's DVD release of the film is more than welcome, and has been presented with their typically lavish degree of attention to detail. F for Fake has been transferred to disc in letterboxed format at the widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1, and has been enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16 x 9 monitors. The clarity of the DVD transfer sometimes calls attention to the varying quality of the source materials (part of the movie was shot in 16 mm, while the rest was shot in 35 mm, and some of the older elements show obvious signs of wear), but the images are pin-sharp throughout, and the colors are rich and beautifully rendered. The audio has been presented in its original mix and mastered in Dolby Digital Mono, with admirably clear sonic presence. The film is in English, with optional English subtitles but no multiple language options. As is their custom, Criterion have added plenty of relevant bonus materials for this release, most notably Orson Welles: The One-Man Band, a feature-length documentary produced for German television which traces the history of Welles' many unfinished films, with numerous rare film clips illustrating the movies that might have been. The same bonus disc also includes Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery, a documentary about master art forger Elmyr de Hory, who is also profiled in F for Fake (this film also includes some of the same footage shot by François Reichenbach that Welles used); a 60 Minutes profile of Clifford Irving in which he discusses his phony "autobiography" of Howard Hughes (also touched upon in F for Fake); and audio clips of Hughes' famous 1972 telephone "press conference" in which he discussed the controversy of Irving's unpublished book. The main disc has also been beefed up with additional material, including a commentary track featuring Welles' leading lady (and paramour) Oja Kodar and cinematographer Gary Graver, both of whom discuss working with the master on this and other projects, as well as an elaborate nine-minute trailer for F for Fake and an on-camera introduction from Peter Bogdanovich. And finally, Welles scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum contributes a lively essay on the film for the set's beautifully designed booklet. F for Fake is a film richly deserving rediscovery, and this presentation from Criterion gives it the authoritative tribute it richly deserves; anyone with an interest in Orson Welles and his films will be thrilled with it.