VEILED THREATS by Phil Mershon
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      • And Soon the Darkness
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      • The Harder They Come
      • Day of the Jackal
      • Play Misty For Me
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      • The Crossing Guard
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      • The Spook Who Sat by the Door
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      • Who is Harry Nilsson
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      • Six Degrees of Separation
      • This Film is Not Yet Rated
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      • The Pope of Greenwich Village
      • Little Murders
      • Assault on Precinct 13
      • Capote
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      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle
      • Scorpio
      • The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
      • A New Leaf
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • The Last House on the Left
      • The Deer Hunter
      • Let the Right One In
      • Colour Me Kubrick
      • A Time to Kill
      • A Scanner Darkly
      • Salem's Lot
      • Roman Polanksi: Wanted and Desired
      • The Seven-Ups
      • The Contender
      • Hoffa
      • The Pledge
      • American: The Bill Hicks Story
      • Donnie Brasco
      • Bugsy
      • Milk
      • Reservoir Dogs
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      • Trumbo
      • Two in the Wave
      • South of the Border
      • Into the Abyss
      • God Bless America
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    • The Bicycle Thief
    • Judgment at Nuremberg
    • Five Minutes to Live
    • The Manchurian Candidate
    • Hud
    • Pressure Point
    • Blow Up
    • Requiem for a Heavyweight
    • Hurry Sundown
  • Human Flood
    • Jean-Luc Godard >
      • Breathless
      • Masculine Feminine
      • Film Socialisme
    • Brian De Palma >
      • Sisters
      • The Fury
    • Stanley Kubrick >
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      • 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • A Clockwork Orange
      • The Shining
      • Full Metal Jacket
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      • Apocalypse Now
    • Woody Allen >
      • Take the Money and Run
      • Bananas
      • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid to Ask
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      • Stardust Memories
      • Zelig
      • Broadway Danny Rose
      • The Purple Rose of Cairo
      • Hannah and Her Sisters
      • Radio Days
    • Robert Altman >
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      • 3 Women
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      • The Player
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      • Cul-de-Sac
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      • The Tenant
    • Martin Scorsese >
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    • Steven Spielberg >
      • Duel
    • Oliver Stone >
      • Talk Radio
    • Orson Welles >
      • F For Fake
    • Akira Kurosawa >
      • DODES'KA-DEN
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      • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
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      • 400 Blows
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    • Costa-Gavras >
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      • Missing
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      • Spellbound
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      • I Confess
      • Dial M for Murder
      • Rear Window
      • To Catch a Thief
      • The Wrong Man
      • Suspicion
      • Saboteur
      • Lifeboat
      • Notorious
      • Rope
      • North by Northwest
      • Psycho
      • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  • No Particular Place to Go
  • The Pits
    • The Big Chill
    • W. C. Fields and Me
    • Zabriskie Point
    • Eat The Document
    • Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    • A Boy and His Dog
    • A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    • The Executioner's Song
    • The Visitors
    • Paul McCartney Really is Dead
    • Going Places
    • Pi
    • Erik the Viking
    • Sometimes They Come Back
    • Thinner
    • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
    • A Bullet for Pretty Boy
  • Links
F FOR FAKE
Directed by Orson Welles
Released in 1973
In 1969, a young writer named Clifford Irving wrote a book published by McGraw-Hill entitled Fake: The Story of Elmyr de Hory: The Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. The story was phenomenal, recounting the life and times of the man with sixty names who supposedly could reproduce paintings by anyone--and do it before lunch. While monumentally versatile, his specialties included Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani and Renoir. A story goes that he presented Picasso with a forged painting and asked the artist if he remembered painting it. "Oh, yes. I wondered whatever happened to that!" His work was so good he could even fool the subject of his falsification.
    The following year, Clifford Irving, who had written Elmyr's biography, contacted his publishers to let them see handwritten letters from Howard Hughes that authorized Irving to assist with the rich recluse's autobiography. A team of handwriting experts in the hire of the publisher declared the letters genuine. The writing process began and in January 1971 the book was released, startling the public with stories about a man with nine inch fingernails and hair to the floor. 
    What happened next came as something more than a mere shock. A man purporting to be Hughes contacted some friends in the news media and on live TV decried the book to be a pack of lies, the letters of authorization to be forgeries and his association with Mr. Irving to be nonexistent.
    But that could not be, screamed the lawyers for McGraw-Hill. They had deposited three-quarters of a million dollars into a Swiss bank account under the name H. R. Hughes as payment to the subject for release of his story. What the publisher did not know at the time was that Edith Irving--wife of said story forger--had opened a bank account in Switzerland under the name H. R. Hughes. Whoops.
    Enter Orson Welles, a man who got his own start in radio with a faked resume, one which got him into a position with John Houseman to co-create the Mercury Theater, a company in whose employ he did involve himself in the creation of a radio broadcast of another Mr. Well's works, this one called "War of the Worlds," transplanted as it was in this broadcast to the jungles of the state of New Jersey. Orson Welles, the man who would go on to star in and direct Citizen Kane--that Orson Wells--the Orson Welles of The Third Man and F for Fake, among hundreds more--in 1974 released a movie about Clifford Irving writing a book about Elmyr. In other words, we had the third greatest charlatan of modern times filming a movie about a man who, as the second greatest charlatan, wrote a book about the all-time greatest charlatan. The mathematical possibilities alone were staggering. With Welles brilliance with a camera and a brain, the possibilities for fun were indeed endless.
    I feel a bit uncomfortable using the word "greatest" so much in one sentence because, as a much brighter man than I--I think it was the Chamber of Commerce--once said, "Art is not a competition." Of course, having given that matter a bit of thought, I see that art is very much a competition in the sense that artists consume platitudes and flattery the way a fat man with a red nose consumes wine. 

   Regardless of the official ranking of the frauds involved in the telling of the film F for Fake, it must be admitted that one of the requirements for a great film--if perhaps not the greatest--is a brilliant concept. One may chock it all up to coincidence that Welles, Irving and Elmyr all gathered in Mallorca at the same time and seem quite cosy in one another's company. This is, after all, a film about coincidence, which can be understood to be just another word for trickery. 
    In this movie, Welles performs all types of magic--another word for coincidence--from making a key disappear to popping coins out of a child's head, from interviewing Joseph Cotten to making his long-time girlfriend Oja Kodar disappear, presumably so he could hang out with the throng of female sycophants who appear unable to disgorge themselves from Welles and the other glorious frauds. 


    In and of itself, this film does not make sense. Within the historic context of 1969-1973 it still does not make sense. In retrospect or hindsight, the film makes even less sense than it did upon release. And that does not matter at all. Perhaps what the viewer--then and now--must decide is a definition of entertainment. Back at the end of December I quoted Sean Penn as stating that "If you want entertainment, get two hookers and an eight ball." Within the context of the conversation he was having with James Lipton, the actor went on to say that generally speaking there are two types of entertainment: diversion and engagement. This seems prescient. At a time within the human epoch when the value of something can be called into question because of dueling experts, at a time when creationism is purported to have as much validity as evolution and is merely competing with it in the so-called marketplace of ideas (in which case agoraphobia, or "fear of the marketplace," feels an appropriate reaction), and at a time when the nature of objective reality can be pursed out with a wild collection of lights on a computer screen, or movie screen, or cave wall, then it is possible to look upon the work of Internet people and understand that SOPA, PIPL, and Google's new rules all indicate a huge lack of understanding of what the world wide web is all about. That, or they just don't give a damn.
    Welles made his movie. I watched his movie. I then wrote these words about his movie. You read my words about his movie and were inspired to do something else, something that as of this writing has not logically happened yet but which undoubtedly will. That, friends and family, is the Internet. An artist creates something he thinks of as art. He produces that thing and publishes its likeness upon the Internet, just as someone utilized YouTube to carry the film called F for Fake. Is that an infringement of intellectual property? I would say no and here is why I say that: The Internet has changed the concepts of larceny just as Irving changed them, except in a more multi-dimensional way. When something appears on the Internet and is experienced by others, those others are not necessarily stealing it when they copy it--and I can say this in spite of the fact that copying it may in fact reduce the income of the corporation that claims to own the rights to the original material. The act of redistributing the work in question is called file sharing for a reason. It is sharing a file. The person who put the thing on the Internet knew there was a good chance this would happen, just as the person who made the original work knew there was no reliable way to prevent forgeries of his work. That's right. The production of the film we are discussing which I watched again last night was a forgery. It was not the original. It was a copy of a copy of a copy of the original, although it takes a very discerning eye and ear to tell the difference and ultimately made no difference to me in terms of my enjoyment of the experience, one which was tremendously engaging rather than distracting in the sense of some crap on television. Once the greedy bastards in the entertainment industry introduced compact discs and DVDs, they were consciously and deliberately opening themselves--and by extension their artists--to forgery, to pirating, to theft and impersonation. 
    None of that should be taken to mean that I support the idea of ripping off the artists. I do not. What I do mean is that in my opinion, ripping off means you charge someone else for something that you had no hand in creating. Yep. That's it. If the free and uncharged reproduction of an artist's work is given in good faith to someone via the Internet, that is not larceny because the reproducer and transplanter does not gain monetarily. 
    What has this to do with F for Fake? One might as well ask what the movie has to do with itself. If you are looking for a clear story here, you will be disappointed. If you are instead seeking some beautiful cinematography, some startling images of Welles and friends, some fascinating trickery, then this is a film--or a reasonable facsimile of one--that you will treasure forever. 
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  • Home
  • Links
  • The Deluge
    • Veiled Threats >
      • 1939-1945
      • 1946-1963
      • 1964-1975
      • 1976-1985
      • Born Losers
      • Don't Look Back
      • Bonnie and Clyde
      • Cool Hand Luke
      • The Graduate
      • Up Tight!
      • Cycle Savages
      • Wild in the Streets
      • Never a Dull Moment
      • Yellow Submarine
      • Night of the Living Dead
      • Faces
      • The Love Bug
      • Midnight Cowboy
      • Easy Rider
      • Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
      • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
      • They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
      • The Magic Christian
      • Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
      • The Landlord
      • The Ballad of Cable Hogue
      • Getting Straight
      • The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
      • Five Easy Pieces
      • Godard in America
      • Gimme Shelter
      • Little Big Man
      • The Boys in the Band
      • Joe
      • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
      • The Big Boss
      • There's a Girl in my Soup
      • The Liberation of L B Jones
      • Klute
      • The French Connection
      • Willie Dynamite
      • Helter Skelter
      • King: A Filmed Record
      • Get Carter
      • Harold and Maude
      • Panic in Needle Park
      • Across 110th Street
      • And Soon the Darkness
      • Deliverance
      • Rolling Thunder
      • Super Fly
      • Busting
      • The Ruling Class
      • The Harder They Come
      • Day of the Jackal
      • Play Misty For Me
      • The Jezebels
      • Sacco & Vanzetti
      • Badlands
      • Cold Turkey
      • Soldier Blue
      • American Graffiti
      • The Falcon and the Snowman
      • Watership Down
      • Scarecrow
      • Walking Tall
      • Frances
      • The Coca-Cola Kid
      • Bob Roberts
      • Bad Company
      • We Are Marshall
      • Patton
      • The Natural
      • The Crossing Guard
      • Reds
      • The Spook Who Sat by the Door
      • Mud
      • Who is Harry Nilsson
      • Ornette: Made in America
      • Six Degrees of Separation
      • This Film is Not Yet Rated
      • Incident at Oglala
      • That Championship Season
      • The Pope of Greenwich Village
      • Little Murders
      • Assault on Precinct 13
      • Capote
      • Inglourious Basterds
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle
      • Scorpio
      • The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
      • A New Leaf
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • The Last House on the Left
      • The Deer Hunter
      • Let the Right One In
      • Colour Me Kubrick
      • A Time to Kill
      • A Scanner Darkly
      • Salem's Lot
      • Roman Polanksi: Wanted and Desired
      • The Seven-Ups
      • The Contender
      • Hoffa
      • The Pledge
      • American: The Bill Hicks Story
      • Donnie Brasco
      • Bugsy
      • Milk
      • Reservoir Dogs
      • Glengarry Glen Ross
      • V for Vendetta
      • Trumbo
      • Two in the Wave
      • South of the Border
      • Into the Abyss
      • God Bless America
  • Before the Deluge
    • The Bicycle Thief
    • Judgment at Nuremberg
    • Five Minutes to Live
    • The Manchurian Candidate
    • Hud
    • Pressure Point
    • Blow Up
    • Requiem for a Heavyweight
    • Hurry Sundown
  • Human Flood
    • Jean-Luc Godard >
      • Breathless
      • Masculine Feminine
      • Film Socialisme
    • Brian De Palma >
      • Sisters
      • The Fury
    • Stanley Kubrick >
      • Lolita
      • 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • A Clockwork Orange
      • The Shining
      • Full Metal Jacket
    • Francis Coppola >
      • The Conversation
      • Apocalypse Now
    • Woody Allen >
      • Take the Money and Run
      • Bananas
      • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid to Ask
      • Sleeper
      • Love and Death
      • Annie Hall
      • Interiors
      • Manhattan
      • Stardust Memories
      • Zelig
      • Broadway Danny Rose
      • The Purple Rose of Cairo
      • Hannah and Her Sisters
      • Radio Days
    • Robert Altman >
      • M*A*S*H
      • Brewster McCloud
      • 3 Women
      • Nashville
      • The Gingerbread Man
      • Ready to Wear
      • Gosford Park
      • The Player
    • Luis Bunuel >
      • The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
    • Roman Polanski >
      • Cul-de-Sac
      • Rosemary's Baby
      • MacBeth
      • The Tenant
    • Martin Scorsese >
      • Boxcar Bertha
    • Steven Spielberg >
      • Duel
    • Oliver Stone >
      • Talk Radio
    • Orson Welles >
      • F For Fake
    • Akira Kurosawa >
      • DODES'KA-DEN
    • Max Ophuls
    • John Ford >
      • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
    • John Huston
    • Frank Capra
    • Billy Wilder
    • Roger Corman
    • Bernardo Bertolucci
    • Elia Kazan
    • William Wyler
    • Spike Lee
    • Francois Truffaut >
      • 400 Blows
      • Jules and Jim
      • Bed and Board
    • Jean Renoir
    • Federico Fellini
    • Charlie Chaplin
    • John Cassavetes
    • Agnes Vargas
    • Alain Resnais
    • Eric Rohmer >
      • Claire's Knee
    • Ida Lupino
    • Leni Riefenstahl
    • Penny Marshall
    • Costa-Gavras >
      • The Confession
      • Missing
    • Alfred Hitchcock >
      • Spellbound
      • Shadow of a Doubt
      • The Birds
      • I Confess
      • Dial M for Murder
      • Rear Window
      • To Catch a Thief
      • The Wrong Man
      • Suspicion
      • Saboteur
      • Lifeboat
      • Notorious
      • Rope
      • North by Northwest
      • Psycho
      • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  • No Particular Place to Go
  • The Pits
    • The Big Chill
    • W. C. Fields and Me
    • Zabriskie Point
    • Eat The Document
    • Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    • A Boy and His Dog
    • A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    • The Executioner's Song
    • The Visitors
    • Paul McCartney Really is Dead
    • Going Places
    • Pi
    • Erik the Viking
    • Sometimes They Come Back
    • Thinner
    • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
    • A Bullet for Pretty Boy
  • Links