'F for Fake', Orson Welles' final theatrical film, was originally touted under a number of names, one of which was '?'. In a way, this working title seems more appropriate, as it's a film that defies description and one that poses many more questions than answers.
On a simple level it can be viewed as a documentary about Elmyr de Hory, a forger who claims to have had over 60 names and been responsible for works of art attributed to Picasso, Matisse and Modigiliani among others. He boldly claims that one museum has 22 post-impressionist fakes that it still believes to be genuine. More accurately 'F for Fake' might be described as a 'film essay' on the issue of forgery and fakery. Can a forgery be a work of art? Are forgers artists, Welles seems to be asking? (It's a debate that Abbas Kiarostami's otherwise beguiling 'Certified Copy' pursues to the point of infuriation).
As well as interviews with Elmyr and footage of the 'artist' at work, much of our knowledge (and I'm tempted to put even that word in inverted commas, because nothing in this film is at it seems) of Elymr comes through his biographer, Cliff Irving. And this is where it starts to get really complicated... Irving is also featured in the film and is himself a notorious con artist - imprisoned for faking an autobiography of Howard Hughes, which he claimed the recluse dictated to him. Yes, the same Howard Hughes Welles himself satirised in 'Citizen Kane'... Still with me? At this point you may be forgiven for wondering whether these two characters aren't Welles' own fictitious inventions in this Russian doll of a movie.
'For F Fake' is also a deeply personal film with strong autobiographical elements (Welles' mistress Oja Kodar features prominently). Welles draws parallels with his own fakery, particularly his infamous 1939 take on H.G Wells' 'War of The Worlds', a mock news broadcast that sent hundreds of Americans fleeing from their homes in panic. Of course, Welles wasn't sent to prison for his hoax. He was sent to Hollywood.
And cinema is nothing if the not the art of illusion, and Hollywood the biggest magic store in town. Perhaps to accentuate the point Welles adopts the role a conjurer throughout the film, amusing a child with a magic trick in the pre-title sequence, making a key disappear. Playfully winking to the camera he explicitly says the key isn't symbolic of anything. But is he simply playing games with us again? Is this short sequence perhaps the 'key' to the movie? Are we, the audience, the child he is toying with? When he proclaims "I'm a charlatan, I used to be a magician" he's clearly poking fun at himself but is he making a wider point to his critics? It's no coincidence that 'F for Fake' was made in the aftermath of Pauline Kael's essay 'Raising Kane', a savage attack on Welles that questioned his authorship of 'Citizen Kane', the film that made his reputation, a reputation that Welles spent the following 40 years trying, and failing, to live up to. David Thomson, from whom the title of this 'essay' is lifted, sees 'F For Fake' as both an admission of fakery and a riposte, it is 'the hand behind the back, the droll retort and alibi, that yes, my dear, but you only guessed the half of it'. The films is certainly an attack on the idea of the 'expert'; the art critics who can't tell a forgery from a masterpiece, and, of course, the film critic. Welles also seems to be asking whether the issue of 'authorship' even matters when it comes to art, citing the example of the Chartres cathedral. Its artistic value isn't diminished because of our uncertainty over who created it.
Characteristically, but confusingly, Welles denounced his admissions of fakery after the film came out. "I said I was a charlatan but I didn't mean it. I was faking even then. Everything was a lie."
So, smoke and mirrors to the end. Vérités ou mensonges? I'm not sure that it matters. Don't come looking for answers. This isn't that kind of movie.
'F for Fake' will be re-released in UK cinemas from 24th August.
David Thomson 'Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles' Abacus 1996.
