Cheap F for Fake - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Orson Welles) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of F for Fake - Criterion Collection

Film Unlike Other Films - A Cinematic Thesis...
Society consists of symbols with a wide range of meanings within the world. The alphabet is one of most commonly used code systems of symbols. The letters in the alphabet have the power to form words and every single word has a meaning. When a number of words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives fuse together, they form a sentence. The structure of a sentence is to produce a contextual meaning, which sometimes uses symbolism to enhance the sentences in regards to the theme of the topic. Several joined sentences create a paragraph, which usually focuses on one idea that also could be a symbol. A number of ideas compiled into a narrative form makes a thesis for readers to contemplate, which could help the person either assimilate, or adapt the new ideas to previous knowledge and wisdom. This is due to the notion that new ideas comprise a symbolic meaning for the individual. Orson Welles seems to have used this concept when he made the film, F for Fake. <
> <
>F for Fake playfully utilizes every single scene while maximizing the symbolic value of words, images, and behavior among the individuals portrayed in the film. These scenes offer several representational impressions to the audience, as Welles' meticulous editing seems to have the same meaning a typewriter has to a writer. In this sense, F for Fake does not offer a conventional film or documentary, as Welles uses both authentic film clips edited with stage performances. Instead, Welles advocates his ideas in neither a fictionalized nor a non-documentary manner, as he fuses these two into a notion of deceit, forgery, trickery, and any other way that could deceive the audience. In 1972 over a Parisian lunch with writer and film essayist Jonathan Rosenbaum he expressed that he was working on this film, which Welles referred to as a new kind of film. The structure of the film brings the notion of a thesis where the candidate attempts to support his or her own thesis from a wide range of angles. Each visual symbol has a meaning while the scenes form the visual sentences, as the different acts form paragraphs in this cinematic thesis. The heavy editing, which Welles spent over a year on, describes Welles' cerebrally complexity while trying to defend this extraordinarily cinematic thesis. <
> <
>In the beginning of the film Welles implies that a key he used for a magic trick "...was not symbolic of anything." This, however, suggests another deceit, as the audience has already seen the sequence and had time to ponder the meaning of the key to which Welles is fully aware. The pondering has already caused the audience to give the key a visual meaning, which the viewer has either assimilated or adapted to previous knowledge. There is also a scene where the audience gets to follow a stunning woman in high heels and a short miniskirt , as several people open their eyes starring while salivating and car horns honk in the background. Suggestively, the scene causes the audience to think that all the men probably are secretively wishing for the woman's company. This too is a clever lie, as Welles simply has edited together a number of scenes which insinuate that people are starring while horns can be heard in the background. Welles seems to suggest that what one sees cannot be believed, as what one sees might only be a fabricated version of the truth. <
> <
>To comfort the audience Welles informs that the viewers that they will not be victims to deception as he places in writing that "For the next hour everything in this film is strictly based on the available facts." This portion of the film leads the audience through a two-piece sequence about a famous art forger named Elmyr de Hory, Cliff Irving, and the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. One focuses on Elmyr while the second part emphasizes Elmyr's biographer Irving who also was into forgery, as he wrote a forged autobiography by Howard Hughes who then lived secretively in a luxury Las Vegas penthouse. This brings several of the previous notions back, as Welles continues to discuss the idea of deceit. One of the interesting ideas in this sequence explains the meaninglessness of experts, as fakers cannot be troubled by experts. One thing that Elmyr advises of is that no one should have the ultimate power to decide quality, as he himself probably fooled many so-called experts with his own forgeries. This also implies that the expert could as well be the faker, if this one person knew what was good. This notion would also suggest that this very review would be a fake, as it also does not express anything unique while it merely retells the design and purpose of the film. <
> <
>F for Fake offers an intriguing cinematic thesis that crawls within the brain causing an itch that does not seem to want to leave. The film is nothing like anything that Welles has done before, or after this film, which also supports what he has said in regards to the film. One reason that no other film that he created since did not mimic this film could be the concept of the film, as it provides an opportunity for him to play with his own ideas in a visual manner. This film took over a year for him to make, as it also seems to be a film of personal growth and understanding of the world as a whole. The personal aspect of the film seems to saturate the whole experience, as he refers to himself while acting and making comments in regards to the people in film from behind the cutting board. Ultimately, Welles attempts to erase the idea of him being the "expert", as he provides examples of his own forgery from when he provided the War of the Worlds over the radio, which caused mass hysteria throughout the United States.

---

Up his sleeve
Orson Welles, nearing the end of his career, built a philosophical fun house with "F for Fake," stuffed full of questions about the nature of art and authorship, illusion and reality, lies and truth. <
> <
>Welles took an unfinished documentary shot by someone else, tacked on some hocus-pocus at the beginning and end, mixed in spicy footage of his mistress and called it his latest movie. View the movie as one of the director's great works -- or just another Wellesian goof. <
> <
>The 1972 movie -- a head-spinning piece of modern video art -- more or less profiles the Howard Hughes book faker Clifford Irving and the brilliant art forgerer Elmyr de Hory. <
> <
>Welles, of course, was uniquely qualified to handle the intertwined stories of these con men, having perpetrated the great hoax of "War of the Worlds." "We hanky-panky men have always been with you," Welles says. <
> <
>Criterion brings "Orson Welles's F for Fake" to DVD in a typically generous double-disc set. Image quality varies, from the crisp scenes of narrator Welles wandering around in his cape to the grainy 16mm docu segments. (Most of the film is in color, unusual for Welles). The feature unspools in anamorphic widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. On surround sound set-ups, the DVD's strong mono audio roosts in the center speaker. <
> <
>Disc 1 offers a 6-minute introduction by Welles' pal Peter Bogdonovich, who provides much-needed orientation. "It's sort of like visual music," Bogdonovich says of the movie's dizzying quick-cut editing and narrative quantum leaps. "If you get on the film's wavelength ... it's riveting. If you fight it and expect it to be a linear thing, then you're not going to enjoy it." <
> <
>Oja Kodar, the director's mistress and co-writer of "Fake," says the film is "not just about fakery, it's about Orson." Cameraman Gary Graver, who shares the DVD commentary with Kodar, says "Fake" is "as close as you'll get to the real Welles." <
> <
>The cameraman turns actor in the 9-minute trailer for "F for Fake," included on disc 1. More of a short film than ad, it was built around new footage shot by Welles. The "Fake" trailer's absurd length and nude shots of Kodar ensured rejection from the U.S. distributor. <
> <
>On disc 2, the 1995 docu "Orson Welles: The One Man Band" spends an hour and a half profiling the director in his final years. It's shot in the style of "F for Fake" and produced by Kodar, who appears throughout. <
> <
>The docu, in English and German, follows Welles around the globe as he attempts to finish his many projects, all rejected by Hollywood and its financiers. "In Los Angeles, everyone only talks about 'crazy old Welles.' ... I must start over from scratch," the onetime prodigy sighed. <
> <
>The docu shows extended clips from the director's aborted projects, among them "The Merchant of Venice," the thriller "The Deep" and the wrapped but unedited "The Other Side of the Wind." Most look like decent but unreleasable student films. There are broad comedy bits starring the old man, some kind of funny.

---

The magician is just an actor playing a magician
Art is a lie that makes us feel good or at least recognize some of the truth. So much about art is an illusion and a hoax. So it's fitting that filmmaker, illusionist and prankster Orson Welles should make the art of illusion and hoaxes the central theme of his last complete film. "F for Fake" could be called a an essay on the art in illusion and the illusion in art. Make no mistake, Welles's last film "F for Fake" isn't a great movie but, like all of Welles's films, it has enough greatest in it to make it worthwhile for fans of cinema. <
> <
>Welles begins his "documentary" (which, in and of itself spoofs the whole genre) looking at art forger Elmyr de Hory and his biographer Clifford Irving (who also penned the fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography that raised such a ruckus during the 70's). Welles proceeds to examine what's "real" and "fake". Welles includes himself in this examination of how we lie to get what we need and why people are so inclined to believe a lie. Welles was well known for padding his resume in the theater at the beginning of his career and, of course, he masterminded the War of the Worlds radio program that caused panic (although how much panic is truly open to question and, again, is part of the deceit of showbiz) among the general public in the 1930's. This nonlinear film "essay" is fascinating but those watching it shouldn't expect a straight ahead narrative. The last complete film by Welles, "F for Fake" may not match the classic grandeur of "Citizen Kane", "The Magnificent Ambersons" or "Touch of Evil" but it has its own charms worth noting. <
> <
> Criterion has done a splendid job of restoring a film that was shot on the cheap. Portions of the film have always been grainy as they were blown up from 16mm to match the 35 mm footage that Welles shot himself. The colors are brighter than the version of this film that I had seen in art theaters in the 80's and, while the mono sound doesn't have much presence, it sounds pretty decent overall. The sound comes across with nice clarity although it doesn't have much depth. <
> <
>Criterion has done its usual thorough job putting together a nice package. Included as part of the package are two stunning documentaries on the films that Welles began but never finished (with tantalizing snippets from the unfinished "The Other Side of the Wind" starring John Huston) and a terrific documentary on art forger Elmyr de Hory. "Orson Welles: One-Man Band" made in 1988 examines the films that Welles began and abandoned or lost interest in during the last twenty years of his life. It's not a biography or even a career retrospective of the man but an examination of a truly restless spirit. I'd suggest that Welles had the equivalent of artistic Attention Deficit Disorder as he would start projects and interest and move on to the next project on a whim. By the way, if you plan on watching the movie don't watch the documentary first as it gives away a number of twists and turns in "the plot". <
> <
>The Norweign Film Institute documentary on Elmyr de Hory is almost as fascinating as the documentary on Welles. It's clear that Welles felt a kinship with Clifford Irving and De Hory feeling as if his career had been little more than an illusion. He really had no career per se. Welles was a polymath of sorts. De Hory demonstrated a lot of flair as a painter early on in his career but found his niche in creating nearly perfect forgeries of other artist's great works. In a sense, this documentary examines the psychology behind De Hory's desire and need to copy other artist's work. It's a fascinating glimpse into the pathology of deceit. <
> <
>The video introduction by Bogdanovich provides interesting insights on Welles. I only wish that he had been asked to do a running commentary on the film in addition to Graver. Boganovich touches on some of the themes that are recurrent in Welles' work including the fact that the art of cinema is an illusion all its own and just as much a form of deceit as a forgery copying the elements of life without capturing the essence. He also discusses the making of the movie and how Welles integrated an unfinished documentary, re-edited and rearranged the movie to create a "documentary essay". Also of interest will be the 9 minute trailer for the film. It's essentially, an original short film by Welles incorporating footage from the film and features a brief parody of the "News on the March" footage from "Kane". Shot by Welles after the completion of the film, it's presented in black and white. The releasing studio decided not to put into theaters as it was so unconventional at the time. <
> <
>The informative commentary by and star/co-writer Oja Kodar and director of photography Gary Graver ("The Clones", "I Spit on Your Corpse", "Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood") whose career of shooting low budget horror films and exploitation films is appropriate to the very subject of this film gives considerable insight into Welles and his maverick methods as a film director. Although I would have preferred a commentary from Bogdanovich or, at the very least, the three working in tandem, Graver and Kodar between them have enough stories to keep the commentary track entertaining. Graver's comments about how Welles deliberately avoided anything that looked like a Welles shot indicated how much he wanted to continue to reinvent himself. Isn't reinvention a form, after all, of a hoax and forgery? Graver also discusses how hurt Welles was by Pauline Kael's nasty accusations that Welles had little to do with creating "Citizen Kane" and was no more than a mid-wife at the birth of a classic collaboration. <
> <
> Don't be deceived this isn't one of Welles' best films by any stretch of the imagination nor is it a bad. It's an oddity with Welles pushing the boundaries of the documentary genre. Regardless, it's a fascinating bit of filmmaking using unusual editing techniques to tell a story about lies. Welles uses his charming personality and techniques as a film director to keep this film from becoming predictable. While it isn't a classic, "F for Fake" has a number of inspired moments and Welles plays with the preconceptions of the audience just enough to keep the film diverting. The documentaries included with "F for Fake" make this a must have particularly the glimpse into Welles' storage closet of unfinished films. <
> <
> <
> <
>