F For Fake
1973 / 89min / 35mm
DIRECTOR: ORSON WELLES
CAST: ORSON WELLES
Welles, a serial fabulist who almost never appeared on-screen without a false nose or something of the sort to hide behind, understood implicitly the kinship between artists and conmen, and made this the subject of his scintillating essay film/autobiography, which uses materials from a documentary about art forger Elmyr de Hory as a springboard for the director to hold court on his own career of charlatanry, from the bogus news broadcast of War of the Worlds on down the line. Nimble, puckish, and almost completely without precedent.
Screens as a part of In the Year of the Grifter.