F For Fake

Director: Orson Welles

1973 / 89min / 35mm

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.

4K digital restoration by the Cinémathèque française, in collaboration with Les Films de l’Astrophore, Documentaire sur grand écran, the Cinémathèque suisse and l’Institut audiovisuel de Monaco, at Hiventy e L.E. Diapason laboratories from the original negative and magnetic sound 35mm print.