#138: F for Fake
Part of the Top 150 Films series
How can one even start to write about F for Fake — a film with more digressions than a David Foster Wallace novel — in 150 words? Yet, if Welles can stitch at least three separate films together in an 88-minute package, I can write about it in a 150-word capsule. Crap, make that a 100-word capsule! Ostensibly a “documentary” about Elmyr de Hory’s recounting of his career as a professional art forger (never have quotation marks been more applicable), Welles uses this as a springboard for an ADD-inflected rumination on the nature of authorship and authenticity. Stephen Colbert would be amazed at the amount of truthiness inherent in Welles’ filmmaking, but the beauty of F for Fake is that it shows how “truth” is unobtainable even in the most carefully constructed works of “objective art”. It’s much more fun to fake it and hope it comes close to the real thing!
