Matt Connarton Unleashed: Erich Pilcher reviews Orson Welles' F for FAKE (1973)

Ladies and gentlemen. By way of introduction, this is a film about trickery,

Robot, about lies. He's gonna talk about Jiza. You're talking about

Elvia, hell Me, Elmir. Who is Elma? That question has he

yet to be answered with any real precision? Can I kiss you to?

Everybody want to me? In the world? The jet sett is among us

beautiful people. Everybody knows Elmia. Tell me what he has about sixty times

the same name he's going to made Uri boy, Skry, Barry do all

the with you? Are y sixty names? His real name was Elmer ferrenk

Hofman. Then sixty personalities as much and as much real Well sounds very Jesuitica.

Yes, it is. His world is a world of make believe.

They're not an actor, not an actor, helm Beer, They're not an

actor. I am not a professional actor. He's a leading actor in this

movie. He's a profession It's true. He's painting, painting fakes. Among

all fakers, Elmer is number two. Once I saw a man from Ibidza

writing a book on fake who came to see me to Paris. He said,

I heard you are the first man who both a in Elme or that

man's name was irming the important distinction to make when you're talking about the genuine

quality of a painting. It's not so much whether it's a real painting or

a fake. It's whether it's a good fake or a bad fake. The

art of illusion or magic is often just pigeonholed into describing magic shows or magicians.

From Houdini, Seek Freed and Roy, David Blaine, and Chris Angel,

these individuals have provided us with mind bending moments that make us forget logic.

However, behind every trick is a secret away the illusion is pulled off.

Film directors are the same way. In orson Wells is no different.

As a matter of fact, the outright owns it. In nineteen seventy six,

Wells would release a video essay slash docu drama called F for Fake.

In this film, Wells would look at notorious art forger El Mayor Diori,

jamed biographer Clifford Irving, who wrote a biography on Diory called Fake, and

was later shamed for writing a hoax biography on Howard Hughes and Wells's companion at

the time, the beautiful Oja Kodar. Wells as well as being a performer,

director, and writer, was a magician. In this interview from nineteen

seventy four, he talks about being a magician and how that segued into him

getting into cold readings. As he explains how this works, he exposes the

hoax. This shows how Wells could be the ultimate charlatan, speaking on something

notorious, misleading and having people people laugh with him all along the way.

And I once, you know, I'm a magician, and I got interested

in mind reading and fortune telling, fake fortune telling, you know. And

I got to know a lot of old fakes who had retired as millionaires,

you know, and they told me their secrets how you do it. They

are things that are called cold readings. A cold reading is you warm up

the sucker by telling him things that he says. How could he ever know

that? You see? You say, you know, between the ages of

thirteen and fifteen, you had a great change came in your life. But

that happens in everybody's life. But he says, he came in and told

me things. Irony said, you've got a scar on your knee. Everybody

fell down and has the scar on their knee. Those are cold readings,

you see now, I have a scar that you see, just something bigger

than myself. Well, now, the point about this is that after they're

warmed up, they're amazed by this knee bit and the rest of it.

They start telling you because you just say is it's it? And you see

from their face it is or it is and then you tell it back and

they say, how did he do it? You see? So I was

born. I was playing in Kansas City with Catherine Crunnell one time and we

didn't have any matinee on Wednesday, so I hired a room and put doctor

Swami fortune teller, you know, two dollars readings, and for the whole

day they came in and I each work because I felt guilty about it.

At the end, I was said, I'm not going to take your money,

you know, because I couldn't have really taken. For a whole day,

I was a fortune teller faking. But then there began to happen to

be the thing that does happen to fortune tellers and which is the occupational disease

of fraudulents portuntellers. And they have a name for it. It's called becoming

a shot eye, and a shot eye in the argo of these crooks is

the fellow who believe begins to believe himself. You see, and you make

these wild guests. One of them explained to me. He says, supposing

you're a nightclerk in a hotel, and when you get the job, first

of all, fella comes in wants a single room. You look at how

good his luggage is, how good are his shoes, and you tell him

there's a room in the court there's no room, or yes, sir,

depending on various pieces of evidence, says you've been a nightclerk long enough.

You glance, and you tell him you've been a nightcerk a little longer,

and you don't have to look. You've seen it. But you have the

computer in here has made all of those deductions without your being conscious of it.

So the mind reader gets so that he, without thinking, does that,

and then they say it's true. And a woman came in to me

at the end of my career as a fraudulent and fortune telling it's in a

bright print dress and sat down looking perfectly all right, and I said,

you've lost your husband last week, and she burst into tears she had and

then I quit. It's one of those things Undoubtedly it's not psychic. Undoubtedly

there was evidence of a tragedy. There was all kinds of things that went

into the computer and got processed without me crookedly thinking what I'm gonna say to

her, And that's how it works. I think that's fascinating. And you

get sort of five spooky premonitions in like that, and then you know,

yes, I do, and I'm sure they're all the spooky like that in

some kind of funny way. I suppose I look to do and you know,

she's just Una is exactly the girl that would be happy with Charlie,

I suppose, And instead of thinking maybe you'll meet him, I just twearted.

I lose. I said you're gonna marry him, and she did.

From that clip, we learn that Wells does have a love of magic.

You can hear it in his voice. That love sets the stage for this

film. In the first scene he performs a series of tricks for a young

child. We hear Wells fully admit it's a hoax, but he keeps up

the hoax to entertain. In all the while, he beautifully ineloquently explains what

is going on to keep us the audience a part of the trick. At

the end of this scene, we hear wells make a promise that for the

next hour, everything we hear is really true and based on solid facts.

For my next experiment, ladies and gentlemen, I would appreciate the loan of

any small personal object from your pocket, a key, box of matches,

a coin. It is good to hold it up ten feet over your head

and watch out the slightest hint of hanky panky, And behold before our very

eyes and transformation. We've changed your key into a coin. What happened to

the key? It's been returned to you. Look closely, sir. You'll

find the key back in your pocket. May we see it? Please?

After your old tricks? I see why not? I'm a charlatan. What's

that said? Did I used to be a magician, sir, I'm still

working on it. As for the key, it was not symbolic of anything.

This isn't that kind of movie. You will find the coin now in

your pocket, sir. Keep your eyes on that coin, sir, while

it's returned to you as your key. Should we return you to your mother?

Is this your mother? No? Of course not. Open your mouth

wide and will return you your money. By the way, have you ever

heard of Robert Hood speaking of magicians? Annie? Of course, but of

course you do know. My partner in France, or Rising Bark, was

the greatest magician who ever lived. Do you know what he said? The

magician, he said, is just an actor. Well, good luck to

you, just an actor playing the part of a magician. Very nice and

she's fabulously rich too. It's a good story about it. Do you want

to tell it? We'll come to that one I did. Now it's time

for an introduction, ladies and gentlemen. By way of introduction, this is

a film about trickery and trot about lies. Tell it by the fires in

a marketplace or in a movie. Almost any story is almost certainly some kind

of lie. But not this time. Now, this is a promise during

the next hour. Everything you'll hear from this is really true and based on

solid effects. Throughout this film, Wells presents the idea of illusions in hoaxes

being misunderstood. That is what makes this docudrama so intriguing. None of us

like to be misled, However, how many times have we bought knockoff designer

clothing or accessories off brand food items, famous pieces of art reproduced into a

poster such as Starry Night, The Mona Lisa, or any of Grentwood's pieces.

Wouldn't that make us a part of the hoax, en the victim of

it? These are the questions this film presents to us. In our final

clip, Wells has just told the story regarding Kodar, her grandfather, and

her grandfather forging Picasso paintings. This is the final scene of the film where

Wells shows us the viewer that not everything is what it seems, and that

quote that we mentioned previously that for the next hour that everything presented is really

true and based on solid facts. Time for a confession, Time to go

good night. That's a real name, you know, ohyah Oya Koda.

I don't think that young gentleman's a trump home player. That Oya's grandfather was

Hungarian? Did he paid any pictures ever in his life? Ladies and gentlemen,

we did you Zia's grandfather to lend versimilarity to the reenactment of this story,

but his reenactment really the word what I mean is with the story this

is hard to believe. Re Enactment isn't easy, right. Brands are at

the very beginning of all this, I did make you a promise. Remember,

I did promise that for one hour, I tell you only the truth.

That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. For the past seventeen

minutes, I've been lying my head off the truth. And please forgive us

for it is that we've been forging an art story. As a charlatan.

Of course, my job was to try to make it real, not that

reality has anything to do with it. Reality it's the toothbrush waiting at home

for you in its glass, a bus ticket, a paycheck, and the

grave in the right mode. Perhaps Elmeir has just as few regrets as I

have to have been a charlattan. But we are not so proud either of

us, as to lay any superior claim to being very much worse than the

rest of you. Now what we professional liars hope to serve his truth?

I'm afraid the pompous word for that is art, because of himself said it

art. He said, He's a lie, a lie that makes us realize

the truth. Ohya's grandfather, floating here in the air, has no comment,

which isn't surprising because he ever existed to the memory of that great man

who will never cease to exist. I offer my apologies and wish you all

true and false. How very pleasant, good evening. When this film was

released, it was met with widespread criticism. Wells had released a nine minute

trailer that only featured scenes that were not even in the film. When critics

and moviegoers went to see the release, this led to them not understanding what

the film is about and being confused about what Wells was even trying to convey.

Those feelings could be the ultimate story of Wells's career. A man,

a director, a magician, a performer that was far ahead of his time.

His films were not erlded then for the most part, but now they

are a part of the greatest ever films. Discussion, Touch of Evil,

Citizen Kane, Magnificent Amber Sins, the list can go on and on.

His influence is felt through decades of cinema, and he is my all time

favorite director. His films were made by a performer and magician, and in

my opinion, that is why they captivate in awe even today. I hope

you join me next week, when, in honor a Major League baseball season

starting, we will look at the nineteen eighty nine film starring Charlie Sheen,

Corbin Bernson, and Wesley Snipe's Major League. To conclude this month long tribute

to Orson Welles, we will feature a scene from f for Fake where he

compares art to human life with the backdrop of Chartez Cathedral in France. It

rises, it falls, and it is forgotten, thankfully for us, Wells

and his masterpiece as he left us. Never will be a celebration to God's

glory and to the dignity of man. Well all that's left most artists seem

to feel these days is man naked, poor, forked, reddish. There

aren't any celebrations ours. The scientists keep telling us as a universe which is

disposable, you know, it might be just this one anonymous glory of all

things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this

grand quiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust,

to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to

what we had in us to accomplish. Our works in stone and paint in

print are spared, some of them for a few decades or a millennium or

two. But everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the

ultimate and universal ash, the triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the

fakes, the fact of life. We're going to die, be of good

heart, cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will

all be silence. But what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a

man's name doesn't matter all that much.