Classic Review: F For Fake

Stars: ★★★★

Summary:  An excellent film — a sort of metadocumentary — that exposes its own artifice and the relationship between truth and trust.

Review:  In the 1973 film ‘F For Fake’, over 88 minutes cinematic genius Orson Welles examines the nature of art in a filmic form not quite documentary and not quite fiction.   It’s proof that the peculiar magic of the medium is not restricted to the categories dreamed up by marketing departments.  ’F For Fake’ is a truly self-aware film.  It doesn’t merely acknowledge its artifice in a humorous, superficial way; it turns itself inside out.  It is edited in such a way as to obfuscate our attempts to sort out truth and fiction.  It’s like a photograph of a flower-pot hiding its very subject immediately behind it.  For us viewers at Mr. Welles’ mercy, the question is, when are we looking at the proverbial flower-pot?

Orson Welles is brazen and beguiling as he guides us through the twisted tale of an infamous art forger and his equally infamous biographer.  Throughout the story, he weaves in a bizarre fiction and chases rabbits down their trails.  Mr. Welles promises to tell us the truth whilst declaiming himself as a charlatan akin to his subjects.  Welles in his own estimation is untrustworthy, but we believe him anyway, and that is precisely his point!

While he’s at it, he subtly explores sexuality’s use as a deceptive device, through two sequences in which a beautiful woman distracts us from the ideas at play.  He seems to suggest that physical beauty is often used by filmmakers to divert our attention from both flaws and substantive content.  That’s consistent with how often sex appeal determines casting, particularly in works of a shallower nature.  It wouldn’t be enough to say that this is just good business.  Even if it has become second nature, these techniques are a kind of sleight-of-hand.  The plot could disappear into a deep hole, but your basic instincts might not let you notice.  And, for a storyteller more intent on complexity, using human desires to his or her advantage is a simple and effective way to get an audience’s attention while they work past the mind’s more intricate defenses.

In a film-craft sense, ‘F For Fake’ is really brilliant, with rapid cuts, repetitions, and instantly evocative imagery creating a captivating kaleidoscope.  For those of us in the post-MTV world who have to endure and sometimes enjoy the films of Michael Bay and others like him, it’s positively redeeming to see prototypes of postmodern techniques used so meaningfully.  Paired and contrasted with the classic techniques of ‘Citizen Kane’, it’s perhaps the ultimate example of Orson Welles’ range and influence.

‘F For Fake’ revolves around a simple premise: What we believe is true relies on who we believe is trustworthy.  It is a reminder that those we call experts — such as the art dealers defrauded by Elmyr de Hory — also rely on other people for estimates of the truth.  Considering that a painting mimicking an original may trick even the finest eye, what then is an original’s value?  Isn’t it possible to derive the same pleasure from an original and a fake?  If a duped museum believes that a clever fake is the genuine article, and displays it under this pretense, would the viewers in effect be seeing an original, or even the original by proxy?

The film challenges the notion that art’s virtue is in the truth of itself.  Art, genuine or forgery, is properly measured by how well it convinces us.  Aristotle observed, in reference to theatrical art, that (and the emphasis is mine) “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself . . . with incidents arousing pity and terror, with which to accomplish its purgation of these emotions.”  In short, it’s a noble deception by which we hope to accomplish an emotional change in those who, for at least a little time, choose to believe it.  As in the case of a painting, a film’s communicated truth is in its emotional effect on the viewer.

One hopes that a filmmaker is responsible and doesn’t betray our confidence by convincing us of ignoble things; but what is there to stop them?  My hope as a filmmaker and a critic is to be an honest charlatan.  I’d like to echo Mr. Welles, who in this magic act says, ”What we professional liars hope to serve is truth. I’m afraid the pompous word for that is ‘art’.”

It Might Get Loud

By contributor Patrick Zabriskie

Stars: ★★★☆

I knew it. I knew that no human could be that talented. It had to be sentient guitars.

Review:  About three years ago, during an especially mundane Christmas break, I found myself bored enough that I taught myself how to play guitar.  Naturally, I started off rather clumsy and unsure of myself; the fact that I was learning on a cheap acoustic didn’t help matters.  Over the next few months, though, I gradually got better on it, learning more complex songs and improving my technique.  Then, for my 16th birthday, my aunt bought me an electric guitar.  I couldn’t put it down.  I stayed up into the early hours of the morning playing it.  I would dream at night about it.  Many moons have passed since that time, and I still can barely put it down.
I say all this not to boast or because I think people particularly care about my own experience with guitar; rather, I say it to show how personal an experience I’ve had with the instrument.  It’s something near and dear to me, and I truly love it.  After watching the documentary It Might Get Loud, I found out I wasn’t alone.

Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White are three famous guitarists from three legendary rock bands.  It Might Get Loud sits them down to discuss their passion for the electric guitar and for music in general.  There is a real beauty in how this documentary examines each guitarist’s unique approach to the same instrument.  The Edge relies heavily on effects and technology to produce the “perfect” sound; Jack White takes a simpler approach, creating rawer, unpolished jams.  Jimmy Page mixes a plethora of styles into his own distinctive sound.  Though each has his own spin on it, they all love the guitar with the same burning passion.
Learning how similar these musicians’ experiences with the guitar were to my own was touching.  Jack White, the Edge, and Jimmy Page weren’t always superstars; they struggled when they first started learning.  They got giddy when they got their first real guitars.  They stayed up late in the night playing guitar only to dream about it when they finally fell asleep.  Just like me.  And there is the true magic of this film—that it takes three men whom most of us worship as cultural deities, symbolic of all we want to be and achieve, and brings them down for two hours to show us that they aren’t quite so different from the rest of us.  They are human; they are relatable.

This film is a love letter to anyone who enjoys the guitar or music in general.  The film boasts an impressive soundtrack, obviously containing Led Zeppelin, U2, and White Stripes songs but also featuring lesser known blues and rock artists as well.  Good music, good guitarists, good directing. Great Film.  Those who enjoy rock and roll ought to check it out.