Review of F for Fake (1973) by Andrew D — 04 Nov 2007

This is an interesting film. Part autobiography, part musing, and part documentary of Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving (the infamous hoaxer of Howard Hughes biography). Also prominent throughout the film is Oja Kodar, Orson's love in later life (and whom Orson is overly eager to show off to the world). Essentially, it is an essay on the value of art, the place of the artist within the conception of mankind, and the regard for the artist's product. The film gets to be pretty pretentious at times, but don't let that detract from its substance. My favorite scene is Welles' montage about the Cathedral at Chartres:

"Now this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man perhaps in the whole western world and it's without a signature. Chartres. A celebration to Godâ??s glory and to the dignity of man. All thatâ??s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked, poor, forked radish. There arenâ??t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is 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 choiring 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 it in us to accomplish. Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared, some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two, but everything must fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash: the triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A 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 silenced - but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.".