F for Fake

Orson Welles' jazz-like production of his docudrama F for Fake shows him at his most gossipy. All the fraudsters here are charming—but how else could they swindle people? The story of prolific Hungarian art forger Elmyr de Hory and his untrustworthy biographer Clifford Irving, who himself faked a biography of Howard Hughes, is told in a hall-of-mirrors-style narrative where Welles asks the audience to consider: when it comes to art, what is authenticity? Who decides it and is it necessary?

Some of Welles' essay-like monologues are soulful. He reaches deep into the theater performer he was to get a response from you the way good performers do. Some of his other work here is shamelessly self-indulgent; he becomes the after-dinner bore you imagine he could be.

This is a svelte 88 minutes, it’s shot and edited in a low-budget way that shows every glimmer of creativity on the screen. Welles has been called the best but least successful director in film history. I’m not sure that’s true, but I know this film was not successful when released in 1973, but watching this in 2025? It’s a great movie to see in your local arthouse cinema, if that’s even in business anymore. If it is, you could lean back in the seat as the smell of the artisan coffee wafts in from the lobby (Soft drinks and popcorn? Don’t be so common.), and enjoy the fakery of it all. I did, and Orson would want you to.