F for Fake (1975) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles’s free-form documentary F for Fake, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career—the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.

Cast

	Orson Welles
	Oja Kodar
	Elmyr de Hory
	Clifford Irving
	François Reichenbach
	Gary Graver
	Pablo Picasso?

Credits

Director	Orson Welles
Written by	Orson Welles and Oja Kodar
Photography	Gary Graver
Music	Michel Legrand
Editing	Marie-Sophie Dubus and Dominique Engerer

Disc Features

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by star and co-writer Oja Kodar and director of photography Gary Graver
Introduction by director Peter Bogdanovich
Orson Welles: One-Man Band, an 88-minute documentary from 1995 about Welles’s unfinished projects
Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery, a 52-minute documentary from 1997 about art forger Elmyr de Hory
A 2000 60 Minutes interview with Clifford Irving about his Howard Hughes autobiography hoax
A 1972 Hughes press conference exposing Irving’s hoax
Extended nine-minute trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
Plus: A new essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

From the Current

Orson Welles’s Purloined Letter: F For Fake

by Jonathan Rosenbaum Apr 25, 2005

There were plenty of advantages to living in Paris in the early 1970s, especially if one was a movie buff with time on one’s hands. The Parisian film world is relatively small, and simply being on the...