Film Still

F for Fake

Orson Welles

United States

1975

87 minutes

Color

1.66:1

English

288

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

DirectorOrson Welles
Written byOrson Welles and Oja Kodar
PhotographyGary Graver
MusicMichel Legrand
EditingMarie-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

CITIZEN AND FATHER

Nov 11, 2009

When one thinks of Orson Welles, one can’t help but imagine a genius alone, monolithic—an image perhaps fostered by his greatest creation, the colossus Citizen Kane. Yet as the new book In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles, by his eldest child...

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...

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Available Editions

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DVD

2 Discs

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price

$31.96