B FOR BOHEMIA...1974

I had no intentions of putting film reviews on here. I'd been thinking about France alot. First, I did some dragons for a French gallery, and then my friend Leslee returned from a week in Paris with some amazing pictures. (I'm deep into a work project, so no paintings yet, but I figured you'd like to read something fun that I liked.) The film F FOR FAKE(1974) was an exception simply because it's a film *about* art, or, what we are led to believe is "art" sometimes, directed and hosted by Orson Welles. I caught this film on Turner Classic Movies(the only reason to watch TV these days) and promptly bought the DVD. Welles did F FOR FAKE and had to literally go to foreign backers to get it done. And this is the guy who directed CITIZEN KANE. It's basically a mockumentary within a documentary and it's utterly engrossing. Orson Welles, other than being a great film director, fooled the country in 1938 with his Mercury Theater reading of WAR OF THE WORLDS which some people took waaay too seriously and believed an invasion was under way by Martians. In this film, Welles explores the lines between reality and illusion and, art and lies. Welles is a charlatan and admits this from the get-go so keep that in mind. The art forger Elmyr de Hory is explored as his his equally elusive biographer, Clifford Irving(who did a fake biography of the even more elusive Howard Hughes). Elmyr creates fakes and forgeries before our eyes, and it's pondered how many experts he's fooled to the point that many of his works could cost the careers of museum curators if it was ever revealed what they acquired was not real, but a forgery. As Elmyr says "If the painting is in a collection for so long, it becomes real". And does that make us enjoy it any less, if we don't know? Filmed in France, and Ibiza mostly, the movie positively drips this atmosphere of 1970's bohemia-Welles at tables with unknown yet interesting people, drinking wine and having fine food and intense conversation about art, while we're treated to sequences of Ibiza's color and life, circa 1974. You feel like you are there. The best part of the film is that it sucks the audience right into it- remember that bit about Welles being a "charlatan"-for one hour he promises to tell us the truth, but the film is over an hour long. Keep that in mind. It kind of thumbs it's nose at the "art establishment" and the pretentiousness of those who think they know- and see- all as "real" on sight. As Picasso said, and is quoted in the film "Art itself a lie. But a lie that makes us realize the truth" And let's face it, Orson Welles could have read the phone book and it would have sounded cool. As Welles re-counts his 1938 War of The Worlds broadcast we're treated to some footage from EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS(1956). F FOR FAKE is a must-have documentary. It's going to be on TCM/Turner Classic Movies May 15th at 3:30 Am EST or, June 5th at 6:30pm EST, I highly recommend it, so record it, or get the DVD. If you like art in any way, and like freeform documentaries...check it out.