Mutha's Day

So I missed Free Comic Book Day entirely. Honestly, I had no interest. I mean, I've got a wad of the free books coming to me, which is nice, but if one is already a comics buyer, I don't see much point going to the shop to see if any newbies are lured in. Odds are, the shop (at least around here, San Diego, not known to have any connection to the comics industry aside from the largest annual convention) isn't even springing for the zaftig chicks in Wonder Woman or Catwoman or Elektra costumes, and odds are the turnout is poor, or even if it's good, won't lead to regular sales and return visits.

But I didn't mean to start off on a bad note. Though I dropped the kids off at 11:00ish today and am by myself, Mother's Day is going fine. Gave the ex some flowers and a card signed by the kids, so karmically I'm solid. I could have been even better and given blood, as there's a drive today, but I'll just have to do that in the next couple weeks. I'm good for at least six times a year, usually.

Watched the new Criterion release of Orson Welles' F for Fake, a two-disc set containing the 1:20 "essay film" and a second disc of supplements. It's Welles' last completed and released film aside from the much more straightforward Filming Othello, which I believe is mainly Welles narrating or being interviewed about that great film of his over someone else's production. F for Fake, from 1972, found Welles taking footage Francois Reichenbach shot for a documentary on notorious art forger Elmyr De Hory, who was exposed, or maybe just made more notorious, by Clifford Irving's book FAKE, a year or two before. Reichenbach not only allowed Welles to complete the film for him but he agreed that Welles could do anything he wanted with it--it became not just a true Welles production but one of his most personal, creatively unhindered films, and a true virtuoso performance of editing-as-music. It's about De Hory, a charming charlatan who had great technical ability to imitate the art styles of such diverse masters as Matisse, Modigliani, Vertes, Picasso and others, but whose socialite nature, among other things, prevented him from achieiving the focus and dedication a great artist needs to develop their own style and vision. At least, that's Irving's theory, and in turn the movie is about him as well, because while it was being shot, Irving was exposed as an even more notorious faker, the author of a fake autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, whom he never met. Irving was imprisoned over a year for this fraud, and had to return the almost $800K book advance. With Welles' great editing skill, he suggests connections between Elmyr and Irving and that Elmyr quite possibly inspired Irving to take this step toward fakery and fortune. Welles has less success with the diversion to Hughes' odd "press conference" where he renounced Irving's book, unseen, over a telephone, to which seven invited reporters posed questions. It's just less visually interesting and gives Welles less to work with. But he regains form quickly, focusing on his lover and collaborator Oja Kodar and her supposed meeting with Picasso. Kodar is so beautiful that Welles can certainly be forgiven giving her so much attention in the film, but she is also a true collaborator, and even in the luscious "girl watching" sequence early in the film, Welles is able to not just titillate but to develop his themes on fakery. One can argue that the though Welles aligns himself in the film with the other charlatans through some magic tricks he performs, as well as some clever editing tricks, that magic is not the same thing as fakery, and Welles admitted this later, according to the essay in the dvd booklet by Jonathan Rosenbaum, but he also says in the film that "a magician is an actor...playing a magician", so that Welles as both actor and magician does fit well with De Hory and Irving, or rather, he brings them over to his side as actors and illusionists. Maybe Welles sensed this, as he also devotes a portion of the film to a more concrete example of fakery: his War of the Worlds radio broadcast. The essay (or the commentary by director of photography Gary Graver, I can't remember which) also says that Welles was careful to not use any elaborate shots typical of his past work, and in fact the film is really ahead of its time in its almost-MTV-fast cuts between the different film grades and stills used. However, Welles is too dedicated to both beauty and illusion to let good ideas and images go unused, so we are treated in the beginning to a wonderful sequence in a romantic old trainyard, where Welles performs a magic act to a young boy that he insists is not symbolic of anything...and yet Rosenbaum finds it a neat encapsulation of the entire aim of the movie. Also, while Graver says Welles never wanted to "stroll down Memory Lane" and discuss his old films (unless he himself brought one up), there are arguably several allusions to his past work. Old friends and former Mercury Theatre (and CITIZEN KANE) cohorts Paul Wilson and Joseph Cotten appear in the film briefly (though Kodar says on the commentary that this was merely because they were old friends and he wanted to work with them again), and brief parts of KANE's "News On The March" are used as Welles explains Howard Hughes was the first inspiration for what would become KANE, after they decided to model it after someone else (Hearst). Also, some of the mirror/glass circle shots recall the illusory section of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

All the inside stuff aside, it's just a very well restored print of a vibrant, smart, fun film that turns the documentary into something very different, an "essay film" that has never been repeated. I think the closest anyone has come would be Martin Scorsese's documentaries on American and Italian cinema, as they are highly personalized according to what moves Marty, but the editing is much more straightforward and as much as I like Scorsese talking, he's not the naturally charismatic performer Welles is. Any time Welles is in anything, the film becomes about Welles, though here in this new-format film, Welles establishes his justification for this early. He's our host and guide through this delightful but slippery journey. I should say, too, that it's not just about fakery, but about Art. Particularly with De Hory, one can ask that if a forgery (and there is a clear distinction made that De Hory did not copy existing works, but rather imitated the styles of particular artists, along with the authentic or faked materials required to put over the scam) is that good, isn't that a kind of art in itself? Also, the last section of the film, ostensibly about Kodar's art forger grandfather and the Picasso story, is supposedly as much about Welles' fresh wound over Pauline Kael claiming in one of her books that Herman L. Mankiewicz did not just collaborate with Welles on the KANE script, but wrote almost all of it himself. This has since been discredited but hurt Welles greatly at the time, so much so that he wrote a point-by-point rebuttal to Kael, in print, under the name of friend and fellow filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich--another fakery! As essential as Kael is to read for any critic or movie buff, it's worth noting that she has been terribly wrong on many occasions, too, such as her hatred of Antonioni's films. I mean, I'm a brand-new convert to his work, but I can see that she just didn't get what he was doing at all.

Anyway, this is really an excellent film, only an hour-and-twenty-minutes long and full of beauty, life and food for thought, with thrilling, brilliant editing and populated by fascinating characters who feed some of Welles' deepest concerns about life and Art. The supplements contain a 1997 documentary on De Hory, which digs deeper into his claims and, amusingly, credits all the footage from F for Fake used as coming from "the BBC Archives"; a 2000 60 Minutes II piece on Irving, using some of his 1972 interview, so we can see him lying and then talking about what was really going on at the time; the audio excerpts from the Hughes press conference; and, best of all, ONE MAN BAND, a documentary on Welles with the participation of Kodar, done very much in the "essay film" spirit of F FOR FAKE. I wouldn't write this much about something if it wasn't worth it, you know? Thanks to ADD--a bigger Welles fan than me--for letting me know it was coming out.