@Jesse – I love both works and would love to agree with you, but I think that most of your suggestions are somewhat stretched. I feel like the similarity most worth noting is simply the focus of both works on fiction and its capacity for deceit.
But hey man, let’s get more Nabby in here! Anybody check out the recent release of The Original of Laura?
For those interested, check out this visual essay about F FOR FAKE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c51P0vjseo&feature=player_embedded
Just watched this. The opening really got me excited, but, by the end—as layers upon layers of the film accumulated—I’m a little more ambivalent. I’m not saying this is a bad film; rather, I’m going to need some time to think about this one (and I haven’t done that, yet). I do think it’s really interesting, and I look forward to “peeling” away the layers.
I do have two questions or thoughts that I wanted to throw out there:
1. How did the scene early seen with the men oogling Oja pertain to fraud, forgery, etc.? (Welles makes a remark about the how he got the men to act for the film, describing this as “larceny.”)
2. I think Clifford Irving says something like, “Without a market for art, art forgery would be impossible.” That, and the discussions about art experts got me thinking. My feeling is that art experts are important only if people buy and sell art. Without the latter, what is the value of art experts?
At the same time, the film suggests that art expertise is chimerical—or at least that many who claim to be experts are really not. Does this mean that identifying and distinguishing one painter from another is impossible, distinguishing great art from bad art is impossible or both?
3. Forgery in painting seems to be more of an issue than other art forms. I’d like to explore that.
Jazz: Forgery in painting seems to be more of an issue than other art forms. I’d like to explore that.
Person X obtains what he believes to be a Picasso painting, and proudly hangs it on his wall.
Person X takes much pride and pleasure in his Picasso, and spends many hours closely examining it and bathing in the glory of its “history”, “culture” and “significance”, and he eagerly shows it off to all his friends and visitors who come to his home. Person X proudly points out to his visitors how brilliantly painted his Picasso is, and he explains in great length and detail how much he admires the beauty of the composition, the colours and the brushstrokes, etc.
One day, an intrigued Picasso expert visits Person X’s home, and after close examination proceeds to declare it a fake! Person X is horrified, and immediately takes it down from his wall to store it where it cannot be seen.
Upon seeing the empty space on the wall upon where the Picasso had once been, Person X’s friend asks him why it is no longer there. Person X responds: “It is fake! I no longer have any use for it.”
Do you think that Person X’s reaction was justified? Do you think that he genuinely took any artistic and aesthetic pleasure out of experiencing his Picasso painting (when he believed it to be painted by Picasso, not a fake), or was he simply being shallow all along? If he was being shallow, then how important would you say is an appreciation of art from a historical and extrinsic perspective, as opposed to more a personal intrinsic experience of it? Do you think that both aspects matter to some degree?
Maybe a man’s name… doesn’t matter… all that much…
— Orson Welles
A greater man than I, a man on this site, once pointed out the incredible perfection of this singular moment to me:
That is art. As Mischa explains. The personal far outweighs the historical.
(Which is oddly the exact reason why I’ve never been as big on Citizen Kane… Go figure)
Brilliant.
@Mischa
If he was being shallow, then how important would you say is an appreciation of art from a historical and extrinsic perspective, as opposed to more a personal intrinsic experience of it? Do you think that both aspects matter to some degree?
Well, it depends on what you mean by “historical and extrinsic perspective.” My sense is that, by this, you mean what others say about the importance of an artwork relative to other artworks throughout history. On the other hand, it could also refer to art work that influenced other artists, works of art and even had an influence outside of art.
If we take monetary value out of equation, then I would say that appreciating art simply because other people say an artwork is important is meaningless—or at least I can’t see a lot of meaning in this. (Oh. I guess, if you like what other respectable people like, that can elevate your status, but I don’t really put much stock in that.) On the other hand, if the individual genuinely believed the artwork was important—because of it’s influence—and maybe even appreciated the art work because of its artistry—regardless if the experts agreed with this or not—I would say this is meaningful.
Yeah, I was really just painting Person X as being someone who cared more about “social status” than actually having a genuine artistic experience, but then again, I was also asking to what extent should we all care about extrinsic elements in artistic appreciation such as “influence”, “intentions” and “originality” which can be measured to some extent on a historical/cultural timeline, etc. That is, some people say that these extrinsic elements are important for them to consider in evaluating artworks, whilst others say that it’s far more important for them to focus upon the intrinsic properties of each individual artwork, without looking too much into how it fits into a historical timeline.
I agree with you that simply “appreciating” art for the sake of social status is meaningless (for me, at least), and that appreciating an artwork for its intrinsic artistry is very meaningful, regardless of the NAME of the artist and his/her position on the historical timeline, etc. And so the question is: how much should we care about NAMES and STATUS? For me personally, I consider extrinsic elements of an artwork to some extent (such as the intentions of the artist, if available), and also I consider how other people/cultures have valued the artwork in question over time and place. However: these elements will generally NOT be of primary concern in my artistic experience and appreciation; rather, they will be secondary considerations which may or may not “colour” my original appreciation to some extent.
By way of explanation, consider the following:
Imagine that you admire Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (I am using Bresson as an example because you just mentioned him in another thread about the deliberately wooden acting in his films), and that you find Bresson’s technique of directing non-professional actors in this film to be artistically stimulating in some way or other; thus, you admire Bresson as a director in this respect, and thus you admire much of Bresson’s cinematography as a director too (and perhaps you also admire Bresson’s films for various other artistic reasons too). Now, imagine that a news article suddenly appears which claims that many of Bresson’s old friends and associates have come forth with a long-suppressed “confession”: Bresson deviously stole the “direction” credit for himself for Diary of a Country Priest from, say, his cinematographer, who actually came up with the idea of shooting non-professional actors, and who also did most of the directing on that film himself. Thus, Bresson’s technique of directing “wooden” non-professional acting in his later films was actually originally stolen from his cinematographer working on Diary of a Country Priest, and thus Bresson’s “intentions” are shown to have been FAKE. Now, knowing this claim, would you proceed to look down upon Diary of a Country Priest, and even his later films, with much less enthusiam – or perhaps even scorn – simply because you have been “deceived” by Bresson’s fake intentions? Or, would you continue to appreciate Bresson’s films for the intrinsic artistry which you have genuinely felt whilst experiencing them?
To be sure, perhaps an individual’s appreciation of a Bresson film can have the potential to increase on some level with a knowledge of Bresson’s unique artistic intentions; HOWEVER, what I am suggesting is that an appreciation of an artwork ought to begin with one’s experience and understanding of the artistry inherent in the artwork in-itself, whereas any considerations of extrinsic elements (such as “intentions”) ought to come afterwards in one’s evaluation i.e. in other words, beginning an appreciation of an artwork by putting too much stock into extrinsic things such as the “intentions” of its creator may not actually be the best way to make a meaningful connection with said artwork, because one can actually be easily deceived by such things (however unlikely such a deception seems to be, heh).
And let’s not forget that my Bresson example is PURELY HYPOTHETICAL and so I’m not interested in digging through his various “essays” etc in order to prove that his intentions were genuine, lol.
It’s an intensely personal film, in which Welles allows his scars to show. For a man widely (and unfairly) perceived as narcissistic and self-absorbed, he shows in F for Fake a marvelously self-deprecating wit. My favorite shot in the film is the one in which Welles artfully doodles over an image derived from his own War of the Worlds hoax. As the Situationists would say he detournes the original in order to create a decontextualized and fresh work of art. The whole film is an act of conscious and unrelenting reinvention. It’s built on a foundation of melancholy by a man who recognizes that his most important films are behind him; you hear this in the world-weary way he says, early in the film, “So I grew another beard, made another film . . .”. This pronouncement is closely followed by a shot of Laurence Harvey, the talented British actor whose early death brought Welles’s The Deep to a premature end. Jazz (and others): this is what I most treasure about F for Fake: the delicate (and tragic) balance between Welles’ attempts at cinematic re-creation and his elegiac reminiscences about the years we will never regain. It’s the same tone Guy Debord strikes in his late films: a lyrical and, at times, bitter wistfulness.
Yes, that’s another interesting aspect of the film, Z.; Welles does seem somewhat world-wearisome throughout the film, despite his witty demeanour.
The whole film is an act of conscious and unrelenting reinvention.
I’ve always found Welles’ evolution in style from Citizen Kane to F for Fake to be one of the more interesting ones in cinema. Personally, I prefer the formal style of F for Fake – the editing alone is so interesting, particularly that scene with Elmyr and Irving having the “silent” conversation about whether or not Elmyr signed his forgeries.
Here is another interesting art forger: Han van Meegeren.
As a child, van Meegeren developed an enthusiasm for the marvelous colours used by painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and later set out to become an artist himself. When art critics decried his work as tired and derivative, van Meegeren felt that they had destroyed his career. Thereupon, he decided to prove his talent to the critics by forging paintings of some of the world’s most famous artists, including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. He so well replicated the styles and colours of the artists that the best art critics and experts of the time regarded his paintings as genuine and sometimes exquisite. His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while living in the south of France. This painting was hailed by some of the world’s foremost art experts as the finest Vermeer they had ever seen.
The personal far outweighs the historical.
Yet they can’t be weighed separately….
Yeah … I think it’s Welles’ best … next to The Trial anyway.
Per Mischa’s ‘Person X’ example, some interesting stuff going on currently with this.
@ Z _balance between Welles’ attempts at cinematic re-creation and his elegiac reminiscences about the years we will never regain. It’s the same tone Guy Debord strikes in his late films: a lyrical and, at times, bitter wistfulness.-
Is it only nostalgia for the past or is he pointing to something else? perhaps entropy as he detournes an original?
:an act of conscious and unrelenting reinvention
Jesse M
Anyone ever read Pale Fire? Nabokov’s novel of “literary one-upmanship”? I sense a dramatic kinship between Pale Fire (which I’m currently re-reading) and F for Fake (which I just saw recently).
Both are stories of original works of art, getting lost within a chain of re-presentation; both contain multiple parallel stories, piggybacking on one another, and both involve a sort of structural commentary across the boundaries of sem-related media (poetry and criticism; filmmaking and painting). Both are partly about narcisism, and about some sort of juvenile obsession, which is actually just a way of channeling your sense of self-importance. Both have a strong sexual undertone without any direct expression of the sexual image or act. Both works have a serious contempt for “expertise.”
I think I may write a blog-post on this kinship… I’d even love to write an article, though I have no serious outlet for that sort of thing. This, even though I doubt anyone will read it, since it’s about two rather obscure, very cryptic works of art that seem to have a lot to do with each other, and yet are arguably completely unrelated. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.