F for Fake

F for Fake (Vérités et Mensonges, 1973) is Orson Welles' documentary essay film — watch it online on iFILM. Welles cuts between newsreel footage, staged sequences and his own camera-address to ask a question he refuses to answer cleanly: what is the difference between genuine art and a great forgery, and who has the authority to decide?

His two subjects are real. Hungarian painter Elmyr de Hory spent decades selling fake Picassos, Matisses and Modiglianis to major galleries and collectors without ever being caught outright. Writer Clifford Irving produced a fake Howard Hughes autobiography — Hughes, by then a recluse, had to surface publicly just to deny it. Welles doesn't expose them so much as turn them into mirrors: if the world's leading experts couldn't tell the difference, what does authenticity actually mean? Co-director François Reichenbach shot the original de Hory footage that Welles wove into the film.

The final sequence — a story about Oja Kodar and Picasso — ends with Welles admitting he just lied. Deliberately. It's the most disarming conclusion in the essay film form, and the reason F for Fake remains essential viewing for anyone interested in cinema, art, or the mechanics of belief. Stream it online on iFILM.