For "F for Fake," Filipa César adapted Orson Welles’ encapsulated film-essay of the same name, which deals with the dubious art forger Elmyr de Hory and the no less controversial author Clifford Irving, who wrote a faked biography of Howard Hughes and a genuine biography of de Hory. The film itself does not stick strictly to the truth, and this is deliberate. Like Orson Welles’ film, César’s adaptation of the game of intentional confusion deals with concepts such as authenticity, copies, forgeries, transgressions, intentionality and creativity. Four protagonists, who are introduced as experts, comment on Welles’ film. One moment we see original passages and approaches, the next the faces of the beholders in the flickering light of the television images.
César further substantiates what Welles had already established. She presents the beholders of the convoluted game revolving around truth and lies as the real experts, who in Welles’ case not only possess any amount of Elmyrs, but who also certify Hughes’ forged signature to be above suspicion. César’s video, which was conceived for an exhibition situation, is structured as a time-related loop resolution, which exonerates it from adherence to cinematographic rules. Thus the work is in no way committed to any realistic perception of time. The sequences from Welles’ film-essay are assembled in an associative, dialogic form, whereby the artist emphasizes the unfinished nature of the perceptual process.
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