A closer look
By 1973, Hollywood exile Orson Welles was tired of conventional narratives, so he released F for Fake, a dazzling cinematic sleight of hand disguised as a documentary about an art forger. In reality, it was a 90-minute excuse for Welles to gleefully gaslight the audience, utilizing frantic editing to blur the line between reality and illusion. He spends the climax of the film spinning an elaborate, entirely fabricated story about Picasso, just to remind the viewer that the guy who faked a Martian invasion in 1938 was still the undisputed king of professional bullshit.
