F is for Fake

Orson…

In this film, Mr. Welles focuses on the story of an art forger named Elmyr de Hory.  Throughout his explorations, Welles puts forward many a notion about the nature of truth and fraud.  He also goes to a lot of parties and eats a freakin’ huge lobster.

A lot of the film is spent exploring the idea of art.  Elmyr regularly passes off his forgeries as original works by famous painters.  The experts can’t even tell the difference.  The art community views him as a fraud and a menace, but Welles submits to the viewers a different idea.  Aren’t Elmyr’s paintings works of art as well?  Who’s to say they aren’t?  As some person in the film says, “If there weren’t any experts, would there be any fakers?”  Authenticity and value are both completely subjective qualities, says the film.  For example, I bought a painting of a wolf dog holding out his paw in friendly way.  I think it’s awesome.  However, when my roommate saw it, she gave me that lovely, reproachful look that so often graces her face.  She didn’t like it.  Our opinions on art are different.  My opinion is the right one, though.

True to its subject, the film itself is constantly tweaking the truth and causing its audience to reassess their notions of reality.  The subjects of the film themselves are intensely aware of the camera and are constantly giving a performance.  There is a lot of cutting together of scenes and interviews that obviously didn’t take place on the same day.  There are a lot of staged scenes, fictional interludes, and reenactments.  Voices are dubbed over.  Orson Welles pops in at random wearing a cloak and winking at the camera.  Every aspect of the film is meant to make you examine how truth is presented.

The film is questioning the difference between reality and fiction, truth and fakery.  It’s questioning the very existence of a difference between them. 

And now, a quote from the film, as stated by Orson Welles:

“Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared, some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two, but everything must fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash; the triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes.  A fact of life…we’re all going to die.  Be of good heart, cry the dead artists out of the living past.  Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it?  Go on singing.”

And also, this

The Business of Being Born

As a person who might one day participate in the so-called “miracle of birth”, I found this film to be interesting.  I found it interesting not only because of my stake in the issue, but also because watching babies being born is really fascinating and this film involves quite a few babies.  Have you ever watched a giraffe give birth?  Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

Anyway.  Whenever anyone accuses the patriarchal system of exerting their power over and oppressing women, I’m usually on board with their argument.  Also, whenever someone points out that every developed country in the world except for the US does something a certain way, I’m even more on board.  What can I say, I was raised an America-hating feminist.  Just kidding.  Or am I?

  Since this film employed both of these arguments, it took some effort for me not to immediately jump on the home birth bandwagon.  However, I resisted the urge and viewed the film as objectively as I could.  I found that it occasionally pushed its agenda a little to hard.  I ended up feeling a little alienated a couple of times.  Other than those few times, though, I thought the film presented its argument very convincingly and levelheadedly.  Its facts were straight, its methods were clear and simple, and placentas are gross. 

Also, the ending of the film contributed greatly to the levelheadedness of its argument.  Throughout the film, the director is pregnant.  Partly because of her research, she plans to have her baby at home.  However, she ends up going into labor early and is forced to deliver via cesarean section in a hospital.  Breached birth, you know.  The film ends with her expressing her disappointment that she wasn’t able to have her baby at home.  However, she goes on to talk about how grateful she is that the doctors were able to help her with the complications that arose.  Ending the film on this note prevents it from becoming a one-sided assault on conventional hospital births. 

I can’t really say if this film has convinced me to bear my potential future children in a certain way.  It certainly makes the home birth option look attractive, but I’m not sure.  Ask me again when I’m in labor.  Ouch.

            

King of Kong

When exploring the world of gaming and gamers, it’s easy to adopt a somewhat dismissive or disdainful tack.  To non-gamers, people of the gaming community can come across as pathetic losers who are unsettlingly detached from reality.  It would be seem natural for a documentary about hard-core gamers to approach the material with a similarly condescending tone.  Such a film could possibly fall into what I like to call the “’Trekkies’ trap”.  I actually just made that term up, but you know what I mean.

King of Kong treads this fine line between celebrating its subjects and making fun of them.  The film focuses on Steve Wiebe, a man whose confidence is slowly being sapped out of him by the many disappointments that life throws at him.  In an attempt to be the best at something and regain his manhood, Wiebe takes up Donkey Kong.  Thus, he is sucked into the seedy underground world of competitive arcade gaming.  The antagonist in the story is Billy Mitchell, the reigning Donkey Kong champion and all around sleaze.  The two men become arch-nemesii of sorts and spend the film gunning for the high score.    

The film treats Wiebe’s world record attempt as a shot at redemption for him.  His gaming interests are a healthy way of gaining the confidence that he needs to live his life.  Billy Mitchell’s gaming interests, on the other hand, are presented as negative and somewhat pathetic.  Billy Mitchell plays because he’s an egomaniacal sociopath. While Wiebe’s motivations are rooted in his desires to overcome real insecurities, Mitchell’s only desire seems to be to dominate his own sad little world full of tacky ties and nasty hot wing sauce.  That’s the difference that the film finds between the two men.  One of the key exchanges in the film occurs when the Wiebe family is driving cross-country to attend a gaming convention in a sad little arcade.  Steve is discussing with his daughter the possibility of him setting a new word record score in Donkey Kong.  His daughter makes an offhand remark about how people sometimes waste their lives trying to set records.  I think this scene was included as a sort of underlying thesis.  Wiebe manages to have a somewhat firm grip on reality, but the rest of the gamers that the film comes in contact with are a sad bunch.  Despite its so-called inspiring story, I felt a little depressed and exasperated by the end of this film.  I also felt bad for Wiebe’s wife.