F for Fake

F for Fake is a 1974 film, released in 1975 in the United States. The film focuses on the life of Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger and forgery in general. F for Fake is notable for being Orson Welles final film, which today is renowned as being the procurer of modern editing.

Orson Welles

• Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery, fraud, about lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. This is a promise. For the next hour, everything you hear from us is really true and based on solid fact.

• Houdin was the greatest magician who ever lived. And do you know what he said? "A magician, he said, is just an actor — Just an actor playing the part of a magician."

• I started at the top and have been working my way down ever since.

• Paris was suffering from August. This happens every year. It shuts down, closes up, and this is the time when an invader could take the country by telephone... if he could get somebody to answer it.

• At the very beginning I did make you a promise, remember? I did promise, that for one hour, I'd tell you only the truth. That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. For the past 17 minutes I've been lying my head off.

• Art, [Picasso] said, is a lie — a lie that makes us realise the truth.

External links

• F for Fake quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• F for Fake at Rotten Tomatoes