After spending pretty much an entire day talking about Orson
Welles and F For Fake not long ago, I feel like I’m beating a dead horse here…
but let’s talk about ‘fake art’. Forgery on its own is already a pretty dicey
prospect, but applying that to the creative arts like painting, filmmaking or
writing opens up whole new dilemmas to the equation. And indeed, much like
Elmyr de Hory, sometimes deliberate artistic imitation can be called out and
still considered to be as worthy as the genuine article. Rather than just
rehash the F For Fake argument, let’s instead see how that mindset of 'fake
art' applies to this film, a based-on-actual-events of a writer who forged
letters from famous writers and actors.
