The last Orson Welles film, an innovative and exciting documentary. It is not the complete curveball it looks like it may be right at the start, but it soon turns into an entertaining, cleverly edited and tightly made little piece.
This is all a good thing; self-indulgent mumbo-jumbo could get a little tiresome. It's deliberately all-over-the-place, simalacrum+ treatments of its fascinating subjects is the perfect thematic treatment of the subject of fakes. By questioning itself, it really does make one think more about the central subject.
The editing is done really terrifically well. The creator of the 'MTV' style edit is done here with a sense of subtedly and fun absent from many of its imitators. It keeps things whizzing along, gives a few laughs.
And of course there is the inimitable Orson Welles, his wonderful, booming, clear presence at the centre of the film holding things at once at a length and also in hand. He tells some fine stories, the final fifteen minutes in particular he really shows his ability to set one's mind ablaze with a yarn.
Some interesting stories, told in a meandering and curious way that still pretty much avoids being indulgent. The old man, even in the twilight of his days and lacking the ambition or resources to make the behemoths he could have, was still the master of the cinema.
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