Screening

About F for Fake

Rating:

PG PG

Year Released:

1973

Genres:

Documentary

Metadata:

Directed by Orson Welles

In F for Fake, Orson Welles portrays himself as a magician who can’t be trusted. It’s been called a pseudodocumentary, which is not entirely fair or accurate. Instead, it’s best described as a cinematic sleight of hand, a documentary that becomes something else entirely. Henry Jaglom, Welles’s friend and sometime collaborator, calls it “the most autobiographical of his films” A masterpiece is a masterpiece, he argues, and the movie does not need him to champion it. “Ultimately, it is about the creative act and the confession that all creative acts are fraudulent,” – taken from The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, by Robert K. Elder. (35mm presentation)

Author Robert K. Elder is scheduled to introduce the film and sign copies of his latest book. The screening and visit are cosponsored by the Lilly Library.

Robert K. Elder is the editor-in-chief for Chicago Sun-Times Media Local, an author and founder of Odd Hours Media, which specializes in crowdsourcing, social media and TV production. Pulitzer-winner Studs Terkel calls Elder “a journalist in the noblest tradition” in his introduction to Elder’s book, Last Words of the Executed. Elder’s latest book, The Best Film You’ve Never Seen, was praised by film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote: “How necessary this book is! And how well-judged and written!”

Elder’s work has appeared in The New York Times, MSNBC. com, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Salon.com, The Oregonian and many other publications. For more than a decade, he served as a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune and he worked as a regional editor for the AOL Huffington Post Media Group’s hyper-local news initiative. Along with being author, editor and contributor to numerous other books and publications, he is a former member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, has taught film classes at Facets Film School, and teaches journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School and Columbia College.