Having convinced America aliens were invading in 1938, Orson Welles mused on art-as-deception in this 1974 pic considered his last classic.
Jumping off from a BBC commission about art forger Elmyr De Hory, Welles uses blink/ miss editing to stitch up a mischievous mash of mock-doc, magic show, lecture and comedy.
The greatest trick he pulls is making you think he’s not genuine: beneath befuddling, bracing digressions on Picasso, Howard Hughes, biography, confidence tricks, growing beards and “girl-watching” lies a searching interrogation of ideas of authorship.
Real fun, for real.
