F for Fake

Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.

This one's a thinker. What struck me most is how much this editing style feels thoroughly modern. This could have been an elaborate video essay on my YouTube homepage, and I wouldn't blink an eye. What is art? Who are the real experts? Do we care about fakes, and does the answer matter who's getting ripped off? Welles navigates all these questions and more and manages to weave a patchwork film out of truth, lies, and the things that lie between.