Last night I saw one of the most interesting documentaries. Philip had a few problems with it (“I hated it!” “No wonder he could never finish a film!” etc…) and BC actually left after an hour into it, but I was much bemused and bedazzled. The film, F is for Fake, is about an art forger and his biographer, who’s also a fake, but it’s actually about Orson Welles and his profound storytelling ability and exhaustive cutting technique, and the new lady in his life. The filmmakers consistently bring to our attention that this is a film, itself a representation of reality, a fake, not real, and the story that’s being told wavers between documentary and fiction, reality and illusion. It’s all elusive, and intensely entertaining. Orson presides pompously over his dinner companions at a restaurant, with his black cape and hat, and when the waiter approaches he turns his head from his stream of blather to murmur quickly to the waiter to please take away the salad and bring him the steak au poivre.
BC and I had earlier high-tailed it to Paule Anglim for Keith Hale’s opening. Keith and I went to school together, but I always forget this because I saw the work of the artist “Keith Hale” before I realized that was the name of the little dude that I chatted with at lunch time, and imagined someone so different making the pictures that I never connected the real Keith Hale to the artist. It was nice to see him again, and nice to see his new work. He’s in Paule’s small room, just a dozen or so paintings, mostly of lunar surfaces, very delicately and meticulously rendered, with the addition of images of tiny orchids, pansies, and little singing cowboys in gay rainbow kerchiefs. I thought a lot about how large a part the moon played in my own adolescence, and then split to pick up burritos before connecting any more mental dots. We didn’t have time to make the rounds either, Orson was waiting.