F for Fake & Confidential R in Vancouverhttp://www

[Oscar Christie]

Oja claimed it never happened, as there was nothing to settle, according to her.

Do we know where the false story about Oja and the Crash first appeared?

[Tony]

For Sure Paola died in a car crash; I've heard an alternate story that it was a few days before she was due to meet Oja.

Harvey: I was getting a "Yoko" and "Linda McCartney" vibe thinking about this. And they all happened at the same time: the early 70's, just when women's lib had exploded in to the society. Lennon and McCartney ended the greatest pop writing team since Gilbert and Sullivan to work with their wives; it was the end of both artistically. Neither could see that Yoko and Linda had no musical talent at all, just as Welles was unable to see that Oja had no acting ability (anyone see 'F For Fake", "The Dreamers" outakes, or "Jaded"?). Perhaps Welles even had trouble with financing because he usually insisted on including Oja, and nobody had the heart to tell him she was not an actor (I remember George C. Scott insisted on his wife being included on any pictures he made for a number of years, and this hurt his work offers severely).

As a friend of mine said: "Love is blind- and deaf too!".

Glenn: What you say about true love taking away Welles's drive to finish art: this feels right to me; look at what happened to Dylan when he was happy with Sarah from 1967-1973: artistic death. Domestic bliss might well = artistic suicide. When Dylan ended his marriage, he produced Blood on the Tracks.

Hmmmm..... Maybe Chuck Higham was right, but for the wrong reasons: Welles didn't have a fear of completion; he has a loss of interest in completion, because he found the one thing Charlie Kane never found: true love.

Hmmmm....... ???

[maxrael]

Has anyone around these parts seen 'Soft Self Portrait Of Salvador Dali' narrated by Welles and currently available on DVD.

The film was originally released on 1971 and to these eyes has a few stylistic similarities with Fake.

It's much more bizarre and not as polished as Fake, but Welles narration is decent and there's some playful blurring of boundaries such as when Welles' narration intrudes into the film and starts asking questions directly to Dali (who runs around looking insane shouting 'No!' in response to most of them!)

All in all i'd call it a curiosity... in parts entertaining, parts frustrating, such as trying to make out what Dali is actually saying in his new version of the English language, (or is that the point?!)

any other thoughts?..

maxout

[tony williams]

On Oja and Orson.

If this analogy is true, then it would parallel the decline of Emile Zola's talent after DR, PASCAL, when he found true love with his mistress and ended up up writing reactionary books like FECONDITE.

However, Oja looks stunning in F FOR FAKE and may only be representing the "eternal feminine: in this film. We also need access to the footage shot for THE DREAMERS and the final version of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND before we make any definitive judgements on this issue.