Lasse Hallström’s The Hoax, from a screenplay by William Wheeler, is based in part on Clifford Irving’s own confessional account (also entitled The Hoax) of his real-life 70’s scam at the expense of his credulous publisher, McGraw-Hill. Mr. Wheeler has added some fictional embroidery to...

Although it scarcely looks comparable to anything else in his career, [F for Fake, a] Quixotic essay in fictional documentary—conjured, it seems, out of nothing more substantial than an extraordinary dexterity at the editing table—may be Welles' most concerted, complete and certainly his wittiest attempt to exorcise the ghosts of Kane, Rosebud and his own 'failed' genius. A personal meditation on the art of fakery, and the fakery in art, F for Fake switches subjects and st...

[Along] comes Orson Welles, with his finest sherry-selling voice, and he messes about arrogantly with the medium and one somehow doesn't mind. This is partly, of course, because he has taken fake, deception, fraud or what you will as his brief. Like a crooked advocate, he pretends to delve into serious matters (the nature of illusion, the assassination of honesty) while roguishly having himself a high time. F for Fake is mainly a very successful commercial for Welles. I'll buy…. [The fi...