1
00:00:27,021 --> 00:00:30,650
<i>For my next experiment, ladies and gentlemen...</i>

2
00:00:30,758 --> 00:00:34,922
<i>I would appreciate the loan of any</i>
<i>small personal object from your pocket-</i>

3
00:00:35,029 --> 00:00:37,725
<i>a key or a box of matches, a coin.</i>

4
00:00:37,831 --> 00:00:43,030
Ah, a key it is. Good sir.
Hold it up 10 feet over your head.

5
00:00:43,137 --> 00:00:47,938
And watch out for the slightest hint
of hanky-panky.

6
00:00:48,042 --> 00:00:51,910
<i>And behold, before our very eyes...</i>

7
00:00:52,012 --> 00:00:53,912
a transformation.

8
00:00:54,014 --> 00:00:56,141
We've changed your key...

9
00:00:58,652 --> 00:01:00,279
into a coin.

10
00:01:00,387 --> 00:01:02,855
<i>What happened to the key?</i>
<i>It's been returned to you.</i>

11
00:01:02,956 --> 00:01:06,892
Look closely, sir. You'll find the key...

12
00:01:06,994 --> 00:01:08,894
back in your pocket.

13
00:01:08,996 --> 00:01:10,896
May we see it, please?

14
00:01:12,900 --> 00:01:14,595
Up to your old tricks, I see.

15
00:01:14,701 --> 00:01:17,295
Why not? I'm a charlatan.

16
00:01:17,404 --> 00:01:19,497
<i>What's that, sir? Did I used to be a magician?</i>

17
00:01:19,606 --> 00:01:22,006
Sir, I'm still working on it.

18
00:01:22,109 --> 00:01:27,240
As for the key, it was not symbolic of anything.

19
00:01:27,347 --> 00:01:29,247
<i>This isn't that kind of movie.</i>

20
00:01:29,349 --> 00:01:31,340
<i>You'll find the coin now in your pocket, sir.</i>

21
00:01:31,452 --> 00:01:34,080
Keep your eyes on that coin, sir...

22
00:01:34,188 --> 00:01:37,589
while it's returned to you as your key.

23
00:01:37,691 --> 00:01:41,320
<i>Shall we return you to your mother?</i>
<i>Is this your mother? No, of course not.</i>

24
00:01:41,428 --> 00:01:43,521
<i>Open your mouth, wide...</i>

25
00:01:43,630 --> 00:01:46,690
<i>and we'll return you your money.</i>

26
00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:49,792
<i>And by the way, have you ever</i>
<i>heard of Robert-Houdin?</i>

27
00:01:50,838 --> 00:01:54,274
Speaking of magicians, I mean? No, of course not.

28
00:01:54,374 --> 00:01:57,135
- <i>But of course you do know my partner, Francois Reichenbach?</i>
- Hello.

29
00:01:57,144 --> 00:02:00,875
<i>Houdin was the greatest magician who ever lived.</i>

30
00:02:00,981 --> 00:02:02,915
<i>And do you know what he said?</i>

31
00:02:08,122 --> 00:02:12,718
- "A magician," he said, "is just an actor."
- Well, good luck to you.

32
00:02:12,826 --> 00:02:16,626
<i>Just an actor playing the part of a magician.</i>

33
00:02:24,004 --> 00:02:27,496
- <i> Very nice.</i>
- <i>And she's fabulously rich too.</i>

34
00:02:27,608 --> 00:02:30,008
- There's a good story about it.
- Do you want to tell it?

35
00:02:30,110 --> 00:02:32,374
We'll come to that one later.

36
00:02:32,479 --> 00:02:34,379
<i>No, it's time for an introduction.</i>

37
00:02:41,855 --> 00:02:44,380
Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction...

38
00:02:44,491 --> 00:02:49,121
this is a film about trickery and fraud...

39
00:02:49,229 --> 00:02:52,164
about lies.

40
00:02:52,266 --> 00:02:56,134
Tell it by the fireside or
in a marketplace or in a movie...

41
00:02:56,236 --> 00:02:58,898
almost any story is almost certainly...

42
00:02:59,006 --> 00:03:00,906
some kind of lie.

43
00:03:02,342 --> 00:03:05,470
But not this time. No, this is a promise.

44
00:03:05,579 --> 00:03:09,242
During the next hour, everything
you'll hear from us is really true...

45
00:03:09,349 --> 00:03:11,249
and based on solid facts.

46
00:03:12,719 --> 00:03:15,882
<i>You don't talk about Napoleon or Julius Caesar.</i>

47
00:03:15,989 --> 00:03:18,890
- You're talking about Elmyr.
- <i> Elmyr?</i>

48
00:03:18,992 --> 00:03:20,857
- Elmyr?
- <i> Who is Elmyr?</i>

49
00:03:20,961 --> 00:03:24,590
<i>That question has yet to be answered</i>
<i>with any real precision.</i>

50
00:03:24,698 --> 00:03:27,792
- Can I kiss you too?
- Certainly.

51
00:03:27,901 --> 00:03:30,369
Anybody want to eat?

52
00:03:30,470 --> 00:03:33,962
<i>In the world of the jet-setters,</i>
<i>among us beautiful people...</i>

53
00:03:34,074 --> 00:03:37,407
<i>everybody knows Elmyr, but Elmyr what?</i>

54
00:03:37,511 --> 00:03:39,911
- He has about 60 time the same name.
- <i> De Hory?</i>

55
00:03:40,013 --> 00:03:44,882
He's called his name Hory, Heury,
Bory, Sury, Kury, Bury, Dury. All the...

56
00:03:46,853 --> 00:03:48,718
With put U-R-Y. Sixty names.

57
00:03:48,822 --> 00:03:52,952
- His real name was Elmyr Ferenc Huffman.
- <i>Then 60 personalities...</i>

58
00:03:53,093 --> 00:03:55,118
as much lies and as much real.

59
00:03:55,195 --> 00:03:58,892
Well, it sounds very Jesuitical.

60
00:04:01,068 --> 00:04:03,628
Yes, his world is a world of make-believe.

61
00:04:05,672 --> 00:04:09,130
- I'm not an actor.
- <i>Not an actor? Elmyr?</i>

62
00:04:09,243 --> 00:04:11,177
I'm not an actor.

63
00:04:12,546 --> 00:04:15,947
- I am not a professional actor.
- <i> He's a leading actor in this movie.</i>

64
00:04:16,049 --> 00:04:19,246
<i>His profession, it's true,</i>
<i>is painting-painting fakes.</i>

65
00:04:19,353 --> 00:04:22,322
Among all fakers, Elmyr is number two.

66
00:04:22,422 --> 00:04:25,050
<i>Once I saw a man from Ibiza...</i>

67
00:04:25,158 --> 00:04:28,184
<i>writing a book on fake,</i>
<i>who came to see me to Paris.</i>

68
00:04:28,295 --> 00:04:31,492
He said, "I heard you are
the first man who bought an Elmyr."

69
00:04:31,598 --> 00:04:35,967
- <i> And that man's name was-</i>
- Clifford Irving.

70
00:04:39,306 --> 00:04:43,174
<i>The important distinction</i>
<i>to make when you're talking about...</i>

71
00:04:43,277 --> 00:04:47,338
<i>the genuine quality of a painting...</i>

72
00:04:48,382 --> 00:04:51,613
is not so much whether
it's a real painting or a fake.

73
00:04:54,955 --> 00:04:57,014
It's whether it's a good fake or a bad fake.

74
00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:50,027
Her name...

75
00:07:50,130 --> 00:07:53,725
<i>is Oja, Oja Kodar.</i>

76
00:07:53,834 --> 00:07:56,234
<i>And this, by the way,</i>
<i>is from quite another film...</i>

77
00:07:56,336 --> 00:08:01,899
<i>a sequence on the fine</i>
<i>outdoor sport of girl-watching.</i>

78
00:08:02,008 --> 00:08:07,878
Our sneaky crew of cameramen hidden away
in camouflaged trucks and packing boxes...

79
00:08:07,981 --> 00:08:10,040
<i>arranged for her to act for them.</i>

80
00:08:10,150 --> 00:08:12,710
To act as bait.

81
00:08:17,023 --> 00:08:18,923
<i>You see how it worked.</i>

82
00:08:21,061 --> 00:08:23,086
<i>The entire cast...</i>

83
00:08:23,196 --> 00:08:26,097
<i>all the performers, except one...</i>

84
00:08:26,199 --> 00:08:29,225
<i>acting away like crazy for us</i>
<i>without getting paid for it...</i>

85
00:08:29,336 --> 00:08:31,702
- <i>without even knowing they were movie actors.</i>
- <i>Mama mia.!</i>

86
00:08:31,805 --> 00:08:34,740
- <i>Simple larceny. Well, maybe not simple.</i>
- <i>Mama mia.!</i>

87
00:08:34,841 --> 00:08:36,775
That year nothing was simple...

88
00:08:37,811 --> 00:08:39,711
least of all the larceny.

89
00:08:39,813 --> 00:08:41,906
<i>Now in this little gag, Lawrence Harvey...</i>

90
00:08:42,015 --> 00:08:44,677
<i>our leading man from yet another movie...</i>

91
00:08:44,784 --> 00:08:48,652
<i>couldn't arrange space for Miss Kodar on a plane.</i>

92
00:08:48,755 --> 00:08:51,952
<i>Well, there's no room in this movie</i>
<i>to tell you why in that other one...</i>

93
00:08:52,058 --> 00:08:55,516
<i>we squeezed Miss Kodar into</i>
<i>a more convenient size for traveling...</i>

94
00:08:55,629 --> 00:08:57,756
<i>by a magical illusion.</i>

95
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:04,566
<i>But you really must believe that</i>
<i>what comes afterwards is solid fact.</i>

96
00:09:04,671 --> 00:09:08,038
<i>Yes, after this bit of hocus-pocus,</i>
<i>the next thing we heard about her...</i>

97
00:09:08,141 --> 00:09:10,041
<i>was not as an actress...</i>

98
00:09:10,143 --> 00:09:14,136
<i>but as the leading figure in a notorious swindle.</i>

99
00:09:19,686 --> 00:09:21,813
<i>I took another plane, grew another beard...</i>

100
00:09:21,922 --> 00:09:24,652
<i>made another movie and well before Miss Kodar-</i>

101
00:09:26,560 --> 00:09:30,257
<i>We'll leave Miss Kodar aside for the moment.</i>

102
00:09:30,363 --> 00:09:32,763
<i>But in case that mumbo-jumbo might make it seem...</i>

103
00:09:32,866 --> 00:09:36,199
<i>that there's going to be some trickery</i>
<i>in this film about trickery...</i>

104
00:09:36,303 --> 00:09:38,737
<i>we'll repeat our promise...</i>

105
00:09:38,838 --> 00:09:40,829
<i>in writing.</i>

106
00:09:40,941 --> 00:09:45,071
<i>The girl-watching was evidence</i>
<i>of how much of all this was filmed...</i>

107
00:09:45,178 --> 00:09:48,875
<i>in blissful ignorance of the facts...</i>

108
00:09:48,982 --> 00:09:50,950
<i>about some of the various characters...</i>

109
00:09:51,051 --> 00:09:53,485
<i>who found their way in front of our cameras.</i>

110
00:09:53,587 --> 00:09:57,284
Well, Clifford Irving told the story in the book.

111
00:09:57,390 --> 00:09:59,187
<i>Maybe.</i>

112
00:09:59,292 --> 00:10:03,126
<i>Well, by now, you understand,</i>
<i>I'd fallen in with Francois.</i>

113
00:10:03,229 --> 00:10:05,220
<i>And on the island of Ibiza...</i>

114
00:10:05,332 --> 00:10:08,301
<i>we'd fallen smack into</i>
<i>the biggest series of scandals...</i>

115
00:10:08,401 --> 00:10:10,198
<i>in the whole history of hoaxing.</i>

116
00:10:10,303 --> 00:10:13,363
<i>It was a pretty queer experience</i>
<i>to start making yet another movie...</i>

117
00:10:13,473 --> 00:10:16,271
<i>and end up making yet another...</i>

118
00:10:16,376 --> 00:10:20,176
<i>with a story line rotten with coincidence.</i>

119
00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:23,681
<i>For instance, that the author of</i>
Fake! <i>A book about a faker...</i>

120
00:10:23,783 --> 00:10:29,153
<i>was himself a faker and the author</i>
<i>of a fake to end all fakes-</i>

121
00:10:29,255 --> 00:10:31,951
<i>and that he must have been cooking it up</i>
<i>when we were filming him.</i>

122
00:10:32,058 --> 00:10:35,152
- Well.
- <i> Quiet, please. Edith Irving.</i>

123
00:10:35,261 --> 00:10:41,166
- Take three.
- Look, you've known Elmyr longer than anyone else on this island.

124
00:10:41,267 --> 00:10:43,895
Do you really believe he did all those fakes?

125
00:10:44,004 --> 00:10:46,370
- No, I really don't believe it.
- <i> Sorry.</i>

126
00:10:46,473 --> 00:10:48,464
<i>I've been jumping around like this</i>
<i>because that's the way it was.</i>

127
00:10:48,575 --> 00:10:50,475
<i>Clifford Irving, take two.</i>

128
00:10:50,577 --> 00:10:53,307
<i>Let's pull ourselves together if we can</i>
<i>and begin at the beginning.</i>

129
00:10:53,413 --> 00:10:57,247
<i>Now, on this tablecloth, which is decorated</i>
<i>with a map, is where everything-</i>

130
00:10:57,350 --> 00:11:00,251
Which I've just loused up with some wine.

131
00:11:00,353 --> 00:11:04,312
But I understand wine
brings good luck behind the ear.

132
00:11:04,424 --> 00:11:06,722
<i>Well, we can use a little luck anywhere.</i>

133
00:11:06,826 --> 00:11:09,852
And here is - I'll have to mark it in.

134
00:11:09,963 --> 00:11:14,730
On this tiny island is where the two
great hoaxes were hatched - Ibiza.

135
00:11:17,937 --> 00:11:22,271
<i>One island, two Ibizas.</i>

136
00:11:22,375 --> 00:11:24,400
<i>The serious, indeed, the very sober part...</i>

137
00:11:24,511 --> 00:11:26,911
<i>is part of Spain.</i>

138
00:11:27,013 --> 00:11:31,916
<i>And the other, "An island in the sun,"</i>
Life <i>magazine calls it...</i>

139
00:11:32,018 --> 00:11:34,953
<i>"where restless souls may find each other. "</i>

140
00:11:36,156 --> 00:11:38,886
The restless souls being, I guess...

141
00:11:38,992 --> 00:11:41,552
<i>Cliff Irving, over there-</i>

142
00:11:41,661 --> 00:11:44,425
and Elmyr.

143
00:11:44,531 --> 00:11:48,695
<i>Coincidence number one:</i>
<i>That these two world leaders in fakery...</i>

144
00:11:48,802 --> 00:11:52,101
<i>operated, quite separately,</i>
<i>on the same tiny island.</i>

145
00:11:53,873 --> 00:11:58,105
That's Mrs. Irving. Elmyr and Mrs. Irving.

146
00:11:58,211 --> 00:12:00,236
<i>Clifford Irving, who declared that he himself...</i>

147
00:12:00,346 --> 00:12:02,871
<i>had delivered to Howard Hughes or his aides...</i>

148
00:12:02,982 --> 00:12:06,281
the quarter of a million dollars
publisher's advance...

149
00:12:06,386 --> 00:12:09,378
<i>suddenly confessed today that Mrs. Irving...</i>

150
00:12:09,489 --> 00:12:13,152
is the same Helga R. Hughes wanted by the police -

151
00:12:21,134 --> 00:12:24,262
<i>"If Clifford dragged Edith</i>
<i>into this, "said Elmyr...</i>

152
00:12:24,370 --> 00:12:26,964
"I spit on his face."

153
00:12:27,073 --> 00:12:30,304
<i>This was later, of course,</i>
<i>when everything was finally hanging out...</i>

154
00:12:30,410 --> 00:12:33,004
<i>or as much of it as I guess</i>
<i>any of us will ever get to see.</i>

155
00:12:33,113 --> 00:12:38,278
<i>And then we had to stop these Moviolas,</i>
<i>use them as time machines...</i>

156
00:12:38,384 --> 00:12:40,147
and then roll back and come in again...

157
00:12:40,253 --> 00:12:43,450
<i>to the days when Clifford Irving,</i>
<i>as far as any of us knew...</i>

158
00:12:43,556 --> 00:12:47,754
<i>was just a researcher into someone else's fakery.</i>

159
00:12:47,861 --> 00:12:49,886
And now for the truth, Clifford.

160
00:12:51,064 --> 00:12:54,124
We'd like to ask you a few question.

161
00:12:54,234 --> 00:12:58,967
My personal feelings
about Elmyr are... very mixed.

162
00:12:59,072 --> 00:13:01,370
<i>He has developed a fiction about his life...</i>

163
00:13:01,474 --> 00:13:03,374
<i>and to destroy that fiction...</i>

164
00:13:03,476 --> 00:13:07,674
would tear down the whole castle
that he's built...

165
00:13:07,781 --> 00:13:09,681
of his illusions.

166
00:13:09,783 --> 00:13:12,809
The illusion, for example,
that he has not broken any law.

167
00:13:12,919 --> 00:13:14,819
As long as people enjoy it...

168
00:13:14,921 --> 00:13:17,481
and it gives them pleasure,
why shouldn't they have it?

169
00:13:17,590 --> 00:13:21,617
The illusion that the world
has always taken advantage of him.

170
00:13:21,728 --> 00:13:24,526
- Why they shouldn't have it? Why?
- If you were to put it to Elmyr...

171
00:13:24,631 --> 00:13:26,565
that he had taken advantage of the world...

172
00:13:26,666 --> 00:13:28,896
that he had cheated people, he'd be horrified.

173
00:13:29,002 --> 00:13:32,836
<i>These two have made each other famous.</i>

174
00:13:32,939 --> 00:13:35,806
<i>They have much in common:</i>

175
00:13:35,909 --> 00:13:38,776
One of them is talent.

176
00:13:38,878 --> 00:13:40,937
Well, let's start again.

177
00:13:42,115 --> 00:13:44,549
<i>We'll patch this film together...</i>

178
00:13:44,651 --> 00:13:49,520
<i>and we'll try to patch together</i>
<i>Elmyr's version of this story.</i>

179
00:13:49,622 --> 00:13:51,988
<i>I came to Ibiza in 1959...</i>

180
00:13:52,091 --> 00:13:56,858
<i>after I found certain aspects</i>
<i>of my life in America...</i>

181
00:13:56,963 --> 00:13:59,158
<i>becoming too difficult.</i>

182
00:13:59,265 --> 00:14:02,029
<i>I wandered around Europe for a time.</i>

183
00:14:02,135 --> 00:14:05,502
<i>I eventually came here. I liked life here.</i>

184
00:14:05,605 --> 00:14:09,666
<i>I liked the island.</i>
<i>I liked the atmosphere. I liked the people.</i>

185
00:14:09,776 --> 00:14:13,542
<i>And so I decided that is the place</i>
<i>where I want to settle.</i>

186
00:14:13,646 --> 00:14:17,582
<i>The island is, uh, simpatico...</i>

187
00:14:17,684 --> 00:14:19,948
<i>as they say in Chinese.</i>

188
00:14:20,053 --> 00:14:23,887
<i>There is always a group</i>
<i>of interesting people here.</i>

189
00:14:23,990 --> 00:14:27,756
<i>Uh, I find the people amusing.</i>

190
00:14:27,861 --> 00:14:30,295
Sandy, come and say something witty.

191
00:14:30,396 --> 00:14:33,263
<i>Ibiza is not a place for snobbish society.</i>

192
00:14:33,366 --> 00:14:36,699
<i>It's not London. It's not Paris. It's not Omaha.</i>

193
00:14:36,803 --> 00:14:40,000
<i>It is Ibiza, and that's the charm of Ibiza.</i>

194
00:14:40,106 --> 00:14:42,802
<i>That's what makes Ibiza why we like to live here.</i>

195
00:14:42,909 --> 00:14:46,072
<i>Ibiza is Ibiza, and here people</i>
<i>are themselves, you know...</i>

196
00:14:46,179 --> 00:14:49,637
<i>doing rather strange things</i>
<i>all the time, you know.</i>

197
00:14:49,749 --> 00:14:51,580
<i>So they shouldn't really be shocked.</i>

198
00:14:51,684 --> 00:14:56,815
<i>And, uh, everybody minds everybody</i>
<i>else's business very intensely.</i>

199
00:14:56,923 --> 00:15:01,121
<i>Several months ago, I read an article...</i>

200
00:15:01,227 --> 00:15:03,718
about Elmyr de Hory...

201
00:15:03,830 --> 00:15:06,390
and I was so impressed...

202
00:15:06,499 --> 00:15:09,593
that I decided to come from Minnesota...

203
00:15:09,702 --> 00:15:11,602
to Ibiza...

204
00:15:11,704 --> 00:15:13,604
in the hope of meeting Elmyr.

205
00:15:13,706 --> 00:15:16,937
And now I have become...

206
00:15:17,043 --> 00:15:18,943
his bodyguard.

207
00:15:19,045 --> 00:15:22,537
<i>That's Mark speaking, Elmyr's friend.</i>

208
00:15:22,649 --> 00:15:24,549
<i>He takes his duties seriously.</i>

209
00:15:24,651 --> 00:15:29,281
<i>Elmyr himself swears that he goes</i>
<i>in daily dread of being murdered.</i>

210
00:15:29,389 --> 00:15:31,914
<i>This takes us into murky waters...</i>

211
00:15:32,025 --> 00:15:34,994
<i>where the lawyers tell us</i>
<i>we'd be rash to go fishing.</i>

212
00:15:35,094 --> 00:15:38,996
<i>In</i> Fake! <i>There's just a hint or two</i>
<i>about this violence and danger...</i>

213
00:15:39,098 --> 00:15:42,363
<i>as a result of which, Irving,</i>
<i>on top of all his other troubles...</i>

214
00:15:42,468 --> 00:15:47,929
<i>is being sued for $55 million worth of slander.</i>

215
00:15:48,041 --> 00:15:52,444
<i>Interesting question: Is Clifford Irving</i>
<i>being sued for telling the truth?</i>

216
00:15:52,545 --> 00:15:54,706
What makes a slight legal difference -

217
00:15:54,814 --> 00:15:58,841
Well, if you buy the notion that
Cliff Irving turned to forgery...

218
00:15:58,952 --> 00:16:01,147
before he turned to Elmyr...

219
00:16:01,254 --> 00:16:04,018
then I guess you can keep right on
through the looking glass...

220
00:16:04,123 --> 00:16:08,457
and believe that his book
about Elmyr is a pack of lies.

221
00:16:08,561 --> 00:16:10,461
I'm sorry. A lie about what?

222
00:16:10,563 --> 00:16:13,964
That <i>Fake.!</i> is a fake, and Elmyr himself...

223
00:16:14,067 --> 00:16:16,535
is a fake... faker.

224
00:16:16,636 --> 00:16:19,537
- Fake fakes!
- <i> Fake, nothing.</i>

225
00:16:19,639 --> 00:16:21,573
<i>Elmyr's a true faker.</i>

226
00:16:21,674 --> 00:16:25,405
<i>Here, for instance, is a van Dongen by Elmyr.</i>

227
00:16:25,511 --> 00:16:27,411
<i>Van Dongen studied it carefully...</i>

228
00:16:27,513 --> 00:16:30,038
<i>and then swore that he'd painted it himself.</i>

229
00:16:30,149 --> 00:16:32,913
He's now known as the greatest
art forger in the world.

230
00:16:33,019 --> 00:16:35,817
Well, I don't admit anything,
I just talk about it.

231
00:16:35,922 --> 00:16:39,688
'Cause he's scared. You know, there could
be a jail sentence hanging over his head.

232
00:16:39,792 --> 00:16:41,817
<i>"Elmyr," cries a French newspaper...</i>

233
00:16:41,928 --> 00:16:44,362
<i>"has sold his soul to the devil. "</i>

234
00:16:44,464 --> 00:16:46,224
<i>They said that about a wizard of the fiddle.</i>

235
00:16:46,265 --> 00:16:48,495
<i>Elmyr's another wizard of another sort of fiddle-</i>

236
00:16:48,601 --> 00:16:50,592
<i>a true Paganini of the palette.</i>

237
00:16:50,703 --> 00:16:54,935
<i>It's no wonder that a faker like Elmyr...</i>

238
00:16:55,041 --> 00:16:57,942
can get away with it for 22 years.

239
00:16:58,044 --> 00:17:01,411
If you hang them in a museum
or your collection of great paintings...

240
00:17:01,514 --> 00:17:04,449
and if they hang long enough there,
they become real.

241
00:17:04,550 --> 00:17:06,450
<i>Because there's always a market for it.</i>

242
00:17:06,552 --> 00:17:08,884
<i>How much is that drawing worth</i>
<i>on the market today?</i>

243
00:17:08,988 --> 00:17:12,617
Probably around $8,000 till $10,000.

244
00:17:12,725 --> 00:17:15,091
<i>To my knowledge, he has never made a mistake...</i>

245
00:17:15,194 --> 00:17:17,992
when identifying a painting.

246
00:17:18,097 --> 00:17:22,591
- <i> What period is that Matisse?</i>
- Uh, '36.

247
00:17:22,702 --> 00:17:25,762
I, uh, feel that we should burn it.

248
00:17:25,872 --> 00:17:29,035
<i>When he looks at a painting-a Matisse, a Chagall-</i>

249
00:17:29,142 --> 00:17:32,839
and says, "That's mine, I did it,"
he is always right.

250
00:17:32,945 --> 00:17:35,140
<i>Elmyr.</i>

251
00:17:35,248 --> 00:17:38,046
<i>There is just no way of talking about Elmyr...</i>

252
00:17:38,151 --> 00:17:40,278
<i>and leaving out Cliff Irving.</i>

253
00:17:40,386 --> 00:17:42,411
<i>Not any longer. Right up to the finish...</i>

254
00:17:42,522 --> 00:17:47,391
<i>Elmyr plays a very important role</i>
<i>in his biographer's own story.</i>

255
00:17:47,493 --> 00:17:50,860
<i>Now, just here, of course, he's stage center.</i>

256
00:17:50,963 --> 00:17:52,954
<i>Willkommen! Willkommen.</i>

257
00:17:53,066 --> 00:17:55,091
<i>And Irving, who, I'll have to admit...</i>

258
00:17:55,201 --> 00:17:57,669
<i>is a much better magician than I am...</i>

259
00:17:57,770 --> 00:18:01,331
<i>has yet to transform himself</i>
<i>before our very eyes...</i>

260
00:18:01,441 --> 00:18:04,001
<i>into a superstar.</i>

261
00:18:04,110 --> 00:18:08,513
Francois, you know,
we talk about your shirt, Reichenbach.

262
00:18:08,614 --> 00:18:10,912
<i>It was indecently ugly.</i>

263
00:18:11,017 --> 00:18:15,010
I can assure you.

264
00:18:19,158 --> 00:18:22,616
- I must tell you something. I went to the airport today.
- Oh.

265
00:18:22,728 --> 00:18:26,630
I picked up a copy of the <i>London Daily Express.</i>

266
00:18:27,667 --> 00:18:29,567
And there was an article:

267
00:18:29,669 --> 00:18:32,797
"Exposed: A Man Who Holds
the Art World to Ransom."

268
00:18:32,905 --> 00:18:36,185
- <i> Exposed.! Darling, we can't have
you exposed.!</i> - "Sitting in the sunny studio -"

269
00:18:38,811 --> 00:18:42,338
<i>And then it goes on to tell</i>
<i>the story of how I took the Modigliani...</i>

270
00:18:42,448 --> 00:18:45,076
- <i>to the Metropolitan Museum of Art"-</i>
- There's a big article!

271
00:18:45,184 --> 00:18:49,211
"A profound embarrassment to them all."

272
00:18:49,322 --> 00:18:53,622
Elmyr is a profound embarrassment to them all.

273
00:18:57,997 --> 00:19:00,795
The art world, as it were, has been...

274
00:19:02,101 --> 00:19:04,001
a huge confidence trick.

275
00:19:04,103 --> 00:19:08,403
"Exposed: A Man Who Holds
the Art World to Ransom."

276
00:19:10,843 --> 00:19:14,904
- <i>"Sitting in the sunny studio of his £60,000 villa...</i>
- It's fantastic.

277
00:19:15,014 --> 00:19:17,073
"On the Mediterranean island of Ibiza...

278
00:19:17,183 --> 00:19:20,778
"it took Elmyr Dory-Boutin,
the world's greatest art forger...

279
00:19:20,887 --> 00:19:24,220
<i>just one hour to draw an original Modigliani. "</i>

280
00:19:24,323 --> 00:19:27,417
Today, on a sale,
it would bring somewhere around...

281
00:19:29,028 --> 00:19:30,655
$15,000.

282
00:19:30,863 --> 00:19:33,388
There was really no time
when he ever could have done it.

283
00:19:33,499 --> 00:19:36,866
And also as a man, how I knew him...

284
00:19:36,969 --> 00:19:38,869
it was all much more a joke.

285
00:19:38,971 --> 00:19:42,873
<i>The world has yet to hear a word</i>
<i>about that wig she wore in the Swiss bank.</i>

286
00:19:42,975 --> 00:19:45,535
<i>There hasn't been a breath</i>
<i>about funny passports...</i>

287
00:19:45,645 --> 00:19:48,375
<i>or phony signatures, and here's Edith...</i>

288
00:19:48,481 --> 00:19:50,949
<i>telling Clifford Irving</i>
<i>that she can't believe Elmyr...</i>

289
00:19:51,050 --> 00:19:53,041
<i>had anything to do with fakery.</i>

290
00:19:53,152 --> 00:19:55,950
<i>Therefore I never could think</i>
<i>or will even think now...</i>

291
00:19:56,055 --> 00:19:59,547
that he sat down and did those paintings.

292
00:19:59,659 --> 00:20:01,559
- It's a good drawing.
- <i> If he did it, my compliment.</i>

293
00:20:01,661 --> 00:20:07,065
- Should we burn it?
- <i> And I only hope there are more people who do them.</i>

294
00:20:09,035 --> 00:20:12,596
<i>Irving's book about Elmyr...</i>

295
00:20:12,705 --> 00:20:16,471
<i>is the story of a man of talent taking the</i>
<i>mickey out of those who had rejected him...</i>

296
00:20:16,576 --> 00:20:20,034
<i>translating disappointments into a gigantic joke.</i>

297
00:20:20,146 --> 00:20:25,140
You think I should keep it for my old age?

298
00:20:28,821 --> 00:20:32,882
All right, I will. So I put it back in.

299
00:20:32,992 --> 00:20:35,961
<i>You're a painter.</i>
<i>Why do you want people to do fakes?</i>

300
00:20:36,062 --> 00:20:38,189
Because the fakes are as good as the real ones...

301
00:20:38,297 --> 00:20:40,663
and there's a market, and there's a demand.

302
00:20:40,766 --> 00:20:44,964
<i>If you didn't have an art market,</i>
<i>then fakers could not exist.</i>

303
00:20:46,839 --> 00:20:50,605
- <i>So, the more, the better. No?</i>
- <i> If you say so.</i>

304
00:20:50,710 --> 00:20:53,144
<i>Here's another little coincidence.</i>

305
00:20:53,246 --> 00:20:55,146
<i>A peculiar moment during a lunch party.</i>

306
00:20:55,248 --> 00:21:00,049
And in Switzerland, checks are not accepted.

307
00:21:00,152 --> 00:21:03,918
You pay cash on the table.

308
00:21:04,023 --> 00:21:07,151
That's Switzerland. You are Swiss.

309
00:21:07,260 --> 00:21:09,353
And you know it.

310
00:21:09,462 --> 00:21:11,828
<i>If you did those paintings, my compliments.</i>

311
00:21:11,931 --> 00:21:15,867
<i>And I only think it's a pity that</i>
<i>there are not more people like you.</i>

312
00:21:15,968 --> 00:21:20,405
<i>And we only pray that he doesn't exist again.!</i>

313
00:21:20,506 --> 00:21:23,771
<i>Mrs. Irving now claims</i>
<i>Mr. Hughes himself asked Mrs. Irving...</i>

314
00:21:23,876 --> 00:21:27,368
<i>to deposit the money in a Swiss bank</i>
<i>and then draw it out.</i>

315
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:30,176
The manuscript itself, however...

316
00:21:30,283 --> 00:21:32,183
he maintains is genuine.

317
00:21:33,386 --> 00:21:35,786
I've known Elmyr for about eight years.

318
00:21:35,888 --> 00:21:38,755
We met when I was broke -

319
00:21:38,858 --> 00:21:42,225
when I was writing fiction
and wasn't selling it very well.

320
00:21:43,496 --> 00:21:45,259
<i>His fiction didn't sell.</i>

321
00:21:45,364 --> 00:21:48,231
<i>Elmyr's biographer is a highly gifted writer.</i>

322
00:21:48,334 --> 00:21:50,427
<i>Does it say something for this age of ours...</i>

323
00:21:50,536 --> 00:21:53,801
- <i>that he could only make it big by fakery?</i>
- <i>Je crois.</i>

324
00:21:53,906 --> 00:21:58,900
- <i>That a hoax has made him the most famous writer in the world?</i>
- <i>La grande suprise.</i>

325
00:21:59,011 --> 00:22:01,070
<i>Cliff Irving's caper</i>
<i>may well be the hoax of the century...</i>

326
00:22:01,180 --> 00:22:06,174
<i>but really, this is not, you know,</i>
<i>in any way, the century of the hoax.</i>

327
00:22:06,285 --> 00:22:08,981
We hanky-panky men have always been with you.

328
00:22:09,088 --> 00:22:11,488
- That's a fact. - <i> What's new are the-</i>
- <i> The experts.</i>

329
00:22:11,590 --> 00:22:14,184
- <i> The experts.</i>
- <i> The so-called experts.</i>

330
00:22:14,293 --> 00:22:18,093
- <i> Experts are the new oracles.</i>
- While greatly pretentious -

331
00:22:18,197 --> 00:22:21,496
They speak to us with the absolute
authority of the computer.

332
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:23,500
Pretend to know something...

333
00:22:23,602 --> 00:22:26,901
what they only know very superficially.

334
00:22:27,006 --> 00:22:28,974
And we bow down before them.

335
00:22:29,075 --> 00:22:31,407
They're God's own gift to the faker.

336
00:22:31,510 --> 00:22:34,946
All the world loves to see...

337
00:22:35,047 --> 00:22:38,813
the experts and the establishment made a fool of.

338
00:22:38,918 --> 00:22:40,909
<i>Let's say we could find...</i>

339
00:22:41,020 --> 00:22:44,751
<i>a Modigliani made by Kisling...</i>

340
00:22:44,857 --> 00:22:47,883
<i>a Modigliani by Elmyr...</i>

341
00:22:48,928 --> 00:22:51,522
and one Modigliani by Modigliani.

342
00:22:51,630 --> 00:22:57,466
<i>It could be anyone from Knoedler</i>
<i>to Paris or any of the great ones...</i>

343
00:22:57,570 --> 00:23:01,597
who consider themselves great and experts.

344
00:23:01,707 --> 00:23:05,973
If any of them recognize which one is which -

345
00:23:06,078 --> 00:23:07,978
<i>And if the lawyers would just let us...</i>

346
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:11,379
<i>we could name you one highly respected museum...</i>

347
00:23:11,484 --> 00:23:15,386
which boasts of an important collection
of Postimpressionists...

348
00:23:15,488 --> 00:23:19,254
<i>every single one of which was painted by Elmyr.</i>

349
00:23:19,358 --> 00:23:23,021
<i>Elmyr, as the great faker of the 20th century...</i>

350
00:23:23,129 --> 00:23:26,428
becomes a modern folk hero for the rest of us...

351
00:23:26,532 --> 00:23:29,592
who have a bit of larceny in ourselves...

352
00:23:29,702 --> 00:23:34,469
but simply don't have the courage
or the opportunity to express it.

353
00:23:34,573 --> 00:23:39,010
When you wrote his biography, you don't
think you've been a little hard on him?

354
00:23:39,111 --> 00:23:42,808
Some people even say, "After I did read
the book of Clifford Irving about you..."

355
00:23:42,915 --> 00:23:44,815
I like you even more than before."

356
00:23:44,917 --> 00:23:50,150
<i>You exploded the myth of the infallibility...</i>

357
00:23:50,256 --> 00:23:53,657
of the art dealers and museum directors...

358
00:23:53,759 --> 00:23:57,024
in that you exposed their crookedness...

359
00:23:57,129 --> 00:23:59,791
<i>their evilness and viciousness.</i>

360
00:24:01,867 --> 00:24:04,700
I went around to the art galleries.

361
00:24:05,905 --> 00:24:08,999
Not with my book...

362
00:24:09,108 --> 00:24:12,077
but with a catalog...

363
00:24:12,178 --> 00:24:14,908
which included a great many paintings...

364
00:24:15,014 --> 00:24:17,278
that had been sold over the past few years.

365
00:24:18,317 --> 00:24:21,616
In this catalog was this Modigliani...

366
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,211
which is a Modigliani by Elmyr.

367
00:24:24,323 --> 00:24:26,883
He worked very little. He died very early...

368
00:24:26,992 --> 00:24:31,292
so if they're added to
a few paintings, a few drawings...

369
00:24:31,397 --> 00:24:33,991
it's not going to destroy his oeuvre.

370
00:24:34,099 --> 00:24:35,999
I would say, "This is a fake"...

371
00:24:36,101 --> 00:24:38,695
and the art gallery owner
would say, "Well, yes, of course."

372
00:24:38,804 --> 00:24:40,965
"I mean, you can see it's a fake,
because Modigliani...

373
00:24:41,073 --> 00:24:43,234
"would never have drawn the line of the arm...

374
00:24:43,342 --> 00:24:45,936
"parallel to the line of the dress that way.

375
00:24:46,045 --> 00:24:49,845
And the background is very badly done,
and the signature isn't right."

376
00:24:49,949 --> 00:24:54,613
In the next gallery, I would show them
this Modigliani in the catalog and say...

377
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,018
- "That's a genuine Modigliani."
- <i> Possibly, yes.</i>

378
00:24:57,122 --> 00:25:00,990
And they would look at it and say,
"Yes, you can see it's one of his finest."

379
00:25:01,093 --> 00:25:03,391
"It's a portrait of Mademoiselle Hébuterne,"

380
00:25:03,496 --> 00:25:06,056
and "We know it very well,"
and "It's reproduced everywhere."

381
00:25:06,165 --> 00:25:08,633
<i>After that, I must say...</i>

382
00:25:08,734 --> 00:25:12,830
I lost my faith in the concept of expertise.

383
00:25:12,938 --> 00:25:16,601
I don't feel bad for Modigliani.
I feel good for me.

384
00:25:18,511 --> 00:25:20,706
<i>You name them. He paints them.</i>

385
00:25:20,813 --> 00:25:22,610
<i>He'll do you a Dufy, a van Dongen...</i>

386
00:25:22,715 --> 00:25:26,845
<i>a Derain, a Braque, a Bonnard, a Vlaminck.</i>

387
00:25:26,952 --> 00:25:30,786
- <i>Would you like a nice Matisse?</i>
- <i> Many of these drawings...</i>

388
00:25:32,358 --> 00:25:34,349
<i>are very weak.</i>

389
00:25:34,460 --> 00:25:37,623
<i>Matisse's lines were never that sure as mine.</i>

390
00:25:37,730 --> 00:25:41,860
He was hesitant when he made
the drawing, you know?

391
00:25:41,967 --> 00:25:46,301
He added to it a little more and a little more.

392
00:25:46,405 --> 00:25:50,136
It wasn't as flowing, it wasn't as sure as mine.

393
00:25:50,242 --> 00:25:52,210
I had to hesitate...

394
00:25:54,513 --> 00:25:57,175
<i>to make it more Matisse-like.</i>

395
00:25:58,517 --> 00:25:59,984
<i>Et voilà.</i>

396
00:26:00,085 --> 00:26:03,612
<i>I would like to see any expert...</i>

397
00:26:03,722 --> 00:26:06,953
or any museum director, or any art dealer...

398
00:26:07,059 --> 00:26:11,120
who'd know which one is a Matisse...

399
00:26:12,865 --> 00:26:15,231
<i>and which one is by Elmyr.</i>

400
00:26:18,137 --> 00:26:21,334
And I am ready to accept the challenge.

401
00:26:22,441 --> 00:26:24,341
<i>One nod from an expert...</i>

402
00:26:24,443 --> 00:26:26,502
<i>and that piece of canvas would be worth...</i>

403
00:26:26,612 --> 00:26:29,638
<i>maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars.</i>

404
00:26:29,748 --> 00:26:34,947
<i>And now, with your permission,</i>
<i>a bit of verse... by Kipling.</i>

405
00:26:39,592 --> 00:26:44,291
<i>"When first the flush of a newborn sun</i>
<i>fell on the green and gold...</i>

406
00:26:45,431 --> 00:26:50,198
"our father, Adam, sat under the Tree..."

407
00:26:50,302 --> 00:26:54,568
<i>"and scratched with a stick in the mold."</i>

408
00:26:58,944 --> 00:27:04,041
<i>"And the first rude sketch</i>
<i>that the world had seen...</i>

409
00:27:04,149 --> 00:27:06,709
<i>"was joy to his mighty heart.</i>

410
00:27:07,786 --> 00:27:09,720
<i>"Till the Devil...</i>

411
00:27:09,822 --> 00:27:12,723
<i>"whispered behind the leaves...</i>

412
00:27:14,126 --> 00:27:17,562
"'It's pretty, but is it Art?"'

413
00:27:19,665 --> 00:27:23,863
It's pretty, but is it art?
Well, how is it valued?

414
00:27:23,969 --> 00:27:27,735
<i>The value depends on opinion.</i>
<i>Opinion depends on the experts.</i>

415
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,901
<i>A faker like Elmyr makes fools of</i>
<i>the experts, so who's the expert?</i>

416
00:27:33,012 --> 00:27:35,742
- <i>Who's the faker?</i>
- <i> I know one thing.</i>

417
00:27:35,848 --> 00:27:39,477
I never offered a painting or a drawing...

418
00:27:39,585 --> 00:27:42,383
to a museum who didn't buy it.

419
00:27:42,488 --> 00:27:46,049
<i>They never refused one. Never.!</i>

420
00:27:46,158 --> 00:27:50,026
<i>What's he up to now? This-This isn't a forgery.</i>

421
00:27:50,129 --> 00:27:53,428
<i>No, not this time. This is a portrait by Elmyr...</i>

422
00:27:54,533 --> 00:27:58,128
- <i>Et voilà.</i>
- <i>Of another famous art forger.</i>

423
00:27:58,237 --> 00:28:01,035
- <i>Michel-Ange.</i>
- <i> Michelangelo, no less, signed-</i>

424
00:28:01,140 --> 00:28:03,438
<i>I must say I'm honored.</i>

425
00:28:03,542 --> 00:28:07,342
<i>My signature, forged by Elmyr on a real Elmyr...</i>

426
00:28:07,446 --> 00:28:09,346
<i>is really something.</i>

427
00:28:09,448 --> 00:28:12,975
<i>You know, art forgery</i>
<i>used to be admired as an art.</i>

428
00:28:13,085 --> 00:28:17,317
<i>And though Michelangelo even used smoke</i>
<i>on some of his fakes to antique them...</i>

429
00:28:17,423 --> 00:28:20,153
<i>like some of the rest of us,</i>
<i>he finally went straight.</i>

430
00:28:20,259 --> 00:28:22,159
<i>Et voilà.</i>

431
00:28:22,961 --> 00:28:26,397
<i>Elmyr, reformed...</i>

432
00:28:26,498 --> 00:28:29,763
<i>and exposed-in the reverse order-</i>

433
00:28:29,868 --> 00:28:33,463
<i>was till just recently</i>
<i>the island's number-one celebrity.</i>

434
00:28:33,572 --> 00:28:36,700
<i>But now the crown has passed</i>
<i>from the old emperor of the hoax...</i>

435
00:28:36,809 --> 00:28:38,709
<i>to the pretender.</i>

436
00:28:38,811 --> 00:28:40,711
Tomorrow at the party. There's a big party.

437
00:28:40,813 --> 00:28:43,577
- Don't miss it. Tomorrow at 8:00.
- <i> What time?</i>

438
00:28:43,682 --> 00:28:48,483
<i>The ex-grand master of fakery,</i>
<i>not only unmasked, but eclipsed...</i>

439
00:28:48,587 --> 00:28:50,487
<i>by his own biographer...</i>

440
00:28:50,589 --> 00:28:52,614
<i>is putting a brave face on it...</i>

441
00:28:52,725 --> 00:28:55,751
- <i>and giving another party.</i>
- Eight o'clock.

442
00:28:55,861 --> 00:28:57,658
<i>At your house?</i>

443
00:28:57,763 --> 00:29:00,561
- <i> And here...</i>
- I come to invite you for a big party.

444
00:29:00,666 --> 00:29:02,600
<i>Yet another painter from Ibiza.</i>

445
00:29:02,701 --> 00:29:06,660
Life <i>hired him to illustrate</i>
<i>the tale as Irving told it.</i>

446
00:29:06,772 --> 00:29:10,674
Nice to see you. Great. Hello, David.

447
00:29:10,776 --> 00:29:12,937
<i>David Walsh.</i>

448
00:29:13,045 --> 00:29:15,843
<i>And this is his impression,</i>
<i>based on Irving's report...</i>

449
00:29:15,948 --> 00:29:19,406
<i>of that secret meeting on the Mexican</i>
<i>pyramid with Howard Hughes.</i>

450
00:29:19,518 --> 00:29:22,009
<i>Here's how he's supposed to have looked...</i>

451
00:29:22,121 --> 00:29:25,454
<i>based on Irving's reports of those secret</i>
<i>meetings which in fact never happened.</i>

452
00:29:25,557 --> 00:29:27,457
<i>But who cared about facts?</i>

453
00:29:27,559 --> 00:29:30,687
<i>Was Mr. Hughes a vegetable? A spook?</i>

454
00:29:30,796 --> 00:29:33,594
<i>A gibbering lunatic?</i>
<i>Was his hair down to his knees?</i>

455
00:29:33,699 --> 00:29:35,826
<i>Were his fingernails nine inches long?</i>

456
00:29:35,934 --> 00:29:38,334
<i>Did Howard Hughes exist?</i>

457
00:29:38,437 --> 00:29:42,498
<i>Irving insisted that he did.</i>
<i>Hughes denied the existence of Irving.</i>

458
00:29:42,608 --> 00:29:45,042
<i>No, and I never saw him.</i>
<i>I never even heard of him.</i>

459
00:29:45,144 --> 00:29:46,864
<i>"Don't believe a word of it," said Irving.</i>

460
00:29:46,945 --> 00:29:49,311
<i>And believe it or not, almost nobody did.</i>

461
00:29:49,414 --> 00:29:52,383
<i>Why, they were partners,</i>
<i>Hughes and Irving, said Irving.</i>

462
00:29:52,484 --> 00:29:56,318
<i>They were doing a book together.</i>
<i>Now the Hughes mystery would be solved.</i>

463
00:29:57,956 --> 00:30:02,052
<i>Now, of course Irving knew very well</i>
<i>that whatever made Hughes a mystery...</i>

464
00:30:02,161 --> 00:30:05,062
<i>was whatever had made Hughes himself</i>
<i>a born mystery maker.</i>

465
00:30:05,164 --> 00:30:10,192
<i>Here in the smoggy wonderland of Hollywood</i>
<i>is where I last had to talk to him.</i>

466
00:30:10,302 --> 00:30:12,293
<i>It was 5:00 in the morning 25 years ago.</i>

467
00:30:12,404 --> 00:30:16,340
<i>And I found him, as usual,</i>
<i>very bright, and pleasant, and polite.</i>

468
00:30:16,441 --> 00:30:19,740
<i>Well, now this is like most of the Hughes legends.</i>

469
00:30:19,845 --> 00:30:22,165
<i>It's just something you hear,</i>
<i>and nothing you can prove...</i>

470
00:30:22,247 --> 00:30:25,512
but for what it's worth,
it seems that hotel bungalow...

471
00:30:25,617 --> 00:30:30,611
<i>was supposedly the H.Q. Of that rather</i>
<i>spooky brigade of midnight minions...</i>

472
00:30:30,722 --> 00:30:33,691
<i>we used to call "Howard's secret police. "</i>

473
00:30:35,694 --> 00:30:37,662
That's where that tree comes in.

474
00:30:37,763 --> 00:30:41,290
<i>Just precisely there, at 1:30 every morning,</i>
<i>for who knows how many years...</i>

475
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:45,496
<i>some chosen operative placed,</i>
<i>at precisely the same angle...</i>

476
00:30:45,604 --> 00:30:49,938
<i>a small and very carefully wrapped package.</i>

477
00:30:50,042 --> 00:30:54,570
Howard Hughes in his nocturnal
wanderings never once paused there...

478
00:30:55,614 --> 00:30:59,573
<i>but it was always ready for him in case he should.</i>

479
00:30:59,685 --> 00:31:04,145
What was it that that mystery package contained?

480
00:31:05,757 --> 00:31:07,657
A ham sandwich.

481
00:31:12,831 --> 00:31:14,731
How can we believe that is true?

482
00:31:14,833 --> 00:31:16,593
<i>Francois is referring, of course, to Elmyr.</i>

483
00:31:16,668 --> 00:31:18,659
<i>But about Hughes...</i>

484
00:31:18,770 --> 00:31:20,965
<i>well, who could blame</i>
<i>Cliff Irving for believing...</i>

485
00:31:21,073 --> 00:31:25,908
<i>that Hughes himself wanted us</i>
<i>to believe almost anything?</i>

486
00:31:26,011 --> 00:31:30,277
<i>Look where we are now. When the old</i>
<i>Hollywood swinger turned hermit...</i>

487
00:31:30,382 --> 00:31:33,818
<i>this is the hermitage he picked-his hideaway...</i>

488
00:31:33,919 --> 00:31:36,149
<i>his desert retreat.</i>

489
00:31:36,255 --> 00:31:38,155
<i>The desert had retreated first, of course...</i>

490
00:31:38,257 --> 00:31:41,954
<i>to make room for the slot machines</i>
<i>and the crap tables.</i>

491
00:31:42,060 --> 00:31:46,292
<i>Then came Hughes. He chased out</i>
<i>or bought off most of the mafia...</i>

492
00:31:46,398 --> 00:31:49,890
<i>bought up most of the hotels,</i>
<i>and settled down up there...</i>

493
00:31:50,002 --> 00:31:52,800
<i>in a few rooms in the top floor of that one.</i>

494
00:31:52,905 --> 00:31:55,237
<i>And all through the long years...</i>

495
00:31:55,340 --> 00:31:59,106
<i>not a shadow was seen moving in that window.</i>

496
00:31:59,211 --> 00:32:02,908
<i>The good people of Las Vegas</i>
<i>kept their eyes peeled, saw nothing...</i>

497
00:32:03,015 --> 00:32:05,142
<i>and believed everything they told each other.</i>

498
00:32:05,250 --> 00:32:08,185
More than one bemused observer...

499
00:32:08,287 --> 00:32:10,812
<i>claims to have seen the whimsical tycoon...</i>

500
00:32:10,923 --> 00:32:14,051
at 4:00 in the morning,
promenading this highway...

501
00:32:14,159 --> 00:32:16,184
with no socks on...

502
00:32:16,295 --> 00:32:19,093
and wearing, instead of shoes...

503
00:32:19,197 --> 00:32:23,258
a pair of empty Kleenex boxes.

504
00:32:23,368 --> 00:32:25,336
Do I believe that?

505
00:32:25,437 --> 00:32:29,703
But people pretend to be shocked.
They like to be shocked, you know.

506
00:32:29,808 --> 00:32:31,969
It's in their nature.
It's in human nature, you know.

507
00:32:32,077 --> 00:32:34,511
What was he doing up there?

508
00:32:34,613 --> 00:32:37,980
<i>What were they doing to him?</i>

509
00:32:41,887 --> 00:32:44,355
If he broke his silence, would it be a...

510
00:32:46,291 --> 00:32:48,919
<i>cry for help?</i>

511
00:32:50,963 --> 00:32:54,126
<i>Well, if Hughes couldn't speak, or wouldn't...</i>

512
00:32:54,232 --> 00:32:56,632
<i>then somebody-and why not Clifford Irving-</i>

513
00:32:56,735 --> 00:32:59,067
<i>could do the speaking for him.</i>

514
00:32:59,171 --> 00:33:03,073
<i>Nobody got near the man.</i>
<i>Just a tiny band of mystery Mormons...</i>

515
00:33:03,175 --> 00:33:05,075
<i>were admitted to his presence.</i>

516
00:33:05,177 --> 00:33:07,338
<i>Even high executives in the Hughes empire...</i>

517
00:33:07,446 --> 00:33:09,346
<i>never so much as laid eyes on him.</i>

518
00:33:09,448 --> 00:33:13,009
<i>One man alone laid claim to</i>
<i>having made it into that fortress...</i>

519
00:33:13,118 --> 00:33:15,143
and you can guess who that was.

520
00:33:15,253 --> 00:33:18,711
<i>How had Irving got to Hughes</i>
<i>in the first place? "Simple, said Irving.</i>"

521
00:33:18,824 --> 00:33:22,282
<i>He'd just mailed him a copy of</i> Fake!
<i>With a friendly, sincere dedication...</i>

522
00:33:22,394 --> 00:33:24,294
<i>and the partnership was formed.</i>

523
00:33:24,396 --> 00:33:27,263
<i>And if you can believe the ham sandwich</i>
<i>and the Kleenex boxes...</i>

524
00:33:27,366 --> 00:33:29,596
<i>I guess you can swallow that.</i>

525
00:33:29,701 --> 00:33:32,226
<i>I mean, this episode is just so fantastic...</i>

526
00:33:32,337 --> 00:33:35,864
<i>that it taxes your imagination...</i>

527
00:33:35,974 --> 00:33:38,306
to believe that a thing like this could happen.

528
00:33:38,410 --> 00:33:42,608
<i>Was that the voice of the real Howard Hughes?</i>

529
00:33:42,714 --> 00:33:44,614
I only wish I was still in the movie business.

530
00:33:44,716 --> 00:33:46,547
<i>Well, now he's on television...</i>

531
00:33:46,651 --> 00:33:50,451
<i>and a committee of journalists</i>
<i>are interviewing his voice.</i>

532
00:33:50,555 --> 00:33:52,614
No, I don't remember any scripts...

533
00:33:52,724 --> 00:33:55,716
as wild or as stretching of the imagination...

534
00:33:55,827 --> 00:33:58,796
<i>as this yarn has turned out to be.</i>

535
00:33:59,064 --> 00:34:02,898
Now remember how this went.
Irving announced that Hughes had decided...

536
00:34:03,001 --> 00:34:05,629
<i>that Irving was just the writer he could trust...</i>

537
00:34:05,737 --> 00:34:08,205
<i>not only with his book, but with the money for it.</i>

538
00:34:08,306 --> 00:34:10,797
<i>And this involved an advance of some</i>
<i>three-quarters of a million dollars...</i>

539
00:34:10,909 --> 00:34:13,309
<i>and he had notes, memos</i>
<i>and manuscripts in what he claimed...</i>

540
00:34:13,311 --> 00:34:15,211
<i>was Hughes's own handwriting to prove it.</i>

541
00:34:15,313 --> 00:34:17,543
<i>Now they brought in the handwriting experts.</i>

542
00:34:17,649 --> 00:34:21,278
Now just here Irving should have
been feeling a bit nervous.

543
00:34:21,386 --> 00:34:24,719
Well, maybe he was just as cool as he acted...

544
00:34:24,823 --> 00:34:27,223
<i>remembering what he'd learned</i>
<i>from the old maestro himself.</i>

545
00:34:27,325 --> 00:34:29,225
<i>Elmyr was a good teacher, if only by example...</i>

546
00:34:29,327 --> 00:34:31,795
<i>and his most valuable lesson was this:</i>

547
00:34:31,897 --> 00:34:34,092
<i>Don't be spooked by the experts.</i>

548
00:34:34,199 --> 00:34:36,960
<i>My opinion about experts is</i>
<i>that it's something far too overestimated.</i>

549
00:34:37,002 --> 00:34:39,766
It's a <i>métier</i> which shouldn't even exist.

550
00:34:39,871 --> 00:34:41,498
And how right he was!

551
00:34:41,606 --> 00:34:46,771
It should not exist that one
single person makes a decision...

552
00:34:46,878 --> 00:34:48,778
about what's good or what's bad.

553
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:50,780
Sure enough, after much study and analysis...

554
00:34:50,882 --> 00:34:54,579
the experts on handwriting
handed in their verdict.

555
00:34:54,686 --> 00:34:57,416
<i>The forgeries were genuine.</i>
<i>The proof, and I quote, was "irresistible...</i>"

556
00:34:57,522 --> 00:34:59,854
unanswerable, and overwhelming."

557
00:35:01,193 --> 00:35:05,027
Thus Irving's papers, like Elmyr's paintings...

558
00:35:05,130 --> 00:35:07,598
were authenticated.

559
00:35:07,699 --> 00:35:12,602
I wanted to find out what it was really like
to try and get an expertise on a fake...

560
00:35:12,704 --> 00:35:14,831
and I asked Elmyr to do three drawings for me:

561
00:35:14,940 --> 00:35:16,840
Two Matisse and a Modigliani -

562
00:35:16,942 --> 00:35:19,035
which he did before lunch...

563
00:35:19,144 --> 00:35:21,772
and put a little coffee stain
on the edge of the Modigliani...

564
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:26,214
to make it look really as if Modigliani
had done it in some Paris café.

565
00:35:26,318 --> 00:35:30,015
<i>I then took the three drawings</i>
<i>to the Museum of Modern Art.</i>

566
00:35:30,122 --> 00:35:33,614
<i>The museum examined them for two hours...</i>

567
00:35:33,725 --> 00:35:36,785
and came back with the verdict
that they were absolutely genuine...

568
00:35:36,895 --> 00:35:39,591
and, in fact, were horrified
that I wanted to sell them.

569
00:35:39,698 --> 00:35:42,929
Besides, it's a true story.
The story's absolutely true.

570
00:35:44,236 --> 00:35:47,205
Well, Mr. Irving pretends that he destroyed them.

571
00:35:47,305 --> 00:35:49,205
<i>I don't think that Mr. Irving's character...</i>

572
00:35:49,307 --> 00:35:52,799
is exactly a character
who would destroy something...

573
00:35:52,911 --> 00:35:55,903
what he got an offer of 15,000.

574
00:35:56,014 --> 00:35:59,506
<i>I think it's a nice security in a bank vault...</i>

575
00:35:59,618 --> 00:36:02,644
what could be unwrapped in 15 years again.

576
00:36:02,754 --> 00:36:04,654
All the tales he tells now...

577
00:36:04,756 --> 00:36:07,816
are things that he has built up
in his imagination over the years...

578
00:36:07,926 --> 00:36:09,826
<i>and come to believe as true.</i>

579
00:36:09,928 --> 00:36:12,954
<i>"The tale is as old as the Eden Tree-</i>

580
00:36:13,064 --> 00:36:15,032
<i>"and new as the new-cut tooth-</i>

581
00:36:15,133 --> 00:36:18,899
<i>"For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows...</i>

582
00:36:19,004 --> 00:36:22,701
<i>he is master of Art and Truth. "</i>

583
00:36:22,807 --> 00:36:27,710
<i>This created in him, I think, the ability to live-</i>

584
00:36:27,812 --> 00:36:31,270
I hesitate to say, a criminal life,
because I don't think of him as a criminal.

585
00:36:31,383 --> 00:36:35,012
He doesn't think of himself as a criminal.

586
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:40,456
To fool, once in a while,
somebody very, very pompous...

587
00:36:40,559 --> 00:36:42,493
- <i>or somebody very-</i>
- Pretentious.

588
00:36:42,594 --> 00:36:44,858
<i>Pretentious, that, I like.</i>

589
00:36:44,963 --> 00:36:47,022
<i>Now that it's out in the open...</i>

590
00:36:47,132 --> 00:36:50,192
<i>that the world knows</i>
<i>who Elmyr is and what he's done...</i>

591
00:36:50,302 --> 00:36:53,965
and now that Elmyr accepts it
and says to the world...

592
00:36:54,072 --> 00:36:58,008
<i>"Yes, it's me. I am the great</i>
<i>art forger of the 20th century. "</i>

593
00:36:58,109 --> 00:37:02,739
<i>Now I think he can recapture</i>
<i>that personal honesty.</i>

594
00:37:02,847 --> 00:37:06,283
- Good-bye, Matisse.
- I think Elmyr's problem for years...

595
00:37:06,384 --> 00:37:10,514
and the reason why he could not succeed
as a painter in his own right...

596
00:37:10,622 --> 00:37:14,080
was that the type of life he led...

597
00:37:14,192 --> 00:37:17,320
prohibited him from having a personal vision.

598
00:37:17,429 --> 00:37:20,296
<i>"And each man hears as the twilight nears..."</i>

599
00:37:20,398 --> 00:37:23,697
"to the beat of his dying heart..."

600
00:37:23,802 --> 00:37:26,464
"the Devil drum on the darkened pane:"

601
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,008
<i>"'It's pretty...</i>

602
00:37:31,109 --> 00:37:34,101
<i>but was it Art?"'</i>

603
00:37:34,212 --> 00:37:36,680
<i>Art. Take two.</i>

604
00:37:36,781 --> 00:37:38,681
<i>And when an artist has no personal vision...</i>

605
00:37:38,783 --> 00:37:40,648
what can he communicate onto the canvas?

606
00:37:44,389 --> 00:37:46,653
<i>Et voilà.</i>

607
00:37:48,893 --> 00:37:52,954
It's pretty, but is it rare?

608
00:37:53,064 --> 00:37:55,999
<i>Lots of oysters, only a few pearls.</i>

609
00:37:56,101 --> 00:37:56,601
<i>Rarity.</i>

610
00:37:58,236 --> 00:38:02,673
<i>The chief cause and encouragement</i>
<i>of fakery and phoniness in everything...</i>

611
00:38:02,774 --> 00:38:05,106
<i>even what we're given to eat-</i>

612
00:38:05,210 --> 00:38:07,804
<i>an awful lot of forgery is committed</i>
<i>these days in the kitchen.</i>

613
00:38:07,912 --> 00:38:10,676
Oja?

614
00:38:13,885 --> 00:38:17,821
<i>The seafood isn't phony in here, thank God.</i>

615
00:38:17,922 --> 00:38:19,856
<i>You can take the word of an expert.</i>

616
00:38:19,958 --> 00:38:23,394
<i>Three friends from the old days</i>
<i>who used to eat here were real painters:</i>

617
00:38:23,495 --> 00:38:26,464
<i>Jean Cocteau, the poet and filmmaker-</i>

618
00:38:26,564 --> 00:38:28,532
Well, you might call him a Monday painter.

619
00:38:28,633 --> 00:38:31,625
He drew the picture on the menu
and signed his name, as you know...

620
00:38:31,736 --> 00:38:33,704
<i>to a whole epoch.</i>

621
00:38:33,805 --> 00:38:36,171
<i>Here on the walls</i>
<i>are samples of the famous charm...</i>

622
00:38:36,274 --> 00:38:38,174
<i>"of Christian Berard-" Baby, as we called him.</i>

623
00:38:38,276 --> 00:38:41,575
<i>And speaking of charm,</i>
<i>here's Vertès all around us.</i>

624
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:46,344
<i>Vertès had to be charming. He was Hungarian.</i>

625
00:38:46,451 --> 00:38:49,147
<i>He started his career-</i>
<i>and he told me this right here at this table-</i>

626
00:38:49,254 --> 00:38:53,918
"As a charlatan. I painted fake masterpieces.

627
00:38:54,025 --> 00:38:57,688
I began," he said, "as Lautrec."

628
00:38:57,796 --> 00:39:01,232
<i>A woman, a titled English woman...</i>

629
00:39:01,333 --> 00:39:03,233
walked in one day to my room...

630
00:39:03,335 --> 00:39:06,532
and she saw on the wall -
pinned on the wall, a drawing.

631
00:39:06,638 --> 00:39:09,539
Say, "Hey, where you got that Picasso?"

632
00:39:09,641 --> 00:39:11,905
<i>I say, "Well, do you think it's a Picasso?"</i>

633
00:39:12,010 --> 00:39:15,844
"And there was this art dealer" -
I won't give you his name -

634
00:39:15,947 --> 00:39:17,847
"turning down everything I showed him" -

635
00:39:17,949 --> 00:39:21,180
<i>this is Vertès speaking-</i>
<i>"when something caught his eye.</i>

636
00:39:21,286 --> 00:39:23,516
"'Where did you get that? ' He said."

637
00:39:23,621 --> 00:39:25,521
"'That nice little Lautrec."

638
00:39:25,623 --> 00:39:28,057
"I told him it was a very nice little Vertès."

639
00:39:28,159 --> 00:39:31,356
<i>"'I'll take the Lautrec," he said.</i>

640
00:39:31,463 --> 00:39:35,923
"And If you happen to find
any more, bring them in."'

641
00:39:36,034 --> 00:39:38,628
<i>She said, "Would you sell it?"</i>
<i>I said, "Well, delighted. "</i>

642
00:39:38,737 --> 00:39:41,968
And I suddenly realize I can sell something...

643
00:39:42,073 --> 00:39:46,908
absolutely unexpectedly
for quite a great deal of money...

644
00:39:47,011 --> 00:39:51,141
in a time when I was unable,
but absolutely unable...

645
00:39:51,249 --> 00:39:53,149
to sell any of my paintings.

646
00:39:53,251 --> 00:39:56,049
"How could you blame me?
I had no money in my pocket...

647
00:39:56,154 --> 00:39:59,453
no socks in my shoes,
no real painting style of my own."

648
00:39:59,557 --> 00:40:04,256
<i>Even the amount of five dollars</i>
<i>meant that am I going to eat.</i>

649
00:40:04,362 --> 00:40:07,798
I don't meaning go home and be full, but to eat.

650
00:40:12,837 --> 00:40:16,329
<i>I would like to see that poor Hungarian refugee...</i>

651
00:40:16,441 --> 00:40:20,275
who would have resisted of that temptation.

652
00:40:21,379 --> 00:40:23,279
<i>Well, Vertès didn't either.</i>

653
00:40:23,381 --> 00:40:26,441
<i>Like all Hungarians,</i>
<i>he told the best Hungarian jokes.</i>

654
00:40:26,551 --> 00:40:28,815
<i>The omelet, you know that, don't you?</i>

655
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,081
<i>Sure. It's a classic.</i>

656
00:40:31,189 --> 00:40:34,681
<i>An omelet, it's in our Hungarian cookbook.</i>

657
00:40:34,793 --> 00:40:37,387
"To make an omelet," it says...

658
00:40:37,495 --> 00:40:40,259
"first, steal an egg."

659
00:40:40,365 --> 00:40:43,129
<i>Well, naturally,</i>
<i>to be Hungarian is not a nationality.</i>

660
00:40:43,234 --> 00:40:45,225
<i>It's a profession.</i>

661
00:40:45,336 --> 00:40:47,270
<i>But the truth about Hungarians,</i>
<i>which they do try to cover up...</i>

662
00:40:47,372 --> 00:40:50,273
<i>is that they're not any more</i>
<i>crooked than the rest of us.</i>

663
00:40:50,375 --> 00:40:53,503
But not the way they like to tell it.
Of all the Hungarian friends I've ever had...

664
00:40:53,611 --> 00:40:56,705
I can't remember one
who didn't want me to think of him...

665
00:40:56,815 --> 00:40:58,715
as a king of con men.

666
00:40:58,817 --> 00:41:02,253
<i>As for this Hungarian's own tales</i>
<i>of his own lurid past...</i>

667
00:41:02,353 --> 00:41:04,617
<i>they don't, according to his biographer...</i>

668
00:41:04,722 --> 00:41:07,657
<i>jive exactly with versions of the same events...</i>

669
00:41:07,759 --> 00:41:12,128
as told by certain art dealers.

670
00:41:12,230 --> 00:41:14,596
I do think art dealers...

671
00:41:14,699 --> 00:41:16,860
are crooked.

672
00:41:16,968 --> 00:41:18,868
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...

673
00:41:18,970 --> 00:41:22,462
I put it to you that between such witnesses...

674
00:41:22,574 --> 00:41:25,668
your choice, to phrase it nicely, is not easy.

675
00:41:25,777 --> 00:41:31,079
Even if Clifford Irving
mentions in his book that -

676
00:41:31,182 --> 00:41:35,209
I must insist that I never sell to privates.

677
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:37,720
Some friend of mine say
you should buy a fantastic drawing...

678
00:41:37,755 --> 00:41:39,655
that own a refugee of Budapest.

679
00:41:39,757 --> 00:41:42,954
"Budapesht. " It's not with a "pest."
It's with a "pesht."

680
00:41:43,061 --> 00:41:46,519
<i>He want to sell 10 Modigliani and 10, uh, Matisse.</i>

681
00:41:46,631 --> 00:41:49,259
At that time, when I sell to Francois...

682
00:41:49,367 --> 00:41:52,165
he was <i>not</i> a movie director.

683
00:41:52,270 --> 00:41:54,397
He was an art dealer.

684
00:41:54,506 --> 00:41:56,633
I tried to put it in art gallery.
Then it was an <i>occasion...</i>

685
00:41:56,741 --> 00:42:00,302
- because they were to sell for $200.
- <i> "Occasion is a bargain.</i>"

686
00:42:03,281 --> 00:42:05,181
<i>Our whole story really starts, you know...</i>

687
00:42:05,283 --> 00:42:08,377
<i>with two famous collections of paintings.</i>

688
00:42:08,486 --> 00:42:11,284
<i>One belonged to the Reichenbachs and was real...</i>

689
00:42:11,389 --> 00:42:14,517
<i>the other Elmyr was supposed</i>
<i>to have smuggled out of Hungary.</i>

690
00:42:14,626 --> 00:42:17,754
- From his family.
- Oh, no, that's a complete fabrication.

691
00:42:17,862 --> 00:42:20,387
<i>I can tell you exactly who he was.</i>

692
00:42:20,498 --> 00:42:22,739
After the book was published
I got a letter from a man...

693
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,600
who had known him in
a concentration camp in Hungary.

694
00:42:26,704 --> 00:42:28,729
And he said he was not from the aristocracy...

695
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:33,573
<i>but that he was from a normal</i>
<i>lower middle-class home...</i>

696
00:42:33,678 --> 00:42:36,374
<i>and since then has refused to discuss it.</i>

697
00:42:36,481 --> 00:42:39,211
He just evades the subject
whenever it's brought up.

698
00:42:39,317 --> 00:42:41,877
It's terribly convenient, beside everything else!

699
00:42:41,986 --> 00:42:44,853
<i>Francois bought some of Elmyr's paintings...</i>

700
00:42:44,956 --> 00:42:48,084
<i>and sold them again in his art gallery</i>
<i>for a couple of fast bucks.</i>

701
00:42:48,192 --> 00:42:49,625
<i>For double the price.</i>

702
00:42:49,727 --> 00:42:52,059
- <i> You sold them for double what you bought them for?</i>
- Exactly.

703
00:42:52,163 --> 00:42:56,964
Before he did pay me
for the drawings he did buy...

704
00:42:57,068 --> 00:42:59,764
he sold it already before he paid me.

705
00:42:59,871 --> 00:43:02,237
Then the third year, I went back and -

706
00:43:02,340 --> 00:43:04,240
He came to see me.
He said, "I have other Modigliani."

707
00:43:04,342 --> 00:43:06,902
- I was a little suspicious.
- <i> Elmyr said he has more.</i>

708
00:43:07,011 --> 00:43:11,607
- More, but you see, last time - - <i>And you thought
maybe that's a little too many Modigliani.</i>

709
00:43:11,716 --> 00:43:14,879
Because the last time he say,
"It's my last one. Take it."

710
00:43:14,986 --> 00:43:17,216
Then, when he had others...

711
00:43:17,322 --> 00:43:20,587
I say, "Where they come from?"
But I didn't try to investigate too much.

712
00:43:20,692 --> 00:43:22,592
- But I kept -
- <i> Why didn't you?</i>

713
00:43:22,694 --> 00:43:26,755
Like everyone.

714
00:43:26,864 --> 00:43:28,764
Because they were very-I didn't want to -

715
00:43:28,866 --> 00:43:31,426
- <i>You didn't want to know.!</i>
- Not too much.

716
00:43:31,536 --> 00:43:34,403
<i>The year after, he call me.</i>
<i>He say, "I have three mores. "</i>

717
00:43:34,505 --> 00:43:37,133
- <i>Three more Modigliani.</i>
- I say, "I have already 10 in my rooms."

718
00:43:37,241 --> 00:43:40,438
"I'm not a collector of Modigliani.

719
00:43:40,545 --> 00:43:42,877
"Of course, if you had a <i>dessin-</i>

720
00:43:42,981 --> 00:43:45,347
A portrait of Soutine. I love so much Soutine."

721
00:43:45,450 --> 00:43:48,250
- <i>But why did you want a portrait of Soutine?</i>
- Because I like Soutine.

722
00:43:48,286 --> 00:43:50,754
- <i>I see.</i>
- And I asked to Elmyr if he had one.

723
00:43:50,855 --> 00:43:53,119
He say, "I don't have any Soutine
by Modigliani. Why?"

724
00:43:53,224 --> 00:43:55,283
<i>Soutine was a friend of Modigliani.</i>

725
00:43:55,393 --> 00:43:57,293
- <i>Exactement.</i>
- You asked him if he had it.

726
00:43:57,395 --> 00:44:01,195
He say, "I don't have it. " I say, "Then keep
your three others, even if they were very cheap."

727
00:44:01,199 --> 00:44:03,519
They were the double price,
but they were still very cheap.

728
00:44:04,402 --> 00:44:07,394
Then the night, during the night, he call me.

729
00:44:07,505 --> 00:44:10,565
He say, "Francois, you are a genius.
You guessed I had one."

730
00:44:12,677 --> 00:44:15,339
"How could you know? I found one in my drawer.

731
00:44:15,446 --> 00:44:19,109
<i>A beautiful portrait of Soutine by Modigliani. "</i>

732
00:44:19,217 --> 00:44:22,084
<i>And now there's something else</i>
<i>again what I'm doing here.</i>

733
00:44:22,186 --> 00:44:24,677
<i>That is Picasso.</i>

734
00:44:26,290 --> 00:44:28,281
<i>And now the scene changes...</i>

735
00:44:28,393 --> 00:44:30,520
<i>from New York to Pamplona.</i>

736
00:44:30,628 --> 00:44:33,096
<i>This deep in the Hemingway country...</i>

737
00:44:33,197 --> 00:44:35,392
<i>you might not expect to find Elmyr.</i>

738
00:44:35,500 --> 00:44:38,128
<i>And he said, "I'm going to reimburse you. "</i>

739
00:44:38,236 --> 00:44:40,136
- I said, "What are you" -
- Reimburse you for what?

740
00:44:40,238 --> 00:44:42,959
- For the fake I sold you.
- Yeah, but you made a lot of money on it.

741
00:44:43,041 --> 00:44:45,271
- Yes, but he didn't know.
- I see.

742
00:44:45,376 --> 00:44:47,503
<i>And you know what he did?</i>

743
00:44:47,612 --> 00:44:51,173
<i>He gave me a check,</i>
<i>and the check had no money in the bank.</i>

744
00:44:51,282 --> 00:44:52,943
- He gave you a false check.
- Yes.

745
00:44:53,051 --> 00:44:54,484
- For a false painting.
- Yes.

746
00:44:54,585 --> 00:44:56,246
<i>There's a  certain justice.</i>

747
00:44:56,354 --> 00:44:58,185
Well...

748
00:44:58,289 --> 00:45:01,053
good-bye, Picasso.

749
00:45:01,159 --> 00:45:04,595
<i>It's a fact of record that art dealers-</i>

750
00:45:04,696 --> 00:45:08,928
Would you take this away, please, and -
and bring me the steak au poivre?

751
00:45:09,033 --> 00:45:13,094
Thanks a lot.
That art dealers, either in ignorance...

752
00:45:13,204 --> 00:45:15,263
innocence, or simple greed...

753
00:45:15,373 --> 00:45:18,706
have made themselves fortunes
on the paintings of Elmyr.

754
00:45:18,810 --> 00:45:21,779
I have not the vaguest idea the money they got.

755
00:45:21,879 --> 00:45:24,439
Those paintings must have been pretty good...

756
00:45:24,549 --> 00:45:28,280
or the dealers must have been... pretty bad.

757
00:45:28,386 --> 00:45:32,083
I could not estimate
if it was 10 million, 20 million -

758
00:45:32,190 --> 00:45:36,149
dollars, pounds, uh, zlotys.

759
00:45:36,260 --> 00:45:41,027
A whole lot of them anyway made profits of
a hundred percent and more on these affairs...

760
00:45:41,132 --> 00:45:43,623
and Elmyr himself has really made very little.

761
00:45:43,735 --> 00:45:48,900
All I got was a little television
of that size for the $250,000.

762
00:45:49,006 --> 00:45:52,407
<i>Even that handsome house of his, that isn't his.</i>

763
00:45:52,510 --> 00:45:54,569
A dealer has a deal with him.

764
00:45:54,679 --> 00:45:58,945
Somebody must have made some kind of strange -

765
00:45:59,050 --> 00:46:01,245
- <i> Deal.</i>
- Deal.

766
00:46:01,352 --> 00:46:03,650
<i>I was fooled.</i>

767
00:46:03,755 --> 00:46:05,655
<i>I was used.</i>

768
00:46:05,757 --> 00:46:10,524
<i>And I was squeezed out-</i>
<i>squeezed out like the last drop.</i>

769
00:46:19,470 --> 00:46:24,271
<i>Because even the roof of that house</i>
<i>doesn't belong to me.</i>

770
00:46:24,375 --> 00:46:27,970
<i>I don't have a dime to my name.</i>

771
00:46:29,514 --> 00:46:31,539
<i>So after all these long years on the run...</i>

772
00:46:31,649 --> 00:46:37,281
<i>even now,</i>
<i>after his final reformation as a forger...</i>

773
00:46:38,389 --> 00:46:41,881
<i>Elmyr can't feel much real security</i>
<i>in this last refuge...</i>

774
00:46:41,993 --> 00:46:44,461
<i>in what people like to call...</i>

775
00:46:44,562 --> 00:46:47,292
"the golden years."

776
00:46:47,398 --> 00:46:50,196
- <i> A little bit of luck.</i>
- And a dash of larceny.

777
00:46:50,501 --> 00:46:52,492
<i>You've been freely owning up to your own past.</i>

778
00:46:52,603 --> 00:46:54,662
<i>I'd better do some confessing myself.</i>

779
00:46:54,772 --> 00:47:00,301
<i>Francois was an art dealer, and I-</i>
<i>well, I was an artist.</i>

780
00:47:00,411 --> 00:47:05,178
<i>I thought I was anyway.</i>
<i>Like Elmyr, I too was once a hungry painter.</i>

781
00:47:05,283 --> 00:47:08,514
<i>But not here in France.</i>
<i>No, I was hungry in Ireland.</i>

782
00:47:08,619 --> 00:47:11,747
<i>I'd come there to paint,</i>
<i>bought a donkey and cart...</i>

783
00:47:11,856 --> 00:47:16,225
<i>filled the cart with paints and canvases</i>
<i>and went traveling.</i>

784
00:47:16,327 --> 00:47:19,023
<i>At night I slept under the cart.</i>

785
00:47:21,065 --> 00:47:23,158
<i>It was a very nice summer.</i>

786
00:47:24,202 --> 00:47:26,534
<i>But then when I got to Dublin...</i>

787
00:47:26,637 --> 00:47:28,901
<i>the donkey had to go up for auction.</i>

788
00:47:29,006 --> 00:47:31,406
<i>And so did I. My paintings were gone...</i>

789
00:47:31,509 --> 00:47:34,205
<i>all given away to the Irish farmers</i>
<i>who'd given me food.</i>

790
00:47:34,312 --> 00:47:37,679
<i>I'd run out of paint and money.</i>

791
00:47:37,782 --> 00:47:40,910
<i>I was 16 years old,</i>
<i>and my career, as you might say...</i>

792
00:47:41,018 --> 00:47:42,952
<i>was at the crossroads.</i>

793
00:47:43,054 --> 00:47:45,113
<i>Winter was coming in.</i>

794
00:47:48,025 --> 00:47:50,755
<i>Oh, I guess I could have</i>
<i>found myself an honest job...</i>

795
00:47:50,862 --> 00:47:53,763
<i>as a dishwasher or something,</i>
<i>but, no, I took the easy way.</i>

796
00:47:53,865 --> 00:47:56,197
<i>I went on the stage.</i>

797
00:47:56,300 --> 00:47:58,700
<i>I'd never been on the stage,</i>
<i>but I told them in Dublin...</i>

798
00:47:58,803 --> 00:48:02,239
<i>I was a famous star from New York,</i>
<i>and somehow got them to believe me.</i>

799
00:48:02,340 --> 00:48:04,365
<i>That's how I started.</i>

800
00:48:04,475 --> 00:48:07,000
<i>Began at the top, and have been</i>
<i>working my way down ever since.</i>

801
00:48:07,111 --> 00:48:10,672
<i>If acting is an art, cooking up</i>
<i>that bogus Broadway career...</i>

802
00:48:10,781 --> 00:48:13,272
<i>was a fine case of art forgery.</i>

803
00:48:13,384 --> 00:48:17,115
And then later, on the radio -
Well, we've seen how Elmyr started.

804
00:48:17,221 --> 00:48:19,189
In my past there aren't any Picassos.

805
00:48:19,290 --> 00:48:25,058
No. My next flight into fakery
was by flying saucer.

806
00:48:32,703 --> 00:48:35,137
We interrupt
this program to bring you a news bulletin.

807
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:38,140
High government sources have ceased to deny...

808
00:48:38,242 --> 00:48:41,075
the presence in many parts of the country
of nonterrestrial objects.

809
00:48:41,178 --> 00:48:44,614
We return you now to the Starlight
Terrace of the Hotel Glory in Scranton...

810
00:48:44,715 --> 00:48:49,778
to the singing strings of
Laszlo Gabor and His Melodeons.

811
00:48:49,887 --> 00:48:53,015
<i>On the radio, I got my first
job from Paul Stewart...</i>

812
00:48:53,124 --> 00:48:55,957
<i>and we were lucky enough</i>
<i>to have him join us later in the Mercury.</i>

813
00:48:56,060 --> 00:48:59,188
<i>Paul was a real capo mafia in the Martian caper.</i>

814
00:48:59,297 --> 00:49:02,664
"The War of the Worlds" was
before World War II, remember.

815
00:49:02,767 --> 00:49:05,292
Before television, in the great days of radio.

816
00:49:05,403 --> 00:49:07,667
<i>Maybe that's what made it all possible.</i>

817
00:49:07,772 --> 00:49:09,501
Another bulletin, ladies and gentlemen.

818
00:49:09,607 --> 00:49:12,132
The latest word on the monsters from outer space.

819
00:49:12,243 --> 00:49:13,938
Correction, from Mars.

820
00:49:14,045 --> 00:49:18,106
Sorry, folks, that's what experts are saying.
They are Martians.

821
00:49:18,215 --> 00:49:21,207
<i>TV would have shown us up. Half the population...</i>

822
00:49:21,319 --> 00:49:23,446
<i>got the screaming jeebies</i>
<i>just because they couldn't see...</i>

823
00:49:23,554 --> 00:49:26,546
<i>how silly it all would have looked.</i>

824
00:49:26,657 --> 00:49:29,455
<i>We said that the Martians</i>
<i>were releasing a noxious gas...</i>

825
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:33,621
<i>across the Jersey meadows</i>
<i>that was drifting towards New York.</i>

826
00:49:33,731 --> 00:49:35,858
<i>So, people took to the hills.</i>

827
00:49:39,904 --> 00:49:42,065
<i>I met a welfare worker years later...</i>

828
00:49:42,173 --> 00:49:46,234
<i>who told me he spent weeks trying to woo</i>
<i>some of the refugees back to civilization.</i>

829
00:49:46,344 --> 00:49:49,040
<i>The entire state</i>
<i>of New Jersey has now been cordoned off.</i>

830
00:49:49,146 --> 00:49:51,706
<i>State highways-Uh, yes?</i>

831
00:49:51,816 --> 00:49:53,977
<i>Ladies and gentlemen,</i>
<i>a special news flash from Washington.</i>

832
00:49:54,085 --> 00:49:56,383
<i>Any moment now,</i>
<i>President Roosevelt will be receiving...</i>

833
00:49:56,487 --> 00:49:58,512
<i>a delegation from Mars.</i>

834
00:49:58,622 --> 00:50:01,056
<i>From Mars. Peace talks are expected-</i>

835
00:50:05,196 --> 00:50:06,925
<i>A woman-you just have to believe this-</i>

836
00:50:07,031 --> 00:50:11,730
<i>rushed into a police station out in San Francisco</i>
<i>with her clothes in tatters...</i>

837
00:50:11,836 --> 00:50:15,499
<i>to report that she'd been</i>
<i>repeatedly attacked by Martians.</i>

838
00:50:17,975 --> 00:50:19,875
<i>She tried to take poison for the shame of it...</i>

839
00:50:19,977 --> 00:50:22,002
<i>and they stopped her just in time.</i>

840
00:50:22,113 --> 00:50:24,343
<i>Were they little green men, or what?</i>

841
00:50:26,784 --> 00:50:30,276
<i>"I can't describe it, she said. "It's hell. "</i>

842
00:50:30,388 --> 00:50:32,686
<i>Somebody down in South America...</i>

843
00:50:32,790 --> 00:50:35,918
<i>did an imitation of that broadcast...</i>

844
00:50:36,027 --> 00:50:37,619
<i>and he ended up in prison.</i>

845
00:50:37,728 --> 00:50:41,129
<i>So I shouldn't complain, I guess.</i>

846
00:50:41,232 --> 00:50:43,200
<i>I didn't go to jail.</i>

847
00:50:44,668 --> 00:50:46,568
I went to Hollywood.

848
00:50:46,670 --> 00:50:49,935
<i>And to testify to yet another coincidence,</i>
<i>here's a leading film director.</i>

849
00:50:50,041 --> 00:50:54,978
<i>All those years ago, he went west with the rest</i>
<i>of us to make our first movie. Richard Wilson.</i>

850
00:50:55,079 --> 00:50:57,104
Our first movie?

851
00:50:57,214 --> 00:51:01,173
Well, among the first of our projects
was to be a story...

852
00:51:01,285 --> 00:51:04,482
based on the fictionalized life
of a certain famous tycoon.

853
00:51:04,588 --> 00:51:07,182
Joe Cotten was to have played the part.

854
00:51:07,291 --> 00:51:11,057
That certain famous tycoon, yes.
But when the character was changed...

855
00:51:11,162 --> 00:51:13,722
to the famous newspaper tycoon,
it became obvious...

856
00:51:13,831 --> 00:51:16,356
that Orson should play the part,
which, of course, he did.

857
00:51:16,467 --> 00:51:18,162
Oh, I'm not complaining.

858
00:51:18,269 --> 00:51:21,295
<i>No. I had a fine part in</i> Citizen Kane.

859
00:51:21,405 --> 00:51:24,340
But I was just wondering.

860
00:51:24,442 --> 00:51:27,639
That original concept may have been fun.

861
00:51:29,013 --> 00:51:30,913
Yes, I was just wondering...

862
00:51:31,015 --> 00:51:34,143
if I would have been the first or the last...

863
00:51:34,251 --> 00:51:36,276
to impersonate...

864
00:51:36,387 --> 00:51:38,287
Howard Hughes.

865
00:51:48,032 --> 00:51:51,195
<i>This week, as it must to all aviation's pioneers...</i>

866
00:51:51,302 --> 00:51:53,668
<i>the great heart of a welcoming nation went out...</i>

867
00:51:53,771 --> 00:51:57,298
<i>to handsome, well-heeled hero, Howard Hughes.</i>

868
00:51:57,408 --> 00:52:01,208
<i>Broken for speed are all records</i>
<i>for round-the-world solo flights.</i>

869
00:52:01,312 --> 00:52:05,772
<i>Broken, too, is the garbage man's record</i>
<i>for sheer tonnage in ticker tape.</i>

870
00:52:05,883 --> 00:52:09,512
<i>Well noted by observers is</i>
<i>the appropriate nature of ticker tape...</i>

871
00:52:09,620 --> 00:52:12,612
<i>as a tribute to the high-flying</i>
<i>Mr. Moneybags himself.</i>

872
00:52:12,723 --> 00:52:14,623
<i>Why did we change our minds?</i>

873
00:52:14,725 --> 00:52:18,161
<i>Change tycoons?</i>
<i>Of course, we'd have to change his name.</i>

874
00:52:18,262 --> 00:52:21,288
And as a character in fiction...

875
00:52:21,398 --> 00:52:24,856
who could believe that a man
like Howard Hughes could exist?

876
00:52:24,969 --> 00:52:29,133
I put the sweat of my life into this thing.
I have my reputation rolled up in it.

877
00:52:30,474 --> 00:52:33,875
<i>Hughes fighting here</i>
<i>for the future of a controversial airplane...</i>

878
00:52:33,978 --> 00:52:37,607
<i>an all-wood behemoth, the</i> Spruce Goose.

879
00:52:37,715 --> 00:52:39,808
<i>Other inventions had more success.</i>

880
00:52:39,917 --> 00:52:41,817
<i>One example, the brassiere.</i>

881
00:52:41,919 --> 00:52:44,080
<i>Hughes's design for a Hughes-directed hit movie...</i>

882
00:52:44,188 --> 00:52:46,088
<i>was, for mammary America...</i>

883
00:52:46,190 --> 00:52:48,681
<i>the cause of a great uplift.</i>

884
00:52:48,792 --> 00:52:51,158
<i>Less uplifting was the</i> Spruce Goose...

885
00:52:52,096 --> 00:52:54,826
<i>The biggest thing with wings that ever happened-</i>

886
00:52:55,699 --> 00:52:59,692
<i>In fact, it flew for a few minutes only,</i>
<i>a few feet in the air.</i>

887
00:52:59,803 --> 00:53:02,397
And I have stated several times
that if it's a failure...

888
00:53:02,506 --> 00:53:05,737
I'll probably leave this country
and never come back, and I mean it.

889
00:53:05,843 --> 00:53:08,835
<i>And that's what he did, finally.</i>

890
00:53:08,946 --> 00:53:11,676
<i>The super secretive celebrity...</i>

891
00:53:11,782 --> 00:53:14,751
<i>went all out for world fame...</i>

892
00:53:14,852 --> 00:53:19,482
<i>won it, and then got to be</i>
<i>more famous trying for privacy.</i>

893
00:53:22,193 --> 00:53:25,026
<i>Maybe he's a loser after all.</i>

894
00:53:25,129 --> 00:53:28,360
<i>A lady from his past once told me</i>
<i>that's part of his charm.</i>

895
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:32,769
<i>But this lady-killing, wheeling, dealing...</i>

896
00:53:32,870 --> 00:53:36,738
<i>death-defying, life-defying mystery man supreme...</i>

897
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,276
<i>has a strange habit of winning somehow-</i>

898
00:53:40,377 --> 00:53:43,608
<i>sometimes anyway-just at the end.</i>

899
00:53:43,714 --> 00:53:47,548
<i>Is he winning now, at the end of this story?</i>

900
00:53:47,651 --> 00:53:49,983
<i>I only wish I was still in the movie business.</i>

901
00:53:50,087 --> 00:53:54,114
<i>Our semi mythological</i>
<i>night bird of a billionaire...</i>

902
00:53:54,225 --> 00:53:56,887
<i>has flown his Vegas coop.</i>

903
00:53:56,994 --> 00:53:59,588
<i>But only to go on mutely roosting...</i>

904
00:53:59,697 --> 00:54:04,100
<i>on the top of various other holiday hotels...</i>

905
00:54:04,201 --> 00:54:06,192
<i>in germfree...</i>

906
00:54:06,303 --> 00:54:09,238
<i>air-conditioned solitude.</i>

907
00:54:10,541 --> 00:54:13,203
Ah, it's his decision.

908
00:54:13,310 --> 00:54:15,107
On this planet...

909
00:54:15,212 --> 00:54:18,306
crowded and computerized...

910
00:54:18,415 --> 00:54:21,248
being yourself-whatever that may be -

911
00:54:21,352 --> 00:54:24,446
and keeping yourself to yourself isn't easy.

912
00:54:24,555 --> 00:54:28,218
Make what you want of Howard Hughes,
but not a movie.

913
00:54:28,325 --> 00:54:30,793
<i>Cliff Irving had more courage than we did...</i>

914
00:54:30,894 --> 00:54:35,092
and as sure a hand, certainly, at fiction.

915
00:54:35,199 --> 00:54:39,898
<i>Also, I'll admit that he's nudging</i>
<i>the Martians a bit...</i>

916
00:54:40,004 --> 00:54:42,165
for the championship title.

917
00:54:42,273 --> 00:54:46,607
<i>It taxes your imagination</i>
<i>to believe that a thing like this could happen.</i>

918
00:54:46,710 --> 00:54:50,441
<i>"I do not know Clifford Irving, said the voice."</i>

919
00:54:50,547 --> 00:54:55,382
<i>Until a matter of days ago,</i>
<i>when this thing first came to my attention.</i>

920
00:54:56,620 --> 00:55:00,317
<i>All over the world, people were saying</i>
<i>that the fishiest thing in this whole business...</i>

921
00:55:00,424 --> 00:55:02,392
<i>was not Irving's part in it...</i>

922
00:55:02,493 --> 00:55:07,226
<i>but the identity of whoever it was</i>
<i>who claimed to Irving he was Hughes.</i>

923
00:55:07,331 --> 00:55:09,822
<i>And who do you think</i>
<i>is still mixed up in all this?</i>

924
00:55:09,933 --> 00:55:15,030
<i>According to one theory, who else but Elmyr,</i>
<i>a man so skilled in art forgery...</i>

925
00:55:15,139 --> 00:55:16,629
<i>could have forged that manuscript?</i>

926
00:55:16,740 --> 00:55:19,265
<i>Irving's lawyer is speculating</i>
<i>about a host of theories.</i>

927
00:55:19,376 --> 00:55:21,901
Theories, if, for instance,
that telephone voice...

928
00:55:22,012 --> 00:55:24,845
<i>was Hughes and was telling the truth,</i>
<i>we should remember...</i>

929
00:55:24,948 --> 00:55:29,885
that Hughes had been known to make use of doubles.

930
00:55:29,987 --> 00:55:31,887
<i>And here comes another theory:</i>

931
00:55:31,989 --> 00:55:35,720
Now a double might be making use of Hughes.

932
00:55:35,826 --> 00:55:39,728
<i>According to informed sources,</i>
<i>high officials in the Hughes empire...</i>

933
00:55:39,830 --> 00:55:44,164
are not even now fully satisfied
that the mystery is completely unraveled.

934
00:55:44,268 --> 00:55:48,364
They are searching for a "Mr. Big" behind it all.

935
00:55:48,472 --> 00:55:51,839
<i>Was "Mr. Big"</i> Mrs. <i>. Big?</i>

936
00:55:51,942 --> 00:55:54,570
<i>Edith, maybe?</i>

937
00:55:54,678 --> 00:55:57,704
Cliff Irving topped all this
and stopped it dead...

938
00:55:57,815 --> 00:55:59,715
with a confession.

939
00:55:59,817 --> 00:56:03,116
<i>Charges could result</i>
<i>in as much as 100 years imprisonment.</i>

940
00:56:03,220 --> 00:56:05,279
<i>But this may be softened if Clifford Irving...</i>

941
00:56:05,389 --> 00:56:08,790
agrees to come clean on the whole story.

942
00:56:08,892 --> 00:56:11,087
<i>He did. He told it all...</i>

943
00:56:11,195 --> 00:56:13,026
<i>not only to the courts, but in a book.</i>

944
00:56:13,130 --> 00:56:16,258
<i>And now, as Elmyr leaves that story...</i>

945
00:56:16,367 --> 00:56:18,961
<i>and a chapter in ours comes to a close...</i>

946
00:56:19,069 --> 00:56:20,969
<i>things may well be looking up just a bit...</i>

947
00:56:21,071 --> 00:56:24,165
<i>for his biographer, jail or not.</i>

948
00:56:24,274 --> 00:56:27,038
This is a headline in London's <i>Sunday Times:</i>

949
00:56:27,144 --> 00:56:30,307
"Hoaxer Irving Makes a Handsome Profit."

950
00:56:30,414 --> 00:56:34,680
- No, no, no.
- <i>And for Elmyr, at least and at last...</i>

951
00:56:34,785 --> 00:56:38,084
<i>that story has a happy ending: He's in the clear.</i>

952
00:56:39,790 --> 00:56:41,781
<i>Here's another coincidence for you.</i>

953
00:56:41,892 --> 00:56:44,053
To Connecticut, yeah.

954
00:56:44,161 --> 00:56:47,324
<i>Somebody else from Ibiza. This is our co producer.</i>

955
00:56:47,431 --> 00:56:50,127
- Who's calling?
- Richard Drewett.

956
00:56:50,234 --> 00:56:54,432
Richard Drewett, the only simon-pure
noncharlatan in this movie.

957
00:56:54,538 --> 00:56:57,974
<i>Irving just now is holed up in Connecticut,</i>
<i>and we're calling him from Paris.</i>

958
00:56:58,075 --> 00:57:02,273
<i>And so excruciating is Richard's honesty,</i>
<i>that he's insisted on warning...</i>

959
00:57:02,379 --> 00:57:04,870
<i>Time</i> magazine's nomination
for con man of the year...

960
00:57:04,982 --> 00:57:07,007
that our call to him is being taped.

961
00:57:07,117 --> 00:57:09,017
- Hello?
- The book.

962
00:57:09,119 --> 00:57:11,144
Can you say anything about the, um -

963
00:57:11,255 --> 00:57:13,215
the deal that you've managed to do with the book?

964
00:57:13,257 --> 00:57:17,159
I mean, is it-h-has it turned out
as well as you'd expected?

965
00:57:19,096 --> 00:57:21,394
- Th-The deal?
- <i> Are you going to tell the whole truth?</i>

966
00:57:21,498 --> 00:57:23,523
Yes. Absolutely.

967
00:57:23,634 --> 00:57:27,161
- Yeah.
- In fact the title is <i>The Book About the Book.</i>

968
00:57:27,271 --> 00:57:30,671
<i>In two years, Cliff, you are going to write</i>
<i>"The Book About the book About the Book. "</i>

969
00:57:30,741 --> 00:57:34,404
<i>Gentlemen, was that</i>
<i>the real voice of Clifford Irving?</i>

970
00:57:34,912 --> 00:57:37,676
<i>Well, Irving's real voice as a writer...</i>

971
00:57:37,781 --> 00:57:40,011
<i>he may well have found now in his new book.</i>

972
00:57:40,117 --> 00:57:42,017
<i>The new title is</i> What Really Happened.

973
00:57:42,085 --> 00:57:44,144
<i>I want to paint my own paintings.</i>

974
00:57:44,288 --> 00:57:46,654
I want the right uniquely...

975
00:57:46,757 --> 00:57:50,557
and exclusively of my work.

976
00:57:50,661 --> 00:57:54,563
<i>And Elmyr?</i>
<i>Will there ever be another book about him?</i>

977
00:57:54,665 --> 00:57:56,963
He's told so many stories about himself...

978
00:57:57,067 --> 00:58:02,004
- <i>always telling this story to that one
and another story to that one. </i> - Uh, I don't -

979
00:58:02,105 --> 00:58:04,471
<i>He's lived always on the run.</i>

980
00:58:04,575 --> 00:58:10,036
<i>I, uh, stayed ultimately</i>
<i>12 years in the United States.</i>

981
00:58:10,147 --> 00:58:13,412
<i>Which he spent there illegally,</i>
<i>since he only had a three-month visa.</i>

982
00:58:13,517 --> 00:58:17,578
<i>I lived very simply.</i>
<i>I lived, uh, on my own paintings.</i>

983
00:58:17,688 --> 00:58:20,486
<i>I sold them for $ 10, $ 15.</i>

984
00:58:20,591 --> 00:58:24,584
<i>My own canvases. And then sometimes</i>
<i>when I had absolutely no money...</i>

985
00:58:24,695 --> 00:58:28,096
<i>I was completely broke,</i>
<i>I made a Modigliani drawing.</i>

986
00:58:28,198 --> 00:58:32,100
<i>I took 'em to one of the big dealers</i>
<i>around Beverly Hills.</i>

987
00:58:32,202 --> 00:58:34,568
It never happened that I didn't sell them.

988
00:58:34,671 --> 00:58:36,571
I always sold them.

989
00:58:36,673 --> 00:58:39,198
One reason he was able to get away
with what he was doing...

990
00:58:39,309 --> 00:58:43,040
for-for 22 years,
selling fakes all over the world...

991
00:58:43,146 --> 00:58:45,046
<i>all over the United States...</i>

992
00:58:45,148 --> 00:58:47,616
<i>was the existence of something new</i>
<i>in the art world.</i>

993
00:58:47,718 --> 00:58:50,380
<i>And that was the art market.</i>

994
00:58:50,487 --> 00:58:53,047
<i>It enabled him to live from day to day...</i>

995
00:58:53,156 --> 00:58:55,681
<i>from painting to painting, from fake to fake...</i>

996
00:58:55,792 --> 00:59:00,092
<i>from-from con man to con man,</i>
<i>from crook to crook...</i>

997
00:59:00,197 --> 00:59:02,097
<i>and from town to town.</i>

998
00:59:02,199 --> 00:59:04,531
Who knows? What is it?
What -What makes you travel?

999
00:59:04,635 --> 00:59:07,075
<i>You want a change of landscape.</i>
<i>You want to meet new people.</i>

1000
00:59:07,170 --> 00:59:08,797
<i>You want to meet new faces.</i>

1001
00:59:08,906 --> 00:59:13,809
<i>You think you'll meet somebody more attractive</i>
<i>in the next town as you met there.</i>

1002
00:59:13,911 --> 00:59:16,209
You never know. Why?
Why people travel. Do you know?

1003
00:59:16,313 --> 00:59:20,079
Because the F.B.I. And the police
in four different states were on his tail.

1004
00:59:20,183 --> 00:59:23,277
- But, uh -
- And he had to be one jump ahead of them.

1005
00:59:23,387 --> 00:59:27,414
<i>He had to whip off to Mexico and then</i>
<i>up to Canada, and then back to New York.</i>

1006
00:59:27,524 --> 00:59:30,804
<i>And then when he heard that the police</i>
<i>were knocking on his door in Miami Beach...</i>

1007
00:59:30,827 --> 00:59:33,819
<i>he had to scuttle out of town</i>
<i>on a Greyhound bus to Texas.</i>

1008
00:59:33,931 --> 00:59:37,423
<i>Hit hard by Torborg,</i>
<i>but right to third baseman, Aurelio Rodriguez.</i>

1009
00:59:37,534 --> 00:59:39,764
<i>After one hop,</i>
<i>the ball really flattened out for him.</i>

1010
00:59:39,870 --> 00:59:43,101
<i>Then, finally, on a distant island...</i>

1011
00:59:43,206 --> 00:59:45,106
<i>he did find a home.</i>

1012
00:59:46,910 --> 00:59:50,346
<i>He doesn't own it, remember,</i>
<i>but it's a splendid villa...</i>

1013
00:59:50,447 --> 00:59:52,972
<i>with a fine view of the village...</i>

1014
00:59:53,083 --> 00:59:54,983
<i>and the village jail.</i>

1015
00:59:55,085 --> 00:59:57,576
To be in jail here is probably, I would say-

1016
00:59:57,688 --> 00:59:59,588
here is better than somewhere else.

1017
00:59:59,690 --> 01:00:03,990
- But a jail is a jail. Let's face it.
- <i> Moment of truth.</i>

1018
01:00:04,094 --> 01:00:07,325
He's talking about the time they took him down...

1019
01:00:07,431 --> 01:00:11,128
out of that villa, which he doesn't own,
and put him into prison.

1020
01:00:12,703 --> 01:00:14,694
<i>Let me show you that again.</i>

1021
01:00:14,805 --> 01:00:18,172
To be in jail here is probably, I would say-

1022
01:00:18,275 --> 01:00:20,175
here is better than somewhere else.

1023
01:00:20,277 --> 01:00:23,474
But a jail is a jail. Let's face it.

1024
01:00:23,580 --> 01:00:27,380
Hemingway wrote a great short story...

1025
01:00:27,484 --> 01:00:33,047
about an old bullfighter called "The Undefeated."

1026
01:00:34,558 --> 01:00:37,618
Well, all the heroes aren't in the bullring.

1027
01:00:37,728 --> 01:00:40,720
Here's our hero, our ex-jailbird...

1028
01:00:40,831 --> 01:00:42,992
flying high above his troubles.

1029
01:00:43,100 --> 01:00:45,000
Watch the quick recovery.

1030
01:00:45,102 --> 01:00:47,832
<i>That was quite a disgusting person.</i>

1031
01:00:49,439 --> 01:00:51,873
He looks disgusting too, doesn't he?

1032
01:00:54,011 --> 01:00:55,911
<i>He was, again, a German...</i>

1033
01:00:56,013 --> 01:00:58,982
whose main preoccupation was his mustache.

1034
01:00:59,082 --> 01:01:02,074
He kept doing nothing but touching his mustache.

1035
01:01:02,185 --> 01:01:06,212
He just kept on curling and curling
and curling his mustache.

1036
01:01:07,424 --> 01:01:11,258
<i>These other drawings are made</i>
<i>during the time I was in prison.</i>

1037
01:01:11,361 --> 01:01:15,855
In the very end, the judge himself thanked me...

1038
01:01:15,966 --> 01:01:20,266
and he declared that
I'm a very generous and a very kind person.

1039
01:01:20,370 --> 01:01:23,635
Now that he's out of prison, what will he do?

1040
01:01:25,275 --> 01:01:28,836
He'll give a party. Another party.

1041
01:01:42,125 --> 01:01:44,218
<i>Elmyr, how do you mean you were not in prison?</i>

1042
01:01:44,327 --> 01:01:47,728
<i>Because I wasn't a prisoner</i>
<i>in the full sense of word.</i>

1043
01:01:47,831 --> 01:01:52,359
I was not imprisoned. I was interned.

1044
01:01:52,469 --> 01:01:56,428
She's a great friend of mine.

1045
01:01:56,540 --> 01:01:59,270
She's a great friend of mine
She was very sweet and kind to me.

1046
01:01:59,376 --> 01:02:02,209
When I was in prison,
she came to see me every day.

1047
01:02:02,312 --> 01:02:04,780
<i>Most of the days of the week.</i>

1048
01:02:04,881 --> 01:02:09,909
<i>Jean-Pierre Ramon.</i>
<i>I had a Spanish-Polish prince...</i>

1049
01:02:10,020 --> 01:02:13,319
<i>Charles-Touriski Bourbon,</i>
<i>who's a</i> cousin germain...

1050
01:02:13,423 --> 01:02:17,655
<i>of the next king of Spain,</i>
<i>Juan Carlos, who came every day.</i>

1051
01:02:17,761 --> 01:02:19,661
<i>I had every day coming in Nina.</i>

1052
01:02:19,763 --> 01:02:22,254
<i>Nina, that morsel plucked...</i>

1053
01:02:22,365 --> 01:02:25,163
from our name-dropper's list of prison visitors...

1054
01:02:25,268 --> 01:02:27,862
<i>is the Baroness Van Pallandt.</i>

1055
01:02:27,971 --> 01:02:29,905
<i>She was a witness against Irving.</i>

1056
01:02:30,006 --> 01:02:33,669
<i>It seems he couldn't have had a secret</i>
<i>rendezvous with Howard Hughes in Mexico...</i>

1057
01:02:33,777 --> 01:02:35,745
<i>because he spent every minute</i>
<i>there with the baroness.</i>

1058
01:02:35,846 --> 01:02:39,475
She used to be a famous folk singer,
and now she's famous again.

1059
01:02:39,649 --> 01:02:44,177
<i>Many other ladies flitted across the front pages.</i>

1060
01:02:44,287 --> 01:02:46,187
No, our cameras never got close to them.

1061
01:02:46,289 --> 01:02:48,689
<i>But Oja Kodar was something else.</i>

1062
01:02:48,792 --> 01:02:52,853
- <i> Uh, Miss Kodar-</i> - <i> The newspapers
have been calling you the Hungarian connection.</i>

1063
01:02:52,963 --> 01:02:54,863
<i>Because of my connection with Irving?</i>

1064
01:02:54,965 --> 01:02:57,297
<i>This is from the tape of a recent interview.</i>

1065
01:02:57,400 --> 01:02:59,925
- <i> There's quite a list.</i>
- <i> Indeed.</i>

1066
01:03:00,036 --> 01:03:05,269
- <i>If only half of all that is true, I wonder how he ever got away to his typewriter.</i>
- <i> Well, Miss Kodar.</i>

1067
01:03:05,375 --> 01:03:08,105
- <i> You wouldn't say that forgery's a crime?</i>
- <i> And the experts?</i>

1068
01:03:08,211 --> 01:03:12,307
<i>As long as there are fakers,</i>
<i>I guess there'll have to be experts.</i>

1069
01:03:12,415 --> 01:03:15,077
<i>But if there weren't any experts...</i>

1070
01:03:15,185 --> 01:03:17,676
<i>would there be any fakers?</i>

1071
01:03:17,788 --> 01:03:20,348
<i>A friend-another friend-</i>

1072
01:03:20,457 --> 01:03:23,051
<i>once showed a Picasso to Picasso...</i>

1073
01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:24,855
<i>who said, no, it was a fake.</i>

1074
01:03:24,961 --> 01:03:28,397
<i>The same friend brought him,</i>
<i>from yet another source...</i>

1075
01:03:28,498 --> 01:03:32,025
<i>another would-be Picasso,</i>
<i>and Picasso said that, too, was a fake.</i>

1076
01:03:32,135 --> 01:03:34,865
<i>Then yet another from another source.</i>
<i>"Also fake, said Picasso.</i>

1077
01:03:34,971 --> 01:03:37,667
<i>"But, Pablo, said his friend..."</i>

1078
01:03:37,774 --> 01:03:39,833
<i>"I watched you paint that with my own eyes. "</i>

1079
01:03:39,943 --> 01:03:44,903
<i>Said Picasso,</i>
<i>"I can paint false Picassos as well as anybody. "</i>

1080
01:03:46,283 --> 01:03:50,310
<i>I'm not excusing myself.</i>
<i>I'm not trying to make an excuse.</i>

1081
01:03:50,420 --> 01:03:54,015
I'm trying to explain a psychological situation...

1082
01:03:54,124 --> 01:03:56,251
and a human weakness.

1083
01:03:56,359 --> 01:03:58,919
<i>He's not in jail today for basically two reasons.</i>

1084
01:03:59,029 --> 01:04:03,489
<i>A court case would bring such</i>
<i>publicity upon the art world...</i>

1085
01:04:03,600 --> 01:04:08,435
<i>that any art dealer who took the stand</i>
<i>would automatically become suspect.</i>

1086
01:04:08,538 --> 01:04:10,870
The other reason he's not in jail is because...

1087
01:04:10,974 --> 01:04:14,910
<i>the French police have explained to me</i>
<i>that in order to jail him in France...</i>

1088
01:04:15,011 --> 01:04:17,377
they would have to have two witnesses...

1089
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:19,380
who saw him doing the paintings...

1090
01:04:19,482 --> 01:04:21,507
who saw him signing the paintings...

1091
01:04:21,618 --> 01:04:24,052
as Vlamincks or Derains or Picassos.

1092
01:04:24,154 --> 01:04:26,088
<i>The signatures were put on...</i>

1093
01:04:26,189 --> 01:04:29,124
much later than the paintings were painted.

1094
01:04:29,226 --> 01:04:32,855
I never signed any painting anyway.

1095
01:04:34,030 --> 01:04:36,464
That's a very important matter.

1096
01:04:46,309 --> 01:04:49,039
<i>No, I never signed any of them.</i>

1097
01:04:52,082 --> 01:04:54,380
No. Never did. No.

1098
01:04:54,484 --> 01:04:56,782
Never did.

1099
01:05:12,535 --> 01:05:14,435
Of course they were signed.

1100
01:05:16,106 --> 01:05:20,270
<i>Well, whoever did sign them...</i>

1101
01:05:20,377 --> 01:05:23,107
<i>his paintings are in so many great collections...</i>

1102
01:05:23,213 --> 01:05:25,113
<i>that surely it must be said of Elmyr...</i>

1103
01:05:25,215 --> 01:05:28,184
<i>that he has achieved a certain immortality...</i>

1104
01:05:29,819 --> 01:05:33,778
<i>under various other signatures.</i>

1105
01:05:36,459 --> 01:05:39,860
<i>If you-you hang them in a museum</i>
<i>or your collection of great paintings...</i>

1106
01:05:39,963 --> 01:05:42,989
and if they hang long enough there,
they become real.

1107
01:05:44,434 --> 01:05:48,302
<i>Now, this has been standing here for centuries.</i>

1108
01:05:48,405 --> 01:05:51,772
<i>The premiere work of man, perhaps,</i>
<i>in the whole Western world.</i>

1109
01:05:51,875 --> 01:05:55,333
<i>And it's without a signature.</i>

1110
01:05:56,379 --> 01:05:58,279
<i>Chartres.</i>

1111
01:06:03,053 --> 01:06:08,047
<i>A celebration to God's glory</i>
<i>and to the dignity of man.</i>

1112
01:06:11,227 --> 01:06:14,094
Well, all that's left,
most artists seem to feel these days...

1113
01:06:14,197 --> 01:06:16,597
is man.

1114
01:06:18,368 --> 01:06:20,802
Naked.

1115
01:06:20,904 --> 01:06:24,533
Poor, forked radish.

1116
01:06:26,476 --> 01:06:29,036
There aren't any celebrations.

1117
01:06:30,513 --> 01:06:33,004
<i>Ours, the scientists keep telling us...</i>

1118
01:06:33,116 --> 01:06:36,415
<i>is a universe which is disposable.</i>

1119
01:06:39,422 --> 01:06:44,121
<i>You know, it might be</i>
<i>just this one anonymous glory...</i>

1120
01:06:44,227 --> 01:06:46,320
<i>of all things-</i>

1121
01:06:46,429 --> 01:06:48,829
<i>this rich stone forest...</i>

1122
01:06:48,932 --> 01:06:51,833
<i>this epic chant, this gaiety...</i>

1123
01:06:51,935 --> 01:06:56,565
<i>this grand choiring shout of affirmation...</i>

1124
01:06:56,673 --> 01:06:58,834
<i>which we choose...</i>

1125
01:06:58,942 --> 01:07:01,433
<i>when all our cities are dust...</i>

1126
01:07:01,544 --> 01:07:03,569
<i>to stand intact...</i>

1127
01:07:03,680 --> 01:07:05,910
<i>to mark where we have been...</i>

1128
01:07:07,684 --> 01:07:10,710
<i>to testify to what we had it in us...</i>

1129
01:07:10,820 --> 01:07:13,015
<i>to accomplish.</i>

1130
01:07:14,758 --> 01:07:19,923
<i>Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared-</i>

1131
01:07:20,030 --> 01:07:23,727
<i>some of them for a few decades,</i>
<i>or a millennium or two-</i>

1132
01:07:23,833 --> 01:07:27,462
<i>but everything must finally fall in war...</i>

1133
01:07:27,570 --> 01:07:32,337
<i>or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash.</i>

1134
01:07:32,442 --> 01:07:35,206
<i>The triumphs and the frauds...</i>

1135
01:07:35,311 --> 01:07:37,472
<i>the treasures and the fakes.</i>

1136
01:07:37,580 --> 01:07:40,413
A fact of life.

1137
01:07:40,517 --> 01:07:42,644
We're going to die.

1138
01:07:42,752 --> 01:07:44,777
"Be of good heart"...

1139
01:07:44,888 --> 01:07:50,224
<i>cry the dead artists out of the living past.</i>

1140
01:07:50,326 --> 01:07:52,658
<i>"Our songs..."</i>

1141
01:07:52,762 --> 01:07:55,788
<i>"will all be silenced."</i>

1142
01:07:55,899 --> 01:07:57,799
<i>"But what of it?"</i>

1143
01:08:00,503 --> 01:08:02,835
<i>"Go on singing. "</i>

1144
01:08:05,041 --> 01:08:07,874
<i>Maybe a man's name...</i>

1145
01:08:08,912 --> 01:08:10,812
<i>doesn't matter...</i>

1146
01:08:12,082 --> 01:08:14,175
<i>all that much.</i>

1147
01:08:20,390 --> 01:08:22,381
<i>And now, at last, we come to Oja.</i>

1148
01:08:26,229 --> 01:08:30,165
<i>For this true story,</i>
<i>and with her kind collaboration...</i>

1149
01:08:30,266 --> 01:08:34,134
<i>we offer now-well, you might call it</i>
<i>a reenactment of recent history.</i>

1150
01:08:34,804 --> 01:08:38,103
<i>As we told you at the start,</i>
<i>she comes into this only at the end.</i>

1151
01:08:38,208 --> 01:08:40,506
<i>And that's where we've left her, for the end.</i>

1152
01:08:44,647 --> 01:08:46,774
<i>And as for coincidence-</i>

1153
01:08:46,883 --> 01:08:50,444
<i>Just for instance, I give you Oja's grandfather.</i>

1154
01:08:50,553 --> 01:08:53,147
Oh, no.

1155
01:08:53,256 --> 01:08:56,248
No, let's take him back
for a while and save him for later.

1156
01:08:56,359 --> 01:08:59,328
The mixture's rich enough as it is.

1157
01:08:59,429 --> 01:09:01,454
<i>Oja, as far as I know...</i>

1158
01:09:01,564 --> 01:09:04,624
<i>never breathed a word about him to any of us.</i>

1159
01:09:04,734 --> 01:09:07,965
<i>She comes into this</i>
<i>when she herself came to the attention of-</i>

1160
01:09:08,071 --> 01:09:13,839
<i>well, who else, but the first genius</i>
<i>among all the artists of our age.</i>

1161
01:09:13,943 --> 01:09:16,571
<i>The most celebrated,</i>
<i>certainly the wealthiest painter...</i>

1162
01:09:16,679 --> 01:09:18,977
<i>in 6,000 years.</i>

1163
01:09:20,517 --> 01:09:25,352
Well, Picasso is the biggest phenomenon
of our time.

1164
01:09:25,455 --> 01:09:30,825
<i>It never existed that a painter was able...</i>

1165
01:09:30,927 --> 01:09:34,624
with one movement of his hand -

1166
01:09:34,731 --> 01:09:39,566
what necessarily didn't involve
more than 10 seconds -

1167
01:09:39,669 --> 01:09:41,967
that movement of the hand...

1168
01:09:42,071 --> 01:09:45,165
transformed in gold.

1169
01:09:45,275 --> 01:09:49,211
Not even John D. Rockefeller was able to do that.

1170
01:09:52,882 --> 01:09:55,214
His estate has been valued at...

1171
01:09:55,318 --> 01:09:59,220
<i>$ 750 million.</i>

1172
01:10:00,523 --> 01:10:04,015
Oja turned him into a girl watcher.

1173
01:10:05,261 --> 01:10:07,821
<i>This happened not so very long ago...</i>

1174
01:10:07,931 --> 01:10:09,796
<i>when Picasso, for reasons of his own...</i>

1175
01:10:09,899 --> 01:10:13,630
<i>went to paint for a while</i>
<i>in the little village of Toussaint.</i>

1176
01:10:15,004 --> 01:10:18,462
<i>Oja was there too, on her holidays.</i>

1177
01:10:19,542 --> 01:10:23,103
And she had a friend with her, a boy named Olaf...

1178
01:10:23,213 --> 01:10:25,443
from somewhere in the Viking country.

1179
01:10:28,218 --> 01:10:30,482
<i>In his homeland, up there in the frozen north...</i>

1180
01:10:30,587 --> 01:10:32,748
<i>Olaf had been infected rather imperfectly...</i>

1181
01:10:32,855 --> 01:10:35,619
<i>with a taste for</i>
<i>the classic jazz of New Orleans...</i>

1182
01:10:35,725 --> 01:10:39,855
<i>and his researches in this area</i>
<i>took place under Picasso's window...</i>

1183
01:10:39,963 --> 01:10:44,263
where morning and night he practiced the trombone.

1184
01:10:48,972 --> 01:10:51,270
<i>Olaf's trombone commenced early...</i>

1185
01:10:53,209 --> 01:10:55,336
<i>finished late...</i>

1186
01:10:55,445 --> 01:10:57,777
<i>and nearly drove Picasso out of his skull.</i>

1187
01:10:59,882 --> 01:11:03,682
And then - then there was another distraction.

1188
01:11:04,988 --> 01:11:06,888
<i>Far more disturbing.</i>

1189
01:11:09,592 --> 01:11:11,492
<i>Oja.</i>

1190
01:11:14,097 --> 01:11:17,066
Oja in the morning, on her way to the beach.

1191
01:11:18,735 --> 01:11:21,602
Oja at 10:00, coming back for the suntan lotion.

1192
01:11:24,274 --> 01:11:27,266
To the beach again...

1193
01:11:27,377 --> 01:11:31,336
<i>and back once more at noon for lunch.</i>

1194
01:11:35,251 --> 01:11:38,982
<i>In that climate, after lunch one takes a siesta.</i>

1195
01:11:39,088 --> 01:11:41,852
<i>Not Oja. And not Picasso either.</i>

1196
01:11:43,726 --> 01:11:46,524
Cocktail time.

1197
01:11:46,629 --> 01:11:48,324
<i>Dinnertime.</i>

1198
01:11:48,431 --> 01:11:50,524
Anytime.

1199
01:11:51,834 --> 01:11:55,531
<i>Oja on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...</i>

1200
01:11:55,638 --> 01:11:57,868
<i>and all through the week.</i>

1201
01:11:59,475 --> 01:12:01,841
<i>Week after week.</i>

1202
01:12:02,612 --> 01:12:05,308
<i>Oja checking on the trombone.</i>

1203
01:12:05,415 --> 01:12:07,713
<i>Oja escaping from it.</i>

1204
01:12:07,817 --> 01:12:10,445
<i>But no escaping for Picasso.</i>

1205
01:12:44,220 --> 01:12:46,586
<i>Was he tempted?</i>

1206
01:12:56,332 --> 01:12:59,631
<i>Perhaps he was... inspired.</i>

1207
01:14:31,127 --> 01:14:35,029
I can't tell you what happened in there.

1208
01:14:35,131 --> 01:14:38,999
But Picasso was a fast worker, by which -

1209
01:14:39,101 --> 01:14:41,160
I mean to say, you understand, that...

1210
01:14:41,270 --> 01:14:44,239
the results of this encounter
were, to say the least of it...

1211
01:14:44,340 --> 01:14:47,138
extremely fruitful.

1212
01:15:10,433 --> 01:15:13,561
<i>Figs sweetened on the trees.</i>

1213
01:15:13,669 --> 01:15:18,106
<i>Grapes burst into ripeness on the vines.</i>

1214
01:15:19,141 --> 01:15:21,837
<i>And 22-22-</i>

1215
01:15:21,944 --> 01:15:25,072
<i>large portraits of Miss Oja Kodar...</i>

1216
01:15:25,181 --> 01:15:28,275
<i>were born under that virile brush.</i>

1217
01:15:30,486 --> 01:15:34,946
<i>Money. We've heard Elmyr on that subject.</i>

1218
01:15:35,057 --> 01:15:37,525
<i>Well, Picasso didn't make all that bread...</i>

1219
01:15:37,627 --> 01:15:41,154
by casting any crumbs of it on the waters,
or feeding it to the birds...

1220
01:15:41,264 --> 01:15:44,256
or giving away any pictures to his models.

1221
01:15:44,367 --> 01:15:48,030
<i>But Oja laid down conditions. She put a price...</i>

1222
01:15:48,137 --> 01:15:49,695
<i>on the sunshine.</i>

1223
01:15:49,805 --> 01:15:53,536
<i>To give it up, he had to give something to her.</i>
<i>And this is true, you know.</i>

1224
01:15:53,643 --> 01:15:56,737
<i>What she exacted from Picasso</i>
<i>was no less than this:</i>

1225
01:15:56,846 --> 01:15:59,974
All those pictures - all 22 of them -

1226
01:16:00,082 --> 01:16:02,550
were to be hers, outright.

1227
01:16:02,652 --> 01:16:06,850
Her property. Oja's very own
to pick up and carry away...

1228
01:16:06,956 --> 01:16:08,890
which is just exactly what she did with them.

1229
01:16:10,626 --> 01:16:14,323
<i>The lot. Let's call it the loot.</i>

1230
01:16:14,430 --> 01:16:17,263
<i>She got away with it all.</i>

1231
01:16:18,200 --> 01:16:20,828
Well, no wonder she's rich, you'll say.

1232
01:16:21,270 --> 01:16:23,238
But wait, there's more to this.

1233
01:16:23,339 --> 01:16:27,105
Just now, Paris is fogbound.

1234
01:16:27,209 --> 01:16:30,337
Just then - and this is important to our story-

1235
01:16:30,446 --> 01:16:32,914
there was another sort of paralysis.

1236
01:16:33,015 --> 01:16:35,745
Uh, Paris was suffering from August.

1237
01:16:35,851 --> 01:16:37,751
<i>This happens every year.</i>

1238
01:16:37,853 --> 01:16:40,344
<i>It shuts down, closes up...</i>

1239
01:16:40,456 --> 01:16:44,392
and this is the time when an invader
could take the country by telephone...

1240
01:16:44,493 --> 01:16:46,961
if he could get somebody to answer it.

1241
01:16:47,063 --> 01:16:50,590
And this is the time, of all time...

1242
01:16:50,700 --> 01:16:53,897
when, down there in Toussaint...

1243
01:16:54,003 --> 01:16:57,769
<i>Picasso, opening his morning newspaper...</i>

1244
01:16:57,873 --> 01:17:00,239
<i>read that in a little-known art gallery in Paris...</i>

1245
01:17:00,343 --> 01:17:02,811
<i>there had been opened</i>
<i>to the public an exposition...</i>

1246
01:17:02,912 --> 01:17:05,278
<i>of the works of Pablo Picasso.!</i>

1247
01:17:05,381 --> 01:17:09,681
<i>At this, a species of atomic blast...</i>

1248
01:17:09,785 --> 01:17:12,310
<i>stormed out of the Riviera.!</i>

1249
01:17:13,456 --> 01:17:15,981
<i>In the American hemisphere...</i>

1250
01:17:16,092 --> 01:17:18,788
<i>we give our bigger tornadoes...</i>

1251
01:17:18,894 --> 01:17:23,228
<i>names like Ethel, Mary Lou and Dolores.</i>

1252
01:17:23,332 --> 01:17:26,460
<i>Well, what shook the South of France that day...</i>

1253
01:17:26,569 --> 01:17:29,163
should've been called "Pablo."

1254
01:17:29,271 --> 01:17:31,831
Booking a seat on the first available plane...

1255
01:17:31,941 --> 01:17:34,535
<i>the storm now moved toward Paris.</i>

1256
01:17:34,644 --> 01:17:37,204
And there wasn't any improvement
in the atmospheric conditions...

1257
01:17:37,246 --> 01:17:41,842
at the airport when another newspaper
came to the artist's furious attention.

1258
01:17:41,951 --> 01:17:43,919
<i>"Picasso, said the headline..."</i>

1259
01:17:44,020 --> 01:17:45,954
"has been born again."

1260
01:17:46,055 --> 01:17:51,118
Critics were hailing the freshness,
the force, the fecundity.

1261
01:17:51,227 --> 01:17:53,593
But who cared? Not Picasso.

1262
01:17:53,696 --> 01:17:57,097
<i>No. There'd been a very clear understanding.</i>

1263
01:17:57,199 --> 01:18:01,158
None of those portraits were ever to be sold.

1264
01:18:01,270 --> 01:18:05,400
Oja'd get rich,
but not a penny's profit for Pablo.

1265
01:18:05,508 --> 01:18:11,071
There are witnesses who swear
that an aureole of blue flame...

1266
01:18:11,180 --> 01:18:13,648
sizzled about that noble head...

1267
01:18:13,749 --> 01:18:17,014
as the great painter
burst into the picture gallery.

1268
01:18:18,054 --> 01:18:21,751
What is remembered -
what will never be forgotten -

1269
01:18:21,857 --> 01:18:25,918
is the terrible incandescence...

1270
01:18:26,028 --> 01:18:28,428
of Picasso's rage.

1271
01:18:28,531 --> 01:18:31,989
<i>And then there came a sudden...</i>

1272
01:18:32,101 --> 01:18:34,797
<i>and quite remarkable change.</i>

1273
01:18:34,904 --> 01:18:38,738
<i>Those famous staring eyes...</i>

1274
01:18:38,841 --> 01:18:42,971
now stared as eyes have never stared before.

1275
01:18:49,351 --> 01:18:54,448
From picture to picture they traveled.

1276
01:18:56,125 --> 01:18:59,583
All 22 of them...

1277
01:18:59,695 --> 01:19:01,788
recognizing...

1278
01:19:01,897 --> 01:19:03,922
none.

1279
01:19:07,503 --> 01:19:11,200
Not one single canvas...

1280
01:19:11,307 --> 01:19:13,832
in that whole collection...

1281
01:19:16,479 --> 01:19:19,471
had been painted by Picasso.

1282
01:19:22,685 --> 01:19:24,744
And there she was...

1283
01:19:24,854 --> 01:19:27,584
<i>standing beside him.</i>

1284
01:19:27,690 --> 01:19:30,284
You told him about your...

1285
01:19:31,627 --> 01:19:34,152
grandfather...

1286
01:19:34,263 --> 01:19:36,163
that he was dying.

1287
01:19:37,433 --> 01:19:40,095
- He didn't even know he existed.
- Nobody did.

1288
01:19:40,202 --> 01:19:42,102
<i>The greatest of all the art forgers...</i>

1289
01:19:42,204 --> 01:19:45,799
remained always a legend,
mentioned only in whispers.

1290
01:19:45,908 --> 01:19:48,536
Oja, tell us what you did with Picasso.

1291
01:19:48,644 --> 01:19:50,942
I just took him by the hand and led him out...

1292
01:19:51,046 --> 01:19:52,946
and put him in my little car.

1293
01:19:53,048 --> 01:19:56,609
And drove him to your grandfather's secret studio?

1294
01:19:57,920 --> 01:20:01,788
This is true, you know.
What's amazing is that he went with her.

1295
01:20:01,891 --> 01:20:03,916
Here are some pictures.
These are the last I took of him.

1296
01:20:04,026 --> 01:20:05,618
And the first to be made public, hmm?

1297
01:20:05,728 --> 01:20:08,891
<i>He was never photographed, except in the family.</i>

1298
01:20:08,998 --> 01:20:11,865
- <i>He was very careful about that.</i>
- <i> That's why he was never caught.</i>

1299
01:20:11,967 --> 01:20:15,528
You know, I never thought to ask Elmyr about him.
After all, they're both Hungarians.

1300
01:20:15,638 --> 01:20:19,233
There are many great painters in the Renaissance,
but only one da Vinci.

1301
01:20:19,341 --> 01:20:21,261
The point being, that among great art forgers...

1302
01:20:21,343 --> 01:20:23,311
your grandfather is <i>the</i> da Vinci?

1303
01:20:23,412 --> 01:20:26,074
One of his da Vinci's is so famous
I don't dare to name it.

1304
01:20:26,182 --> 01:20:29,640
<i>Giving him credit is as tough</i>
<i>as nailing him for the crime.</i>

1305
01:20:29,752 --> 01:20:31,811
- Crime?
- Well...

1306
01:20:31,921 --> 01:20:33,889
<i>he painted every last one</i>
<i>of those phony Picassos of you.</i>

1307
01:20:33,989 --> 01:20:38,050
For every last one of which
Picasso was very highly praised.

1308
01:20:38,160 --> 01:20:41,926
<i>But not, to put it mildly, highly pleased. You</i>
<i>must have known you couldn't get away with it.</i>

1309
01:20:42,031 --> 01:20:44,022
I got to meet Picasso.

1310
01:20:44,133 --> 01:20:48,502
So, here they are,
the world's best and least known geniuses.

1311
01:20:48,604 --> 01:20:51,767
<i>My grandfather was very glad to see him.</i>

1312
01:20:51,874 --> 01:20:53,739
<i>"Picasso"...</i>

1313
01:20:53,843 --> 01:20:55,834
<i>said her grandfather...</i>

1314
01:20:55,945 --> 01:20:58,709
<i>"I've been painting you for years.</i>

1315
01:20:59,515 --> 01:21:03,281
<i>All the great Picasso periods. "</i>

1316
01:21:03,385 --> 01:21:06,183
<i>I'm not trying too hard</i>
<i>for the Hungarian accent...</i>

1317
01:21:06,288 --> 01:21:08,620
- <i>but I think that's how it went.</i>
- Oh, yes.

1318
01:21:08,724 --> 01:21:13,286
"This girl," said Picasso,
"claims that you're dying."

1319
01:21:13,395 --> 01:21:16,262
"A dying art forger," he said,
"is still an art forger."

1320
01:21:16,365 --> 01:21:18,765
Well, you tell us what Picasso said.

1321
01:21:18,868 --> 01:21:20,802
He called us both a couple of crooks.

1322
01:21:20,903 --> 01:21:23,428
<i>"Oja," said your grandfather,</i>
<i>"is quite as honest...</i>

1323
01:21:23,539 --> 01:21:26,872
<i>"as anyone that young, that beautiful...</i>

1324
01:21:26,976 --> 01:21:29,274
and that Hungarian has any need to be."

1325
01:21:29,378 --> 01:21:32,370
"She's stolen my pictures," said Picasso.

1326
01:21:32,481 --> 01:21:34,949
"She made you a gift, señor.
She gave you a whole summer."

1327
01:21:35,050 --> 01:21:39,248
"It's not more than the price of 22 Picassos.
And where, for God's sake, are they now?"

1328
01:21:39,355 --> 01:21:40,982
"Pablo -"

1329
01:21:41,090 --> 01:21:43,058
"May I call you Pablo?"

1330
01:21:45,160 --> 01:21:47,060
<i>"No."</i>

1331
01:21:48,764 --> 01:21:51,130
"Well, señor...

1332
01:21:51,233 --> 01:21:54,134
"it seems that in
my son-in-law's new little art gallery...

1333
01:21:54,236 --> 01:21:57,569
"there are 22 paintings,
every one of which has been acclaimed...

1334
01:21:57,673 --> 01:21:59,937
"as a masterpiece.

1335
01:22:00,042 --> 01:22:03,478
At least, that's the best critical opinion."

1336
01:22:03,579 --> 01:22:06,844
<i>"The best critical opinion</i>
<i>is a load of horse manure. "</i>

1337
01:22:06,949 --> 01:22:09,679
Or words to that effect.

1338
01:22:09,785 --> 01:22:13,346
"How perfectly we agree on that, señor.

1339
01:22:13,455 --> 01:22:15,946
<i>"But you have so little reason to be bitter.</i>

1340
01:22:16,058 --> 01:22:19,516
"Is there a man in all the world
who doesn't know your name?

1341
01:22:19,628 --> 01:22:21,619
And who in all the world knows mine?"

1342
01:22:21,730 --> 01:22:24,255
"You're one of those that use
so many names that you forget your own!"

1343
01:22:24,366 --> 01:22:27,995
"I, señor, am not one...

1344
01:22:28,103 --> 01:22:30,367
"of anything.

1345
01:22:30,472 --> 01:22:34,670
"Like you, I am unique.

1346
01:22:34,777 --> 01:22:38,213
<i>"You've seen my big Cézanne at the Metropolitan?</i>

1347
01:22:38,314 --> 01:22:42,410
<i>"Is that just a forgery, my friend?</i>

1348
01:22:43,752 --> 01:22:46,721
Is it not also a painting?"

1349
01:22:49,391 --> 01:22:52,121
<i>Now, you tell us what Picasso had to say to that.</i>

1350
01:22:52,227 --> 01:22:54,388
Something dirty in Spanish, I think.

1351
01:22:54,496 --> 01:22:57,192
He did accuse your grandfather of arrogance.

1352
01:22:57,299 --> 01:23:01,963
Arrogance? A man who never in his life
signed his own name to a picture.

1353
01:23:02,071 --> 01:23:03,971
What could be more modest than that?

1354
01:23:04,073 --> 01:23:06,769
"It's true that when you think
of those great Rembrandts,"

1355
01:23:06,875 --> 01:23:10,208
- Chicago has five of them. Important ones.
- <i>"And London.</i>

1356
01:23:10,312 --> 01:23:15,716
"Why, just those two small Tintorettos in Brazil.

1357
01:23:15,818 --> 01:23:18,582
- "And Tokyo."
- The big one.

1358
01:23:18,687 --> 01:23:23,021
In Cincinnati. Did all the Goyas
and most of the Grecos."

1359
01:23:23,125 --> 01:23:26,060
And the Monet. And the Manet in Detroit.

1360
01:23:26,161 --> 01:23:29,221
"So, am I not then myself"...

1361
01:23:29,331 --> 01:23:32,892
<i>said your grandfather, "one of the great painters?</i>

1362
01:23:33,002 --> 01:23:35,903
"No? No."

1363
01:23:37,139 --> 01:23:41,508
"Yet here you are, Picasso,
standing at the deathbed of a ghost."

1364
01:23:41,610 --> 01:23:43,737
"For all my life I've been a ghost."

1365
01:23:43,846 --> 01:23:48,783
"And for all time, the galleries and museums
will be haunted with my works."

1366
01:23:48,884 --> 01:23:53,048
"Do you think I should confess? To what?"

1367
01:23:53,155 --> 01:23:56,420
"Committing masterpieces?"

1368
01:23:56,525 --> 01:24:01,394
"They'd all be torn down from the walls.
And what then would be left of me?"

1369
01:24:01,497 --> 01:24:05,593
<i>"But before I die, I find I need something."</i>

1370
01:24:07,036 --> 01:24:09,197
"To believe -"

1371
01:24:11,774 --> 01:24:14,675
"I must believe..."

1372
01:24:14,777 --> 01:24:17,769
"that art itself..."

1373
01:24:19,148 --> 01:24:21,048
"is real."

1374
01:24:23,886 --> 01:24:26,116
If it is not, señor" -

1375
01:24:27,856 --> 01:24:30,689
Here, my grandfather was interrupted by Picasso...

1376
01:24:30,793 --> 01:24:33,284
who asked him to stop making speeches.

1377
01:24:33,395 --> 01:24:35,625
"We've only to settle the fate..."

1378
01:24:35,731 --> 01:24:38,291
"of 22 large canvases..."

1379
01:24:38,400 --> 01:24:40,300
"painted by me."

1380
01:24:40,402 --> 01:24:43,394
"Picasso, you move so easily..."

1381
01:24:43,505 --> 01:24:46,372
"from one Picasso period to another..."

1382
01:24:46,475 --> 01:24:49,342
"change like a-an actor..."

1383
01:24:49,445 --> 01:24:52,608
<i>"like an art forger yourself."</i>

1384
01:24:52,714 --> 01:24:55,581
<i>"Won't you give to me, who admire you so much..."</i>

1385
01:24:56,652 --> 01:24:59,052
"a happy death?"

1386
01:24:59,154 --> 01:25:01,315
"Can you not let me go knowing that at last..."

1387
01:25:01,423 --> 01:25:05,189
"I've managed to give something new..."

1388
01:25:05,294 --> 01:25:07,194
"to the world?"

1389
01:25:08,230 --> 01:25:11,290
"One whole Picasso period."

1390
01:25:13,969 --> 01:25:15,869
"Would you give me this?"

1391
01:25:15,971 --> 01:25:19,202
"Give me my pictures," said Picasso.

1392
01:25:19,308 --> 01:25:21,868
<i>"Give me back my 22 paintings. "</i>

1393
01:25:21,977 --> 01:25:25,413
<i>"Ah," said your grandfather. "That is impossible.</i>

1394
01:25:28,217 --> 01:25:30,117
"I have burnt them."

1395
01:25:31,753 --> 01:25:35,189
<i>Well, good-bye, Picasso.</i>

1396
01:25:35,324 --> 01:25:37,189
Time for a confession?

1397
01:25:38,827 --> 01:25:40,795
- Time to go.
- Good night, Oja.

1398
01:25:42,798 --> 01:25:44,698
That's her real name, you know.

1399
01:25:45,501 --> 01:25:48,095
Oja. Oja Kodar.

1400
01:25:48,203 --> 01:25:52,037
<i>I don't think that young gentleman's</i>
<i>a trombone player...</i>

1401
01:25:52,141 --> 01:25:55,042
but Oja's grandfather was Hungarian.

1402
01:25:55,144 --> 01:25:58,705
- <i>Did he paint any pictures?</i>
- Never in his life.

1403
01:25:58,814 --> 01:26:03,012
<i>Ladies and gentlemen,</i>
<i>we did use Oja's grandfather...</i>

1404
01:26:03,118 --> 01:26:06,485
<i>to lend verisimilitude to</i>
<i>the reenactment of this story.</i>

1405
01:26:06,588 --> 01:26:09,648
But is "reenactment" really the word?

1406
01:26:09,758 --> 01:26:12,591
<i>What I mean is,</i>
<i>with a story this hard to believe...</i>

1407
01:26:12,694 --> 01:26:15,959
<i>reenactment isn't easy.</i>

1408
01:26:16,064 --> 01:26:18,328
- Right, Francois?
- Right.

1409
01:26:18,433 --> 01:26:21,834
At the very beginning, I - of all this -
I did make you a promise.

1410
01:26:21,937 --> 01:26:24,804
<i>Remember? I did promise...</i>

1411
01:26:24,907 --> 01:26:28,536
that for one hour I'd tell you only the truth.

1412
01:26:33,115 --> 01:26:35,743
That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over.

1413
01:26:35,851 --> 01:26:39,719
For the past 17 minutes,
I've been lying my head off.

1414
01:26:41,056 --> 01:26:44,514
<i>The truth-and please forgive us for it-</i>

1415
01:26:44,626 --> 01:26:47,959
<i>is that we've been forging an art story.</i>

1416
01:26:48,063 --> 01:26:52,693
<i>As a charlatan, of course,</i>
<i>my job was to try to make it real...</i>

1417
01:26:52,801 --> 01:26:56,532
<i>not that reality has anything to do with it.</i>

1418
01:26:56,638 --> 01:26:59,971
<i>Reality? It's the toothbrush...</i>

1419
01:27:00,075 --> 01:27:03,101
<i>waiting at home for you in its glass.</i>

1420
01:27:03,212 --> 01:27:07,114
<i>A bus ticket, a paycheck...</i>

1421
01:27:07,216 --> 01:27:09,275
<i>and the grave.</i>

1422
01:27:09,384 --> 01:27:12,945
<i>In the right mood, perhaps,</i>
<i>Elmyr has just as few regrets...</i>

1423
01:27:13,055 --> 01:27:14,955
<i>as I have to have been a charlatan.</i>

1424
01:27:15,057 --> 01:27:17,582
<i>But we're not so proud, either of us...</i>

1425
01:27:17,693 --> 01:27:19,820
<i>as to lay any superior claim...</i>

1426
01:27:19,928 --> 01:27:22,761
<i>to being very much worse than the rest of you.</i>

1427
01:27:27,436 --> 01:27:31,964
<i>No, what we professional liars</i>
<i>hope to serve is truth.</i>

1428
01:27:32,074 --> 01:27:34,440
<i>I'm afraid the pompous word for that is "art. "</i>

1429
01:27:34,543 --> 01:27:37,239
<i>Picasso himself said it.</i>

1430
01:27:37,346 --> 01:27:39,906
<i>"Art, "he said, "is a lie-</i>

1431
01:27:41,016 --> 01:27:43,484
<i>"a lie that makes us...</i>

1432
01:27:43,585 --> 01:27:45,485
<i>realize the truth. "</i>

1433
01:27:46,722 --> 01:27:50,749
<i>Oja's grandfather, floating here in the air...</i>

1434
01:27:50,859 --> 01:27:52,656
<i>has no comment, which isn't surprising...</i>

1435
01:27:52,761 --> 01:27:55,662
<i>because he never existed.</i>

1436
01:27:55,764 --> 01:27:58,597
To the memory of that great man
who will never cease to exist...

1437
01:27:58,700 --> 01:28:02,693
I offer my apologies...

1438
01:28:02,804 --> 01:28:04,704
and wish you all...

1439
01:28:04,806 --> 01:28:08,298
true and false...

1440
01:28:08,410 --> 01:28:11,402
a very pleasant good evening.