1 00:00:21,021 --> 00:00:24,650 For my next experiment, ladies and gentlemen... 2 00:00:24,758 --> 00:00:28,922 I would appreciate the loan of any small personal object from your pocket- 3 00:00:29,029 --> 00:00:31,725 a key or a box of matches, a coin. 4 00:00:31,831 --> 00:00:37,030 Ah, a key it is. Good sir. Hold it up 10 feet over your head. 5 00:00:37,137 --> 00:00:41,938 And watch out for the slightest hint of hanky-panky. 6 00:00:42,042 --> 00:00:45,910 And behold, before our very eyes... 7 00:00:46,012 --> 00:00:47,912 a transformation. 8 00:00:48,014 --> 00:00:50,141 We've changed your key... 9 00:00:52,652 --> 00:00:54,279 into a coin. 10 00:00:54,387 --> 00:00:56,855 What happened to the key? It's been returned to you. 11 00:00:56,956 --> 00:01:00,892 Look closely, sir. You'll find the key... 12 00:01:00,994 --> 00:01:02,894 back in your pocket. 13 00:01:02,996 --> 00:01:04,896 May we see it, please? 14 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:08,595 Up to your old tricks, I see. 15 00:01:08,701 --> 00:01:11,295 Why not? I'm a charlatan. 16 00:01:11,404 --> 00:01:13,497 What's that, sir? Did I used to be a magician? 17 00:01:13,606 --> 00:01:16,006 Sir, I'm still working on it. 18 00:01:16,109 --> 00:01:21,240 As for the key, it was not symbolic of anything. 19 00:01:21,347 --> 00:01:23,247 This isn't that kind of movie. 20 00:01:23,349 --> 00:01:25,340 You'll find the coin now in your pocket, sir. 21 00:01:25,452 --> 00:01:28,080 Keep your eyes on that coin, sir... 22 00:01:28,188 --> 00:01:31,589 while it's returned to you as your key. 23 00:01:31,691 --> 00:01:35,320 Shall we return you to your mother? Is this your mother? No, of course not. 24 00:01:35,428 --> 00:01:37,521 Open your mouth, wide... 25 00:01:37,630 --> 00:01:40,690 and we'll return you your money. 26 00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:43,792 And by the way, have you ever heard of Robert-Houdin? 27 00:01:44,838 --> 00:01:48,274 Speaking of magicians, I mean? No, of course not. 28 00:01:48,374 --> 00:01:51,036 - But of course you do know my partner, François Reichenbach? - Hello. 29 00:01:51,144 --> 00:01:54,875 Houdin was the greatest magician who ever lived. 30 00:01:54,981 --> 00:01:56,915 And do you know what he said? 31 00:02:02,122 --> 00:02:06,718 - "A magician," he said, "is just an actor. " - Well, good luck to you. 32 00:02:06,826 --> 00:02:10,626 Just an actor playing the part of a magician. 33 00:02:18,004 --> 00:02:21,496 - Very nice. - And she's fabulously rich too. 34 00:02:21,608 --> 00:02:24,008 - There's a good story about it. - Do you want to tell it? 35 00:02:24,110 --> 00:02:26,374 We'll come to that one later. 36 00:02:26,479 --> 00:02:28,379 No, it's time for an introduction. 37 00:02:35,855 --> 00:02:38,380 Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction... 38 00:02:38,491 --> 00:02:43,121 this is a film about trickery and fraud... 39 00:02:43,229 --> 00:02:46,164 about lies. 40 00:02:46,266 --> 00:02:50,134 Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie... 41 00:02:50,236 --> 00:02:52,898 almost any story is almost certainly... 42 00:02:53,006 --> 00:02:54,906 some kind of lie. 43 00:02:56,342 --> 00:02:59,470 But not this time. No, this is a promise. 44 00:02:59,579 --> 00:03:03,242 During the next hour, everything you'll hear from us is really true... 45 00:03:03,349 --> 00:03:05,249 and based on solid facts. 46 00:03:06,719 --> 00:03:09,882 You don't talk about Napoleon or Julius Caesar. 47 00:03:09,989 --> 00:03:12,890 - You're talking about Elmyr. - Elmyr? 48 00:03:12,992 --> 00:03:14,857 - Elmyr? - Who is Elmyr? 49 00:03:14,961 --> 00:03:18,590 That question has yet to be answered with any real precision. 50 00:03:18,698 --> 00:03:21,792 - Can I kiss you too? - Certainly. 51 00:03:21,901 --> 00:03:24,369 Anybody want to eat? 52 00:03:24,470 --> 00:03:27,962 In the world of the jet-setters, among us beautiful people... 53 00:03:28,074 --> 00:03:31,407 everybody knows Elmyr, but Elmyr what? 54 00:03:31,511 --> 00:03:33,911 - He has about 60 time the same name. - De Hory? 55 00:03:34,013 --> 00:03:38,882 He's called his name Hory, Heury, Bory, Sury, Kury, Bury, Dury-All the - 56 00:03:40,853 --> 00:03:42,718 With put U-R-Y. Sixty names. 57 00:03:42,822 --> 00:03:46,952 - His real name was Elmyr Ferenc Huffman. - Then 60 personalities... 58 00:03:47,093 --> 00:03:49,118 as much lies and as much real. 59 00:03:49,195 --> 00:03:52,892 Well, it sounds very Jesuitical. 60 00:03:55,068 --> 00:03:57,628 Yes, his world is a world of make-believe. 61 00:03:59,672 --> 00:04:03,130 - I'm not an actor. - Not an actor? Elmyr? 62 00:04:03,243 --> 00:04:05,177 I'm not an actor. 63 00:04:06,546 --> 00:04:09,947 - I am not a professional actor. - He's a leading actor in this movie. 64 00:04:10,049 --> 00:04:13,246 His profession, it's true, is painting-painting fakes. 65 00:04:13,353 --> 00:04:16,322 Among all fakers, Elmyr is number two. 66 00:04:16,422 --> 00:04:19,050 Once I saw a man from Ibiza... 67 00:04:19,158 --> 00:04:22,184 writing a book on fake, who came to see me to Paris. 68 00:04:22,295 --> 00:04:25,492 He said, "I heard you are the first man who bought an Elmyr. " 69 00:04:25,598 --> 00:04:29,967 - And that man's name was- - Clifford Irving. 70 00:04:33,306 --> 00:04:37,174 The important distinction to make when you're talking about... 71 00:04:37,277 --> 00:04:41,338 the genuine quality of a painting... 72 00:04:42,382 --> 00:04:45,613 is not so much whether it's a real painting or a fake. 73 00:04:48,955 --> 00:04:51,014 It's whether it's a good fake or a bad fake. 74 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,027 Her name... 75 00:07:44,130 --> 00:07:47,725 is Oja, Oja Kodar. 76 00:07:47,834 --> 00:07:50,234 And this, by the way, is from quite another film... 77 00:07:50,336 --> 00:07:55,899 a sequence on the fine outdoor sport of girl-watching. 78 00:07:56,008 --> 00:08:01,878 Our sneaky crew of cameramen hidden away in camouflaged trucks and packing boxes... 79 00:08:01,981 --> 00:08:04,040 arranged for her to act for them. 80 00:08:04,150 --> 00:08:06,710 To act as bait. 81 00:08:11,023 --> 00:08:12,923 You see how it worked. 82 00:08:15,061 --> 00:08:17,086 The entire cast... 83 00:08:17,196 --> 00:08:20,097 all the performers, except one... 84 00:08:20,199 --> 00:08:23,225 acting away like crazy for us without getting paid for it... 85 00:08:23,336 --> 00:08:25,702 - without even knowing they were movie actors. - Mama mia.! 86 00:08:25,805 --> 00:08:28,740 - Simple larceny. Well, maybe not simple. - Mama mia.! 87 00:08:28,841 --> 00:08:30,775 That year nothing was simple... 88 00:08:31,811 --> 00:08:33,711 least of all the larceny. 89 00:08:33,813 --> 00:08:35,906 Now in this little gag, Lawrence Harvey... 90 00:08:36,015 --> 00:08:38,677 our leading man from yet another movie... 91 00:08:38,784 --> 00:08:42,652 couldn't arrange space for Miss Kodar on a plane. 92 00:08:42,755 --> 00:08:45,952 Well, there's no room in this movie to tell you why in that other one... 93 00:08:46,058 --> 00:08:49,516 we squeezed Miss Kodar into a more convenient size for traveling... 94 00:08:49,629 --> 00:08:51,756 by a magical illusion. 95 00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:58,566 But you really must believe that what comes afterwards is solid fact. 96 00:08:58,671 --> 00:09:02,038 Yes, after this bit of hocus-pocus, the next thing we heard about her... 97 00:09:02,141 --> 00:09:04,041 was not as an actress... 98 00:09:04,143 --> 00:09:08,136 but as the leading figure in a notorious swindle. 99 00:09:13,686 --> 00:09:15,813 I took another plane, grew another beard... 100 00:09:15,922 --> 00:09:18,652 made another movie and well before Miss Kodar- 101 00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:24,257 We'll leave Miss Kodar aside for the moment. 102 00:09:24,363 --> 00:09:26,763 But in case that mumbojumbo might make it seem... 103 00:09:26,866 --> 00:09:30,199 that there's going to be some trickery in this film about trickery... 104 00:09:30,303 --> 00:09:32,737 we'll repeat our promise... 105 00:09:32,838 --> 00:09:34,829 in writing. 106 00:09:34,941 --> 00:09:39,071 The girl-watching was evidence of how much of all this was filmed... 107 00:09:39,178 --> 00:09:42,875 in blissful ignorance of the facts... 108 00:09:42,982 --> 00:09:44,950 about some of the various characters... 109 00:09:45,051 --> 00:09:47,485 who found their way in front of our cameras. 110 00:09:47,587 --> 00:09:51,284 Well, Clifford Irving told the story in the book. 111 00:09:51,390 --> 00:09:53,187 Maybe. 112 00:09:53,292 --> 00:09:57,126 Well, by now, you understand, I'd fallen in with François. 113 00:09:57,229 --> 00:09:59,220 And on the island of Ibiza... 114 00:09:59,332 --> 00:10:02,301 we'd fallen smack into the biggest series of scandals... 115 00:10:02,401 --> 00:10:04,198 in the whole history of hoaxing. 116 00:10:04,303 --> 00:10:07,363 It was a pretty queer experience to start making yet another movie... 117 00:10:07,473 --> 00:10:10,271 and end up making yet another... 118 00:10:10,376 --> 00:10:14,176 with a story line rotten with coincidence. 119 00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:17,681 For instance, that the author of Fake! a book about a faker... 120 00:10:17,783 --> 00:10:23,153 was himself a faker and the author of a fake to end all fakes- 121 00:10:23,255 --> 00:10:25,951 and that he must have been cooking it up when we were filming him. 122 00:10:26,058 --> 00:10:29,152 - Well. - Quiet, please. Edith Irving. 123 00:10:29,261 --> 00:10:35,166 - Take three. - Look, you've known Elmyr longer than anyone else on this island. 124 00:10:35,267 --> 00:10:37,895 Do you really believe he did all those fakes? 125 00:10:38,004 --> 00:10:40,370 - No, I really don't believe it. - Sorry. 126 00:10:40,473 --> 00:10:42,464 I've been jumping around like this because that's the way it was. 127 00:10:42,575 --> 00:10:44,475 Clifford Irving, take two. 128 00:10:44,577 --> 00:10:47,307 Let's pull ourselves together if we can and begin at the beginning. 129 00:10:47,413 --> 00:10:51,247 Now, on this tablecloth, which is decorated with a map, is where everything- 130 00:10:51,350 --> 00:10:54,251 Which I've just loused up with some wine. 131 00:10:54,353 --> 00:10:58,312 But I understand wine brings good luck behind the ear. 132 00:10:58,424 --> 00:11:00,722 Well, we can use a little luck anywhere. 133 00:11:00,826 --> 00:11:03,852 And here is - I'll have to mark it in. 134 00:11:03,963 --> 00:11:08,730 On this tiny island is where the two great hoaxes were hatched - Ibiza. 135 00:11:11,937 --> 00:11:16,271 One island, two Ibizas. 136 00:11:16,375 --> 00:11:18,400 The serious, indeed, the very sober part... 137 00:11:18,511 --> 00:11:20,911 is part of Spain. 138 00:11:21,013 --> 00:11:25,916 And the other, "An island in the sun," Life magazine calls it... 139 00:11:26,018 --> 00:11:28,953 "where restless souls may find each other. " 140 00:11:30,156 --> 00:11:32,886 The restless souls being, I guess... 141 00:11:32,992 --> 00:11:35,552 Cliff Irving, over there- 142 00:11:35,661 --> 00:11:38,425 and Elmyr. 143 00:11:38,531 --> 00:11:42,695 Coincidence number one: That these two world leaders in fakery... 144 00:11:42,802 --> 00:11:46,101 operated, quite separately, on the same tiny island. 145 00:11:47,873 --> 00:11:52,105 That's Mrs. Irving. Elmyr and Mrs. Irving. 146 00:11:52,211 --> 00:11:54,236 Clifford Irving, who declared that he himself... 147 00:11:54,346 --> 00:11:56,871 had delivered to Howard Hughes or his aides... 148 00:11:56,982 --> 00:12:00,281 the quarter of a million dollars publisher's advance... 149 00:12:00,386 --> 00:12:03,378 suddenly confessed today that Mrs. Irving... 150 00:12:03,489 --> 00:12:07,152 is the same Helga R. Hughes wanted by the police - 151 00:12:15,134 --> 00:12:18,262 "If Clifford dragged Edith into this, "said Elmyr... 152 00:12:18,370 --> 00:12:20,964 "I spit on his face. " 153 00:12:21,073 --> 00:12:24,304 This was later, of course, when everything was finally hanging out... 154 00:12:24,410 --> 00:12:27,004 or as much of it as I guess any of us will ever get to see. 155 00:12:27,113 --> 00:12:32,278 And then we had to stop these Moviolas, use them as time machines... 156 00:12:32,384 --> 00:12:34,147 and then roll back and come in again... 157 00:12:34,253 --> 00:12:37,450 to the days when Clifford Irving, as far as any of us knew... 158 00:12:37,556 --> 00:12:41,754 was just a researcher into someone else's fakery. 159 00:12:41,861 --> 00:12:43,886 And now for the truth, Clifford. 160 00:12:45,064 --> 00:12:48,124 We'd like to ask you a few question. 161 00:12:48,234 --> 00:12:52,967 My personal feelings about Elmyr are... very mixed. 162 00:12:53,072 --> 00:12:55,370 He has developed a fiction about his life... 163 00:12:55,474 --> 00:12:57,374 and to destroy that fiction... 164 00:12:57,476 --> 00:13:01,674 would tear down the whole castle that he's built... 165 00:13:01,781 --> 00:13:03,681 of his illusions. 166 00:13:03,783 --> 00:13:06,809 The illusion, for example, that he has not broken any law. 167 00:13:06,919 --> 00:13:08,819 As long as people enjoy it... 168 00:13:08,921 --> 00:13:11,481 and it gives them pleasure, why shouldn't they have it? 169 00:13:11,590 --> 00:13:15,617 The illusion that the world has always taken advantage of him. 170 00:13:15,728 --> 00:13:18,526 - Why they shouldn't have it? Why? - If you were to put it to Elmyr... 171 00:13:18,631 --> 00:13:20,565 that he had taken advantage of the world... 172 00:13:20,666 --> 00:13:22,896 that he had cheated people, he'd be horrified. 173 00:13:23,002 --> 00:13:26,836 These two have made each other famous. 174 00:13:26,939 --> 00:13:29,806 They have much in common: 175 00:13:29,909 --> 00:13:32,776 One of them is talent. 176 00:13:32,878 --> 00:13:34,937 Well, let's start again. 177 00:13:36,115 --> 00:13:38,549 We'll patch this film together... 178 00:13:38,651 --> 00:13:43,520 and we'll try to patch together Elmyr's version of this story. 179 00:13:43,622 --> 00:13:45,988 I came to Ibiza in 1959... 180 00:13:46,091 --> 00:13:50,858 after I found certain aspects of my life in America... 181 00:13:50,963 --> 00:13:53,158 becoming too difficult. 182 00:13:53,265 --> 00:13:56,029 I wandered around Europe for a time. 183 00:13:56,135 --> 00:13:59,502 I eventually came here. I liked life here. 184 00:13:59,605 --> 00:14:03,666 I liked the island. I liked the atmosphere. I liked the people. 185 00:14:03,776 --> 00:14:07,542 And so I decided that is the place where I want to settle. 186 00:14:07,646 --> 00:14:11,582 The island is, uh, simpatico... 187 00:14:11,684 --> 00:14:13,948 as they say in Chinese. 188 00:14:14,053 --> 00:14:17,887 There is always a group of interesting people here. 189 00:14:17,990 --> 00:14:21,756 Uh, I find the people amusing. 190 00:14:21,861 --> 00:14:24,295 Sandy, come and say something witty. 191 00:14:24,396 --> 00:14:27,263 Ibiza is not a place for snobbish society. 192 00:14:27,366 --> 00:14:30,699 It's not London. It's not Paris. It's not Omaha. 193 00:14:30,803 --> 00:14:34,000 It is Ibiza, and that's the charm of Ibiza. 194 00:14:34,106 --> 00:14:36,802 That's what makes Ibiza why we like to live here. 195 00:14:36,909 --> 00:14:40,072 Ibiza is Ibiza, and here people are themselves, you know... 196 00:14:40,179 --> 00:14:43,637 doing rather strange things all the time, you know. 197 00:14:43,749 --> 00:14:45,580 So they shouldn't really be shocked. 198 00:14:45,684 --> 00:14:50,815 And, uh, everybody minds everybody else's business very intensely. 199 00:14:50,923 --> 00:14:55,121 Several months ago, I read an article... 200 00:14:55,227 --> 00:14:57,718 about Elmyr de Hory... 201 00:14:57,830 --> 00:15:00,390 and I was so impressed... 202 00:15:00,499 --> 00:15:03,593 that I decided to come from Minnesota... 203 00:15:03,702 --> 00:15:05,602 to Ibiza... 204 00:15:05,704 --> 00:15:07,604 in the hope of meeting Elmyr. 205 00:15:07,706 --> 00:15:10,937 And now I have become... 206 00:15:11,043 --> 00:15:12,943 his bodyguard. 207 00:15:13,045 --> 00:15:16,537 That's Mark speaking, Elmyr's friend. 208 00:15:16,649 --> 00:15:18,549 He takes his duties seriously. 209 00:15:18,651 --> 00:15:23,281 Elmyr himself swears that he goes in daily dread of being murdered. 210 00:15:23,389 --> 00:15:25,914 This takes us into murky waters... 211 00:15:26,025 --> 00:15:28,994 where the lawyers tell us we'd be rash to go fishing. 212 00:15:29,094 --> 00:15:32,996 In Fake! there's just a hint or two about this violence and danger... 213 00:15:33,098 --> 00:15:36,363 as a result of which, Irving, on top of all his other troubles... 214 00:15:36,468 --> 00:15:41,929 is being sued for $55 million worth of slander. 215 00:15:42,041 --> 00:15:46,444 Interesting question: Is Clifford Irving being sued for telling the truth? 216 00:15:46,545 --> 00:15:48,706 What makes a slight legal difference - 217 00:15:48,814 --> 00:15:52,841 Well, if you buy the notion that Cliff Irving turned to forgery... 218 00:15:52,952 --> 00:15:55,147 before he turned to Elmyr... 219 00:15:55,254 --> 00:15:58,018 then I guess you can keep right on through the looking glass... 220 00:15:58,123 --> 00:16:02,457 and believe that his book about Elmyr is a pack of lies. 221 00:16:02,561 --> 00:16:04,461 I'm sorry. A lie about what? 222 00:16:04,563 --> 00:16:07,964 That Fake.! is a fake, and Elmyr himself... 223 00:16:08,067 --> 00:16:10,535 is a fake... faker. 224 00:16:10,636 --> 00:16:13,537 - Fake fakes! - Fake, nothing. 225 00:16:13,639 --> 00:16:15,573 Elmyr's a true faker. 226 00:16:15,674 --> 00:16:19,405 Here, for instance, is a van Dongen by Elmyr. 227 00:16:19,511 --> 00:16:21,411 Van Dongen studied it carefully... 228 00:16:21,513 --> 00:16:24,038 and then swore that he'd painted it himself. 229 00:16:24,149 --> 00:16:26,913 He's now known as the greatest art forger in the world. 230 00:16:27,019 --> 00:16:29,817 Well, I don't admit anything, I just talk about it. 231 00:16:29,922 --> 00:16:33,688 'Cause he's scared. You know, there could be a jail sentence hanging over his head. 232 00:16:33,792 --> 00:16:35,817 "Elmyr," cries a French newspaper... 233 00:16:35,928 --> 00:16:38,362 "has sold his soul to the devil. " 234 00:16:38,464 --> 00:16:40,159 They said that about a wizard of the fiddle. 235 00:16:40,265 --> 00:16:42,495 Elmyr's another wizard of another sort of fiddle- 236 00:16:42,601 --> 00:16:44,592 a true Paganini of the palette. 237 00:16:44,703 --> 00:16:48,935 It's no wonder that a faker like Elmyr... 238 00:16:49,041 --> 00:16:51,942 can get away with it for 22 years. 239 00:16:52,044 --> 00:16:55,411 If you hang them in a museum or your collection of great paintings... 240 00:16:55,514 --> 00:16:58,449 and if they hang long enough there, they become real. 241 00:16:58,550 --> 00:17:00,450 Because there's always a market for it. 242 00:17:00,552 --> 00:17:02,884 How much is that drawing worth on the market today? 243 00:17:02,988 --> 00:17:06,617 Probably around $8,000 till $10,000. 244 00:17:06,725 --> 00:17:09,091 To my knowledge, he has never made a mistake... 245 00:17:09,194 --> 00:17:11,992 when identifying a painting. 246 00:17:12,097 --> 00:17:16,591 - What period is that Matisse? - Uh, '36. 247 00:17:16,702 --> 00:17:19,762 I, uh, feel that we should burn it. 248 00:17:19,872 --> 00:17:23,035 When he looks at a painting- a Matisse, a Chagall- 249 00:17:23,142 --> 00:17:26,839 and says, "That's mine, I did it," he is always right. 250 00:17:26,945 --> 00:17:29,140 Elmyr. 251 00:17:29,248 --> 00:17:32,046 There is just no way of talking about Elmyr... 252 00:17:32,151 --> 00:17:34,278 and leaving out Cliff Irving. 253 00:17:34,386 --> 00:17:36,411 Not any longer. Right up to the finish... 254 00:17:36,522 --> 00:17:41,391 Elmyr plays a very important role in his biographer's own story. 255 00:17:41,493 --> 00:17:44,860 Now, just here, of course, he's stage center. 256 00:17:44,963 --> 00:17:46,954 Willkommen! Willkommen. 257 00:17:47,066 --> 00:17:49,091 And Irving, who, I'll have to admit... 258 00:17:49,201 --> 00:17:51,669 is a much better magician than I am... 259 00:17:51,770 --> 00:17:55,331 has yet to transform himself before our very eyes... 260 00:17:55,441 --> 00:17:58,001 into a superstar. 261 00:17:58,110 --> 00:18:02,513 François, you know, we talk about your shirt, Reichenbach. 262 00:18:02,614 --> 00:18:04,912 It was indecently ugly. 263 00:18:05,017 --> 00:18:09,010 I can assure you. 264 00:18:13,158 --> 00:18:16,616 - I must tell you something. I went to the airport today. - Oh. 265 00:18:16,728 --> 00:18:20,630 I picked up a copy of the London Daily Express. 266 00:18:21,667 --> 00:18:23,567 And there was an article: 267 00:18:23,669 --> 00:18:26,797 "Exposed: A Man Who Holds the Art World to Ransom. " 268 00:18:26,905 --> 00:18:29,965 - Exposed.! Darling, we can't have you exposed.! - "Sitting in the sunny studio -" 269 00:18:32,811 --> 00:18:36,338 And then it goes on to tell the story of how I took the Modigliani... 270 00:18:36,448 --> 00:18:39,076 - to the Metropolitan Museum of Art"- - There's a big article! 271 00:18:39,184 --> 00:18:43,211 "A profound embarrassment to them all. " 272 00:18:43,322 --> 00:18:47,622 Elmyr is a profound embarrassment to them all. 273 00:18:51,997 --> 00:18:54,795 The art world, as it were, has been... 274 00:18:56,101 --> 00:18:58,001 a huge confidence trick. 275 00:18:58,103 --> 00:19:02,403 "Exposed: A Man Who Holds the Art World to Ransom. " 276 00:19:04,843 --> 00:19:08,904 - "Sitting in the sunny studio of his £60,000 villa... - It's fantastic. 277 00:19:09,014 --> 00:19:11,073 "On the Mediterranean island of Ibiza... 278 00:19:11,183 --> 00:19:14,778 "it took Elmyr Dory-Boutin, the world's greatest art forger... 279 00:19:14,887 --> 00:19:18,220 just one hour to draw an original Modigliani. " 280 00:19:18,323 --> 00:19:21,417 Today, on a sale, it would bring somewhere around... 281 00:19:23,028 --> 00:19:24,655 $15,000. 282 00:19:24,863 --> 00:19:27,388 There was really no time when he ever could have done it. 283 00:19:27,499 --> 00:19:30,866 And also as a man, how I knew him... 284 00:19:30,969 --> 00:19:32,869 it was all much more a joke. 285 00:19:32,971 --> 00:19:36,873 The world has yet to hear a word about that wig she wore in the Swiss bank. 286 00:19:36,975 --> 00:19:39,535 There hasn't been a breath about funny passports... 287 00:19:39,645 --> 00:19:42,375 or phony signatures, and here's Edith... 288 00:19:42,481 --> 00:19:44,949 telling Clifford Irving that she can't believe Elmyr... 289 00:19:45,050 --> 00:19:47,041 had anything to do with fakery. 290 00:19:47,152 --> 00:19:49,950 Therefore I never could think or will even think now... 291 00:19:50,055 --> 00:19:53,547 that he sat down and did those paintings. 292 00:19:53,659 --> 00:19:55,559 - It's a good drawing. - If he did it, my compliment. 293 00:19:55,661 --> 00:20:01,065 - Should we burn it? - And I only hope there are more people who do them. 294 00:20:03,035 --> 00:20:06,596 Irving's book about Elmyr... 295 00:20:06,705 --> 00:20:10,471 is the story of a man of talent taking the mickey out of those who had rejected him... 296 00:20:10,576 --> 00:20:14,034 translating disappointments into a gigantic joke. 297 00:20:14,146 --> 00:20:19,140 You think I should keep it for my old age? 298 00:20:22,821 --> 00:20:26,882 All right, I will. So I put it back in. 299 00:20:26,992 --> 00:20:29,961 You're a painter. Why do you want people to do fakes? 300 00:20:30,062 --> 00:20:32,189 Because the fakes are as good as the real ones... 301 00:20:32,297 --> 00:20:34,663 and there's a market, and there's a demand. 302 00:20:34,766 --> 00:20:38,964 If you didn't have an art market, then fakers could not exist. 303 00:20:40,839 --> 00:20:44,605 - So, the more, the better. No? - If you say so. 304 00:20:44,710 --> 00:20:47,144 Here's another little coincidence. 305 00:20:47,246 --> 00:20:49,146 A peculiar moment during a lunch party. 306 00:20:49,248 --> 00:20:54,049 And in Switzerland, checks are not accepted. 307 00:20:54,152 --> 00:20:57,918 You pay cash on the table. 308 00:20:58,023 --> 00:21:01,151 That's Switzerland. You are Swiss. 309 00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:03,353 And you know it. 310 00:21:03,462 --> 00:21:05,828 If you did those paintings, my compliments. 311 00:21:05,931 --> 00:21:09,867 And I only think it's a pity that there are not more people like you. 312 00:21:09,968 --> 00:21:14,405 And we only pray that he doesn't exist again.! 313 00:21:14,506 --> 00:21:17,771 Mrs. Irving now claims Mr. Hughes himself asked Mrs. Irving... 314 00:21:17,876 --> 00:21:21,368 to deposit the money in a Swiss bank and then draw it out. 315 00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,176 The manuscript itself, however... 316 00:21:24,283 --> 00:21:26,183 he maintains is genuine. 317 00:21:27,386 --> 00:21:29,786 I've known Elmyr for about eight years. 318 00:21:29,888 --> 00:21:32,755 We met when I was broke - 319 00:21:32,858 --> 00:21:36,225 when I was writing fiction and wasn't selling it very well. 320 00:21:37,496 --> 00:21:39,259 His fiction didn't sell. 321 00:21:39,364 --> 00:21:42,231 Elmyr's biographer is a highly gifted writer. 322 00:21:42,334 --> 00:21:44,427 Does it say something for this age of ours... 323 00:21:44,536 --> 00:21:47,801 - that he could only make it big by fakery? - Je crois. 324 00:21:47,906 --> 00:21:52,900 - That a hoax has made him the most famous writer in the world? - La grande suprise. 325 00:21:53,011 --> 00:21:55,070 Cliff Irving's caper may well be the hoax of the century... 326 00:21:55,180 --> 00:22:00,174 but really, this is not, you know, in any way, the century of the hoax. 327 00:22:00,285 --> 00:22:02,981 We hanky-panky men have always been with you. 328 00:22:03,088 --> 00:22:05,488 - That's a fact. - What's new are the- - The experts. 329 00:22:05,590 --> 00:22:08,184 - The experts. - The so-called experts. 330 00:22:08,293 --> 00:22:12,093 - Experts are the new oracles. - While greatly pretentious - 331 00:22:12,197 --> 00:22:15,496 They speak to us with the absolute authority of the computer. 332 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:17,500 Pretend to know something... 333 00:22:17,602 --> 00:22:20,901 what they only know very superficially. 334 00:22:21,006 --> 00:22:22,974 And we bow down before them. 335 00:22:23,075 --> 00:22:25,407 They're God's own gift to the faker. 336 00:22:25,510 --> 00:22:28,946 All the world loves to see... 337 00:22:29,047 --> 00:22:32,813 the experts and the establishment made a fool of. 338 00:22:32,918 --> 00:22:34,909 Let's say we could find... 339 00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:38,751 a Modigliani made by Kisling... 340 00:22:38,857 --> 00:22:41,883 a Modigliani by Elmyr... 341 00:22:42,928 --> 00:22:45,522 and one Modigliani by Modigliani. 342 00:22:45,630 --> 00:22:51,466 It could be anyone from Knoedler to Paris or any of the great ones... 343 00:22:51,570 --> 00:22:55,597 who consider themselves great and experts. 344 00:22:55,707 --> 00:22:59,973 If any of them recognize which one is which - 345 00:23:00,078 --> 00:23:01,978 And if the lawyers would just let us... 346 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:05,379 we could name you one highly respected museum... 347 00:23:05,484 --> 00:23:09,386 which boasts of an important collection of Postimpressionists... 348 00:23:09,488 --> 00:23:13,254 every single one of which was painted by Elmyr. 349 00:23:13,358 --> 00:23:17,021 Elmyr, as the great faker of the 20th century... 350 00:23:17,129 --> 00:23:20,428 becomes a modern folk hero for the rest of us... 351 00:23:20,532 --> 00:23:23,592 who have a bit of larceny in ourselves... 352 00:23:23,702 --> 00:23:28,469 but simply don't have the courage or the opportunity to express it. 353 00:23:28,573 --> 00:23:33,010 When you wrote his biography, you don't think you've been a little hard on him? 354 00:23:33,111 --> 00:23:36,808 Some people even say, "After I did read the book of Clifford Irving about you... 355 00:23:36,915 --> 00:23:38,815 I like you even more than before. " 356 00:23:38,917 --> 00:23:44,150 You exploded the myth of the infallibility... 357 00:23:44,256 --> 00:23:47,657 of the art dealers and museum directors... 358 00:23:47,759 --> 00:23:51,024 in that you exposed their crookedness... 359 00:23:51,129 --> 00:23:53,791 their evilness and viciousness. 360 00:23:55,867 --> 00:23:58,700 I went around to the art galleries. 361 00:23:59,905 --> 00:24:02,999 Not with my book... 362 00:24:03,108 --> 00:24:06,077 but with a catalog... 363 00:24:06,178 --> 00:24:08,908 which included a great many paintings... 364 00:24:09,014 --> 00:24:11,278 that had been sold over the past few years. 365 00:24:12,317 --> 00:24:15,616 In this catalog was this Modigliani... 366 00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:18,211 which is a Modigliani by Elmyr. 367 00:24:18,323 --> 00:24:20,883 He worked very little. He died very early... 368 00:24:20,992 --> 00:24:25,292 so if they're added to a few paintings, a few drawings... 369 00:24:25,397 --> 00:24:27,991 it's not going to destroy his oeuvre. 370 00:24:28,099 --> 00:24:29,999 I would say, "This is a fake"... 371 00:24:30,101 --> 00:24:32,695 and the art gallery owner would say, "Well, yes, of course. 372 00:24:32,804 --> 00:24:34,965 "I mean, you can see it's a fake, because Modigliani... 373 00:24:35,073 --> 00:24:37,234 "would never have drawn the line of the arm... 374 00:24:37,342 --> 00:24:39,936 "parallel to the line of the dress that way. 375 00:24:40,045 --> 00:24:43,845 And the background is very badly done, and the signature isn't right. " 376 00:24:43,949 --> 00:24:48,613 In the next gallery, I would show them this Modigliani in the catalog and say... 377 00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,018 - "That's a genuine Modigliani. " - Possibly, yes. 378 00:24:51,122 --> 00:24:54,990 And they would look at it and say, "Yes, you can see it's one of his finest. 379 00:24:55,093 --> 00:24:57,391 "It's a portrait of Mademoiselle Hébuterne," 380 00:24:57,496 --> 00:25:00,056 and "We know it very well," and "It's reproduced everywhere. " 381 00:25:00,165 --> 00:25:02,633 After that, I must say... 382 00:25:02,734 --> 00:25:06,830 I lost my faith in the concept of expertise. 383 00:25:06,938 --> 00:25:10,601 I don't feel bad for Modigliani. I feel good for me. 384 00:25:12,511 --> 00:25:14,706 You name them. He paints them. 385 00:25:14,813 --> 00:25:16,610 He'll do you a Dufy, a van Dongen... 386 00:25:16,715 --> 00:25:20,845 a Derain, a Braque, a Bonnard, a Vlaminck. 387 00:25:20,952 --> 00:25:24,786 - Would you like a nice Matisse? - Many of these drawings... 388 00:25:26,358 --> 00:25:28,349 are very weak. 389 00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:31,623 Matisse's lines were never that sure as mine. 390 00:25:31,730 --> 00:25:35,860 He was hesitant when he made the drawing, you know? 391 00:25:35,967 --> 00:25:40,301 He added to it a little more and a little more. 392 00:25:40,405 --> 00:25:44,136 It wasn't as flowing, it wasn't as sure as mine. 393 00:25:44,242 --> 00:25:46,210 I had to hesitate... 394 00:25:48,513 --> 00:25:51,175 to make it more Matisse-like. 395 00:25:52,517 --> 00:25:53,984 Et voilà. 396 00:25:54,085 --> 00:25:57,612 I would like to see any expert... 397 00:25:57,722 --> 00:26:00,953 or any museum director, or any art dealer... 398 00:26:01,059 --> 00:26:05,120 who'd know which one is a Matisse... 399 00:26:06,865 --> 00:26:09,231 and which one is by Elmyr. 400 00:26:12,137 --> 00:26:15,334 And I am ready to accept the challenge. 401 00:26:16,441 --> 00:26:18,341 One nod from an expert... 402 00:26:18,443 --> 00:26:20,502 and that piece of canvas would be worth... 403 00:26:20,612 --> 00:26:23,638 maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars. 404 00:26:23,748 --> 00:26:28,947 And now, with your permission, a bit of verse... by Kipling. 405 00:26:33,592 --> 00:26:38,291 "When first the flush of a newborn sun fell on the green and gold... 406 00:26:39,431 --> 00:26:44,198 "our father, Adam, sat under the Tree... 407 00:26:44,302 --> 00:26:48,568 "and scratched with a stick in the mold. 408 00:26:52,944 --> 00:26:58,041 "And the first rude sketch that the world had seen... 409 00:26:58,149 --> 00:27:00,709 "was joy to his mighty heart. 410 00:27:01,786 --> 00:27:03,720 "Till the Devil... 411 00:27:03,822 --> 00:27:06,723 "whispered behind the leaves... 412 00:27:08,126 --> 00:27:11,562 "'It's pretty, but is it Art?"' 413 00:27:13,665 --> 00:27:17,863 It's pretty, but is it art? Well, how is it valued? 414 00:27:17,969 --> 00:27:21,735 The value depends on opinion. Opinion depends on the experts. 415 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,901 A faker like Elmyr makes fools of the experts, so who's the expert? 416 00:27:27,012 --> 00:27:29,742 - Who's the faker? - I know one thing. 417 00:27:29,848 --> 00:27:33,477 I never offered a painting or a drawing... 418 00:27:33,585 --> 00:27:36,383 to a museum who didn't buy it. 419 00:27:36,488 --> 00:27:40,049 They never refused one. Never.! 420 00:27:40,158 --> 00:27:44,026 What's he up to now? This- This isn't a forgery. 421 00:27:44,129 --> 00:27:47,428 No, not this time. This is a portrait by Elmyr... 422 00:27:48,533 --> 00:27:52,128 - Et voilà. - of another famous art forger. 423 00:27:52,237 --> 00:27:55,035 - Michel-Ange. - Michelangelo, no less, signed- 424 00:27:55,140 --> 00:27:57,438 I must say I'm honored. 425 00:27:57,542 --> 00:28:01,342 My signature, forged by Elmyr on a real Elmyr... 426 00:28:01,446 --> 00:28:03,346 is really something. 427 00:28:03,448 --> 00:28:06,975 You know, art forgery used to be admired as an art. 428 00:28:07,085 --> 00:28:11,317 And though Michelangelo even used smoke on some of his fakes to antique them... 429 00:28:11,423 --> 00:28:14,153 like some of the rest of us, he finally went straight. 430 00:28:14,259 --> 00:28:16,159 Et voilà. 431 00:28:16,961 --> 00:28:20,397 Elmyr, reformed... 432 00:28:20,498 --> 00:28:23,763 and exposed- in the reverse order- 433 00:28:23,868 --> 00:28:27,463 was till just recently the island's number-one celebrity. 434 00:28:27,572 --> 00:28:30,700 But now the crown has passed from the old emperor of the hoax... 435 00:28:30,809 --> 00:28:32,709 to the pretender. 436 00:28:32,811 --> 00:28:34,711 Tomorrow at the party. There's a big party. 437 00:28:34,813 --> 00:28:37,577 - Don't miss it. Tomorrow at 8:00. - What time? 438 00:28:37,682 --> 00:28:42,483 The ex-grand master of fakery, not only unmasked, but eclipsed... 439 00:28:42,587 --> 00:28:44,487 by his own biographer... 440 00:28:44,589 --> 00:28:46,614 is putting a brave face on it... 441 00:28:46,725 --> 00:28:49,751 - and giving another party. - Eight o'clock. 442 00:28:49,861 --> 00:28:51,658 At your house? 443 00:28:51,763 --> 00:28:54,561 - And here... - I come to invite you for a big party. 444 00:28:54,666 --> 00:28:56,600 Yet another painter from Ibiza. 445 00:28:56,701 --> 00:29:00,660 Life hired him to illustrate the tale as Irving told it. 446 00:29:00,772 --> 00:29:04,674 Nice to see you. Great. Hello, David. 447 00:29:04,776 --> 00:29:06,937 David Walsh. 448 00:29:07,045 --> 00:29:09,843 And this is his impression, based on Irving's report... 449 00:29:09,948 --> 00:29:13,406 of that secret meeting on the Mexican pyramid with Howard Hughes. 450 00:29:13,518 --> 00:29:16,009 Here's how he's supposed to have looked... 451 00:29:16,121 --> 00:29:19,454 based on Irving's reports of those secret meetings which in fact never happened. 452 00:29:19,557 --> 00:29:21,457 But who cared about facts? 453 00:29:21,559 --> 00:29:24,687 Was Mr. Hughes a vegetable? A spook? 454 00:29:24,796 --> 00:29:27,594 A gibbering lunatic? Was his hair down to his knees? 455 00:29:27,699 --> 00:29:29,826 Were his fingernails nine inches long? 456 00:29:29,934 --> 00:29:32,334 Did Howard Hughes exist? 457 00:29:32,437 --> 00:29:36,498 Irving insisted that he did. Hughes denied the existence of Irving. 458 00:29:36,608 --> 00:29:39,042 No, and I never saw him. I never even heard of him. 459 00:29:39,144 --> 00:29:40,839 "Don't believe a word of it," said Irving. 460 00:29:40,945 --> 00:29:43,311 And believe it or not, almost nobody did. 461 00:29:43,414 --> 00:29:46,383 Why, they were partners, Hughes and Irving, said Irving. 462 00:29:46,484 --> 00:29:50,318 They were doing a book together. Now the Hughes mystery would be solved. 463 00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:56,052 Now, of course Irving knew very well that whatever made Hughes a mystery... 464 00:29:56,161 --> 00:29:59,062 was whatever had made Hughes himself a born mystery maker. 465 00:29:59,164 --> 00:30:04,192 Here in the smoggy wonderland of Hollywood is where I last had to talk to him. 466 00:30:04,302 --> 00:30:06,293 It was 5:00 in the morning 25 years ago. 467 00:30:06,404 --> 00:30:10,340 And I found him, as usual, very bright, and pleasant, and polite. 468 00:30:10,441 --> 00:30:13,740 Well, now this is like most of the Hughes legends. 469 00:30:13,845 --> 00:30:16,143 It's just something you hear, and nothing you can prove... 470 00:30:16,247 --> 00:30:19,512 but for what it's worth, it seems that hotel bungalow... 471 00:30:19,617 --> 00:30:24,611 was supposedly the H.Q. Of that rather spooky brigade of midnight minions... 472 00:30:24,722 --> 00:30:27,691 we used to call "Howard's secret police. " 473 00:30:29,694 --> 00:30:31,662 That's where that tree comes in. 474 00:30:31,763 --> 00:30:35,290 Just precisely there, at 1:30 every morning, for who knows how many years... 475 00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,496 some chosen operative placed, at precisely the same angle... 476 00:30:39,604 --> 00:30:43,938 a small and very carefully wrapped package. 477 00:30:44,042 --> 00:30:48,570 Howard Hughes in his nocturnal wanderings never once paused there... 478 00:30:49,614 --> 00:30:53,573 but it was always ready for him in case he should. 479 00:30:53,685 --> 00:30:58,145 What was it that that mystery package contained? 480 00:30:59,757 --> 00:31:01,657 A ham sandwich. 481 00:31:06,831 --> 00:31:08,731 How can we believe that is true? 482 00:31:08,833 --> 00:31:10,562 François is referring, of course, to Elmyr. 483 00:31:10,668 --> 00:31:12,659 But about Hughes... 484 00:31:12,770 --> 00:31:14,965 well, who could blame Cliff Irving for believing... 485 00:31:15,073 --> 00:31:19,908 that Hughes himself wanted us to believe almost anything? 486 00:31:20,011 --> 00:31:24,277 Look where we are now. When the old Hollywood swinger turned hermit... 487 00:31:24,382 --> 00:31:27,818 this is the hermitage he picked-his hideaway... 488 00:31:27,919 --> 00:31:30,149 his desert retreat. 489 00:31:30,255 --> 00:31:32,155 The desert had retreated first, of course... 490 00:31:32,257 --> 00:31:35,954 to make room for the slot machines and the crap tables. 491 00:31:36,060 --> 00:31:40,292 Then came Hughes. He chased out or bought off most of the mafia... 492 00:31:40,398 --> 00:31:43,890 bought up most of the hotels, and settled down up there... 493 00:31:44,002 --> 00:31:46,800 in a few rooms in the top floor of that one. 494 00:31:46,905 --> 00:31:49,237 And all through the long years... 495 00:31:49,340 --> 00:31:53,106 not a shadow was seen moving in that window. 496 00:31:53,211 --> 00:31:56,908 The good people of Las Vegas kept their eyes peeled, saw nothing... 497 00:31:57,015 --> 00:31:59,142 and believed everything they told each other. 498 00:31:59,250 --> 00:32:02,185 More than one bemused observer... 499 00:32:02,287 --> 00:32:04,812 claims to have seen the whimsical tycoon... 500 00:32:04,923 --> 00:32:08,051 at 4:00 in the morning, promenading this highway... 501 00:32:08,159 --> 00:32:10,184 with no socks on... 502 00:32:10,295 --> 00:32:13,093 and wearing, instead of shoes... 503 00:32:13,197 --> 00:32:17,258 a pair of empty Kleenex boxes. 504 00:32:17,368 --> 00:32:19,336 Do I believe that? 505 00:32:19,437 --> 00:32:23,703 But people pretend to be shocked. They like to be shocked, you know. 506 00:32:23,808 --> 00:32:25,969 It's in their nature. It's in human nature, you know. 507 00:32:26,077 --> 00:32:28,511 What was he doing up there? 508 00:32:28,613 --> 00:32:31,980 What were they doing to him? 509 00:32:35,887 --> 00:32:38,355 If he broke his silence, would it be a... 510 00:32:40,291 --> 00:32:42,919 cry for help? 511 00:32:44,963 --> 00:32:48,126 Well, if Hughes couldn't speak, or wouldn't... 512 00:32:48,232 --> 00:32:50,632 then somebody- and why not Clifford Irving- 513 00:32:50,735 --> 00:32:53,067 could do the speaking for him. 514 00:32:53,171 --> 00:32:57,073 Nobody got near the man. Just a tiny band of mystery Mormons... 515 00:32:57,175 --> 00:32:59,075 were admitted to his presence. 516 00:32:59,177 --> 00:33:01,338 Even high executives in the Hughes empire... 517 00:33:01,446 --> 00:33:03,346 never so much as laid eyes on him. 518 00:33:03,448 --> 00:33:07,009 One man alone laid claim to having made it into that fortress... 519 00:33:07,118 --> 00:33:09,143 and you can guess who that was. 520 00:33:09,253 --> 00:33:12,711 How had Irving got to Hughes in the first place? "Simple, said Irving. 521 00:33:12,824 --> 00:33:16,282 He’d just mailed him a copy of Fake! With a friendly, sincere dedication... 522 00:33:16,394 --> 00:33:18,294 and the partnership was formed. 523 00:33:18,396 --> 00:33:21,263 And if you can believe the ham sandwich and the Kleenex boxes... 524 00:33:21,366 --> 00:33:23,596 I guess you can swallow that. 525 00:33:23,701 --> 00:33:26,226 I mean, this episode is just so fantastic... 526 00:33:26,337 --> 00:33:29,864 that it taxes your imagination... 527 00:33:29,974 --> 00:33:32,306 to believe that a thing like this could happen. 528 00:33:32,410 --> 00:33:36,608 Was that the voice of the real Howard Hughes? 529 00:33:36,714 --> 00:33:38,614 I only wish I was still in the movie business. 530 00:33:38,716 --> 00:33:40,547 Well, now he's on television... 531 00:33:40,651 --> 00:33:44,451 and a committee of journalists are interviewing his voice. 532 00:33:44,555 --> 00:33:46,614 No, I don't remember any scripts... 533 00:33:46,724 --> 00:33:49,716 as wild or as stretching of the imagination... 534 00:33:49,827 --> 00:33:52,796 as this yarn has turned out to be. 535 00:33:53,064 --> 00:33:56,898 Now remember how this went. Irving announced that Hughes had decided... 536 00:33:57,001 --> 00:33:59,629 that Irving was just the writer he could trust... 537 00:33:59,737 --> 00:34:02,205 not only with his book, but with the money for it. 538 00:34:02,306 --> 00:34:04,797 And this involved an advance of some three-quarters of a million dollars... 539 00:34:04,909 --> 00:34:07,207 and he had notes, memos and manuscripts in what he claimed... 540 00:34:07,311 --> 00:34:09,211 was Hughes's own handwriting to prove it. 541 00:34:09,313 --> 00:34:11,543 Now they brought in the handwriting experts. 542 00:34:11,649 --> 00:34:15,278 Now just here Irving should have been feeling a bit nervous. 543 00:34:15,386 --> 00:34:18,719 Well, maybe he was just as cool as he acted... 544 00:34:18,823 --> 00:34:21,223 remembering what he'd learned from the old maestro himself. 545 00:34:21,325 --> 00:34:23,225 Elmyr was a good teacher, if only by example... 546 00:34:23,327 --> 00:34:25,795 and his most valuable lesson was this: 547 00:34:25,897 --> 00:34:28,092 Don't be spooked by the experts. 548 00:34:28,199 --> 00:34:30,895 My opinion about experts is that it's something far too overestimated. 549 00:34:31,002 --> 00:34:33,766 It's a métier which shouldn't even exist. 550 00:34:33,871 --> 00:34:35,498 And how right he was! 551 00:34:35,606 --> 00:34:40,771 It should not exist that one single person makes a decision... 552 00:34:40,878 --> 00:34:42,778 about what's good or what's bad. 553 00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:44,780 Sure enough, after much study and analysis... 554 00:34:44,882 --> 00:34:48,579 the experts on handwriting handed in their verdict. 555 00:34:48,686 --> 00:34:51,416 The forgeries were genuine. The proof, and I quote, was "irresistible... 556 00:34:51,522 --> 00:34:53,854 unanswerable, and overwhelming. " 557 00:34:55,193 --> 00:34:59,027 Thus Irving's papers, like Elmyr's paintings... 558 00:34:59,130 --> 00:35:01,598 were authenticated. 559 00:35:01,699 --> 00:35:06,602 I wanted to find out what it was really like to try and get an expertise on a fake... 560 00:35:06,704 --> 00:35:08,831 and I asked Elmyr to do three drawings for me: 561 00:35:08,940 --> 00:35:10,840 Two Matisse and a Modigliani - 562 00:35:10,942 --> 00:35:13,035 which he did before lunch... 563 00:35:13,144 --> 00:35:15,772 and put a little coffee stain on the edge of the Modigliani... 564 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:20,214 to make it look really as if Modigliani had done it in some Paris café. 565 00:35:20,318 --> 00:35:24,015 I then took the three drawings to the Museum of Modern Art. 566 00:35:24,122 --> 00:35:27,614 The museum examined them for two hours... 567 00:35:27,725 --> 00:35:30,785 and came back with the verdict that they were absolutely genuine... 568 00:35:30,895 --> 00:35:33,591 and, in fact, were horrified that I wanted to sell them. 569 00:35:33,698 --> 00:35:36,929 Besides, it's a true story. The story's absolutely true. 570 00:35:38,236 --> 00:35:41,205 Well, Mr. Irving pretends that he destroyed them. 571 00:35:41,305 --> 00:35:43,205 I don't think that Mr. Irving's character... 572 00:35:43,307 --> 00:35:46,799 is exactly a character who would destroy something... 573 00:35:46,911 --> 00:35:49,903 what he got an offer of 15,000. 574 00:35:50,014 --> 00:35:53,506 I think it's a nice security in a bank vault... 575 00:35:53,618 --> 00:35:56,644 what could be unwrapped in 15 years again. 576 00:35:56,754 --> 00:35:58,654 All the tales he tells now... 577 00:35:58,756 --> 00:36:01,816 are things that he has built up in his imagination over the years... 578 00:36:01,926 --> 00:36:03,826 and come to believe as true. 579 00:36:03,928 --> 00:36:06,954 "The tale is as old as the Eden Tree- 580 00:36:07,064 --> 00:36:09,032 "and new as the new-cut tooth- 581 00:36:09,133 --> 00:36:12,899 "For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows... 582 00:36:13,004 --> 00:36:16,701 he is master of Art and Truth. " 583 00:36:16,807 --> 00:36:21,710 This created in him, I think, the ability to live- 584 00:36:21,812 --> 00:36:25,270 I hesitate to say, a criminal life, because I don't think of him as a criminal. 585 00:36:25,383 --> 00:36:29,012 He doesn't think of himself as a criminal. 586 00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:34,456 To fool, once in a while, somebody very, very pompous... 587 00:36:34,559 --> 00:36:36,493 - or somebody very- - Pretentious. 588 00:36:36,594 --> 00:36:38,858 Pretentious, that, I like. 589 00:36:38,963 --> 00:36:41,022 Now that it's out in the open... 590 00:36:41,132 --> 00:36:44,192 that the world knows who Elmyr is and what he's done... 591 00:36:44,302 --> 00:36:47,965 and now that Elmyr accepts it and says to the world... 592 00:36:48,072 --> 00:36:52,008 "Yes, it's me. I am the great art forger of the 20th century. " 593 00:36:52,109 --> 00:36:56,739 Now I think he can recapture that personal honesty. 594 00:36:56,847 --> 00:37:00,283 - Good-bye, Matisse. - I think Elmyr's problem for years... 595 00:37:00,384 --> 00:37:04,514 and the reason why he could not succeed as a painter in his own right... 596 00:37:04,622 --> 00:37:08,080 was that the type of life he led... 597 00:37:08,192 --> 00:37:11,320 prohibited him from having a personal vision. 598 00:37:11,429 --> 00:37:14,296 "And each man hears as the twilight nears... 599 00:37:14,398 --> 00:37:17,697 "to the beat of his dying heart... 600 00:37:17,802 --> 00:37:20,464 "the Devil drum on the darkened pane: 601 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,008 "'It's pretty... 602 00:37:25,109 --> 00:37:28,101 but was it Art?"' 603 00:37:28,212 --> 00:37:30,680 Art. Take two. 604 00:37:30,781 --> 00:37:32,681 And when an artist has no personal vision... 605 00:37:32,783 --> 00:37:34,648 what can he communicate onto the canvas? 606 00:37:38,389 --> 00:37:40,653 Et voilà. 607 00:37:42,893 --> 00:37:46,954 It's pretty, but is it rare? 608 00:37:47,064 --> 00:37:49,999 Lots of oysters, only a few pearls. 609 00:37:50,101 --> 00:37:50,226 Rarity. 610 00:37:52,236 --> 00:37:56,673 The chief cause and encouragement of fakery and phoniness in everything... 611 00:37:56,774 --> 00:37:59,106 even what we're given to eat- 612 00:37:59,210 --> 00:38:01,804 an awful lot of forgery is committed these days in the kitchen. 613 00:38:01,912 --> 00:38:04,676 Oja? 614 00:38:07,885 --> 00:38:11,821 The seafood isn't phony in here, thank God. 615 00:38:11,922 --> 00:38:13,856 You can take the word of an expert. 616 00:38:13,958 --> 00:38:17,394 Three friends from the old days who used to eat here were real painters: 617 00:38:17,495 --> 00:38:20,464 Jean Cocteau, the poet and filmmaker- 618 00:38:20,564 --> 00:38:22,532 Well, you might call him a Monday painter. 619 00:38:22,633 --> 00:38:25,625 He drew the picture on the menu and signed his name, as you know... 620 00:38:25,736 --> 00:38:27,704 to a whole epoch. 621 00:38:27,805 --> 00:38:30,171 Here on the walls are samples of the famous charm... 622 00:38:30,274 --> 00:38:32,174 of Christian Berard- "Baby, as we called him. 623 00:38:32,276 --> 00:38:35,575 And speaking of charm, here's Vertès all around us. 624 00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:40,344 Vertès had to be charming. He was Hungarian. 625 00:38:40,451 --> 00:38:43,147 He started his career- and he told me this right here at this table- 626 00:38:43,254 --> 00:38:47,918 "As a charlatan. I painted fake masterpieces. 627 00:38:48,025 --> 00:38:51,688 I began," he said, "as Lautrec. " 628 00:38:51,796 --> 00:38:55,232 A woman, a titled English woman... 629 00:38:55,333 --> 00:38:57,233 walked in one day to my room... 630 00:38:57,335 --> 00:39:00,532 and she saw on the wall - pinned on the wall, a drawing. 631 00:39:00,638 --> 00:39:03,539 Say, "Hey, where you got that Picasso?" 632 00:39:03,641 --> 00:39:05,905 I say, "Well, do you think it's a Picasso?" 633 00:39:06,010 --> 00:39:09,844 "And there was this art dealer" - I won't give you his name - 634 00:39:09,947 --> 00:39:11,847 "turning down everything I showed him" - 635 00:39:11,949 --> 00:39:15,180 this is Vertès speaking- "when something caught his eye. 636 00:39:15,286 --> 00:39:17,516 "'Where did you get that? ' he said. 637 00:39:17,621 --> 00:39:19,521 "'That nice little Lautrec. ' 638 00:39:19,623 --> 00:39:22,057 "I told him it was a very nice little Vertès. 639 00:39:22,159 --> 00:39:25,356 "'I'll take the Lautrec, 'he said. 640 00:39:25,463 --> 00:39:29,923 'And If you happen to find any more, bring them in. "' 641 00:39:30,034 --> 00:39:32,628 She said, "Would you sell it?" I said, "Well, delighted. " 642 00:39:32,737 --> 00:39:35,968 And I suddenly realize I can sell something... 643 00:39:36,073 --> 00:39:40,908 absolutely unexpectedly for quite a great deal of money... 644 00:39:41,011 --> 00:39:45,141 in a time when I was unable, but absolutely unable... 645 00:39:45,249 --> 00:39:47,149 to sell any of my paintings. 646 00:39:47,251 --> 00:39:50,049 "How could you blame me? I had no money in my pocket... 647 00:39:50,154 --> 00:39:53,453 no socks in my shoes, no real painting style of my own. " 648 00:39:53,557 --> 00:39:58,256 Even the amount of five dollars meant that am I going to eat. 649 00:39:58,362 --> 00:40:01,798 I don't meaning go home and be full, but to eat. 650 00:40:06,837 --> 00:40:10,329 I would like to see that poor Hungarian refugee... 651 00:40:10,441 --> 00:40:14,275 who would have resisted of that temptation. 652 00:40:15,379 --> 00:40:17,279 Well, Vertès didn't either. 653 00:40:17,381 --> 00:40:20,441 Like all Hungarians, he told the best Hungarian jokes. 654 00:40:20,551 --> 00:40:22,815 The omelet, you know that, don't you? 655 00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,081 Sure. It's a classic. 656 00:40:25,189 --> 00:40:28,681 An omelet, it's in our Hungarian cookbook. 657 00:40:28,793 --> 00:40:31,387 "To make an omelet," it says... 658 00:40:31,495 --> 00:40:34,259 "first, steal an egg. " 659 00:40:34,365 --> 00:40:37,129 Well, naturally, to be Hungarian is not a nationality. 660 00:40:37,234 --> 00:40:39,225 It's a profession. 661 00:40:39,336 --> 00:40:41,270 But the truth about Hungarians, which they do try to cover up... 662 00:40:41,372 --> 00:40:44,273 is that they're not any more crooked than the rest of us. 663 00:40:44,375 --> 00:40:47,503 But not the way they like to tell it. Of all the Hungarian friends I've ever had... 664 00:40:47,611 --> 00:40:50,705 I can't remember one who didn't want me to think of him... 665 00:40:50,815 --> 00:40:52,715 as a king of con men. 666 00:40:52,817 --> 00:40:56,253 As for this Hungarian's own tales of his own lurid past... 667 00:40:56,353 --> 00:40:58,617 they don't, according to his biographer... 668 00:40:58,722 --> 00:41:01,657 jive exactly with versions of the same events... 669 00:41:01,759 --> 00:41:06,128 as told by certain art dealers. 670 00:41:06,230 --> 00:41:08,596 I do think art dealers... 671 00:41:08,699 --> 00:41:10,860 are crooked. 672 00:41:10,968 --> 00:41:12,868 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury... 673 00:41:12,970 --> 00:41:16,462 I put it to you that between such witnesses... 674 00:41:16,574 --> 00:41:19,668 your choice, to phrase it nicely, is not easy. 675 00:41:19,777 --> 00:41:25,079 Even if Clifford Irving mentions in his book that - 676 00:41:25,182 --> 00:41:29,209 I must insist that I never sell to privates. 677 00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:31,652 Some friend of mine say you should buy a fantastic drawing... 678 00:41:31,755 --> 00:41:33,655 that own a refugee of Budapest. 679 00:41:33,757 --> 00:41:36,954 "Budapesht. " It's not with a "pest. " It's with a "pesht. " 680 00:41:37,061 --> 00:41:40,519 He want to sell 10 Modigliani and 10, uh, Matisse. 681 00:41:40,631 --> 00:41:43,259 At that time, when I sell to François... 682 00:41:43,367 --> 00:41:46,165 he was not a movie director. 683 00:41:46,270 --> 00:41:48,397 He was an art dealer. 684 00:41:48,506 --> 00:41:50,633 I tried to put it in art gallery. Then it was an occasion... 685 00:41:50,741 --> 00:41:54,302 - because they were to sell for $200. - "Occasion is a bargain. 686 00:41:57,281 --> 00:41:59,181 Our whole story really starts, you know... 687 00:41:59,283 --> 00:42:02,377 with two famous collections of paintings. 688 00:42:02,486 --> 00:42:05,284 One belonged to the Reichenbachs and was real... 689 00:42:05,389 --> 00:42:08,517 the other Elmyr was supposed to have smuggled out of Hungary. 690 00:42:08,626 --> 00:42:11,754 - From his family. - Oh, no, that's a complete fabrication. 691 00:42:11,862 --> 00:42:14,387 I can tell you exactly who he was. 692 00:42:14,498 --> 00:42:16,693 After the book was published I got a letter from a man... 693 00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,600 who had known him in a concentration camp in Hungary. 694 00:42:20,704 --> 00:42:22,729 And he said he was not from the aristocracy... 695 00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:27,573 but that he was from a normal lower middle-class home... 696 00:42:27,678 --> 00:42:30,374 and since then has refused to discuss it. 697 00:42:30,481 --> 00:42:33,211 He just evades the subject whenever it's brought up. 698 00:42:33,317 --> 00:42:35,877 It's terribly convenient, beside everything else! 699 00:42:35,986 --> 00:42:38,853 François bought some of Elmyr's paintings... 700 00:42:38,956 --> 00:42:42,084 and sold them again in his art gallery for a couple of fast bucks. 701 00:42:42,192 --> 00:42:43,625 For double the price. 702 00:42:43,727 --> 00:42:46,059 - You sold them for double what you bought them for? - Exactly. 703 00:42:46,163 --> 00:42:50,964 Before he did pay me for the drawings he did buy... 704 00:42:51,068 --> 00:42:53,764 he sold it already before he paid me. 705 00:42:53,871 --> 00:42:56,237 Then the third year, I went back and - 706 00:42:56,340 --> 00:42:58,240 He came to see me. He said, "I have other Modigliani. " 707 00:42:58,342 --> 00:43:00,902 - I was a little suspicious. - Elmyr said he has more. 708 00:43:01,011 --> 00:43:05,607 - More, but you see, last time - - And you thought maybe that's a little too many Modigliani. 709 00:43:05,716 --> 00:43:08,879 Because the last time he say, "It's my last one. Take it. " 710 00:43:08,986 --> 00:43:11,216 Then, when he had others... 711 00:43:11,322 --> 00:43:14,587 I say, "Where they come from?" But I didn't try to investigate too much. 712 00:43:14,692 --> 00:43:16,592 - But I kept - - Why didn't you? 713 00:43:16,694 --> 00:43:20,755 Like everyone. 714 00:43:20,864 --> 00:43:22,764 Because they were very- I didn't want to - 715 00:43:22,866 --> 00:43:25,426 - You didn't want to know.! - Not too much. 716 00:43:25,536 --> 00:43:28,403 The year after, he call me. He say, "I have three mores. " 717 00:43:28,505 --> 00:43:31,133 - Three more Modigliani. - I say, "I have already 10 in my rooms. 718 00:43:31,241 --> 00:43:34,438 "I'm not a collector of Modigliani. 719 00:43:34,545 --> 00:43:36,877 "Of course, if you had a dessin- 720 00:43:36,981 --> 00:43:39,347 A portrait of Soutine. I love so much Soutine. " 721 00:43:39,450 --> 00:43:42,180 - But why did you want a portrait of Soutine? - Because I like Soutine. 722 00:43:42,286 --> 00:43:44,754 - I see. - And I asked to Elmyr if he had one. 723 00:43:44,855 --> 00:43:47,119 He say, "I don't have any Soutine by Modigliani. Why?" 724 00:43:47,224 --> 00:43:49,283 Soutine was a friend of Modigliani. 725 00:43:49,393 --> 00:43:51,293 - Exactement. - You asked him if he had it. 726 00:43:51,395 --> 00:43:55,092 He say, "I don't have it. " I say, "Then keep your three others, even if they were very cheap. " 727 00:43:55,199 --> 00:43:57,360 They were the double price, but they were still very cheap. 728 00:43:58,402 --> 00:44:01,394 Then the night, during the night, he call me. 729 00:44:01,505 --> 00:44:04,565 He say, "François, you are a genius. You guessed I had one. " 730 00:44:06,677 --> 00:44:09,339 "How could you know? I found one in my drawer. 731 00:44:09,446 --> 00:44:13,109 A beautiful portrait of Soutine by Modigliani. " 732 00:44:13,217 --> 00:44:16,084 And now there's something else again what I'm doing here. 733 00:44:16,186 --> 00:44:18,677 That is Picasso. 734 00:44:20,290 --> 00:44:22,281 And now the scene changes... 735 00:44:22,393 --> 00:44:24,520 from New York to Pamplona. 736 00:44:24,628 --> 00:44:27,096 This deep in the Hemingway country... 737 00:44:27,197 --> 00:44:29,392 you might not expect to find Elmyr. 738 00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:32,128 And he said, "I'm going to reimburse you. " 739 00:44:32,236 --> 00:44:34,136 - I said, "What are you" - - Reimburse you for what? 740 00:44:34,238 --> 00:44:36,934 - For the fake I sold you. - Yeah, but you made a lot of money on it. 741 00:44:37,041 --> 00:44:39,271 - Yes, but he didn't know. - I see. 742 00:44:39,376 --> 00:44:41,503 And you know what he did? 743 00:44:41,612 --> 00:44:45,173 He gave me a check, and the check had no money in the bank. 744 00:44:45,282 --> 00:44:46,943 - He gave you a false check. - Yes. 745 00:44:47,051 --> 00:44:48,484 - For a false painting. - Yes. 746 00:44:48,585 --> 00:44:50,246 There's a certain justice. 747 00:44:50,354 --> 00:44:52,185 Well... 748 00:44:52,289 --> 00:44:55,053 good-bye, Picasso. 749 00:44:55,159 --> 00:44:58,595 It's a fact of record that art dealers- 750 00:44:58,696 --> 00:45:02,928 Would you take this away, please, and - and bring me the steak au poivre? 751 00:45:03,033 --> 00:45:07,094 Thanks a lot. That art dealers, either in ignorance... 752 00:45:07,204 --> 00:45:09,263 innocence, or simple greed... 753 00:45:09,373 --> 00:45:12,706 have made themselves fortunes on the paintings of Elmyr. 754 00:45:12,810 --> 00:45:15,779 I have not the vaguest idea the money they got. 755 00:45:15,879 --> 00:45:18,439 Those paintings must have been pretty good... 756 00:45:18,549 --> 00:45:22,280 or the dealers must have been... pretty bad. 757 00:45:22,386 --> 00:45:26,083 I could not estimate if it was 10 million, 20 million - 758 00:45:26,190 --> 00:45:30,149 dollars, pounds, uh, zlotys. 759 00:45:30,260 --> 00:45:35,027 A whole lot of them anyway made profits of a hundred percent and more on these affairs... 760 00:45:35,132 --> 00:45:37,623 and Elmyr himself has really made very little. 761 00:45:37,735 --> 00:45:42,900 All I got was a little television of that size for the $250,000. 762 00:45:43,006 --> 00:45:46,407 Even that handsome house of his, that isn't his. 763 00:45:46,510 --> 00:45:48,569 A dealer has a deal with him. 764 00:45:48,679 --> 00:45:52,945 Somebody must have made some kind of strange - 765 00:45:53,050 --> 00:45:55,245 - Deal. - Deal. 766 00:45:55,352 --> 00:45:57,650 I was fooled. 767 00:45:57,755 --> 00:45:59,655 I was used. 768 00:45:59,757 --> 00:46:04,524 And I was squeezed out- squeezed out like the last drop. 769 00:46:13,470 --> 00:46:18,271 Because even the roof of that house doesn't belong to me. 770 00:46:18,375 --> 00:46:21,970 I don't have a dime to my name. 771 00:46:23,514 --> 00:46:25,539 So after all these long years on the run... 772 00:46:25,649 --> 00:46:31,281 even now, after his final reformation as a forger... 773 00:46:32,389 --> 00:46:35,881 Elmyr can't feel much real security in this last refuge... 774 00:46:35,993 --> 00:46:38,461 in what people like to call... 775 00:46:38,562 --> 00:46:41,292 "the golden years. " 776 00:46:41,398 --> 00:46:44,196 - A little bit of luck. - And a dash of larceny. 777 00:46:44,501 --> 00:46:46,492 You've been freely owning up to your own past. 778 00:46:46,603 --> 00:46:48,662 I'd better do some confessing myself. 779 00:46:48,772 --> 00:46:54,301 François was an art dealer, and I- well, I was an artist. 780 00:46:54,411 --> 00:46:59,178 I thought I was anyway. Like Elmyr, I too was once a hungry painter. 781 00:46:59,283 --> 00:47:02,514 But not here in France. No, I was hungry in Ireland. 782 00:47:02,619 --> 00:47:05,747 I'd come there to paint, bought a donkey and cart... 783 00:47:05,856 --> 00:47:10,225 filled the cart with paints and canvases and went traveling. 784 00:47:10,327 --> 00:47:13,023 At night I slept under the cart. 785 00:47:15,065 --> 00:47:17,158 It was a very nice summer. 786 00:47:18,202 --> 00:47:20,534 But then when I got to Dublin... 787 00:47:20,637 --> 00:47:22,901 the donkey had to go up for auction. 788 00:47:23,006 --> 00:47:25,406 And so did I. My paintings were gone... 789 00:47:25,509 --> 00:47:28,205 all given away to the Irish farmers who'd given me food. 790 00:47:28,312 --> 00:47:31,679 I'd run out of paint and money. 791 00:47:31,782 --> 00:47:34,910 I was 16 years old, and my career, as you might say... 792 00:47:35,018 --> 00:47:36,952 was at the crossroads. 793 00:47:37,054 --> 00:47:39,113 Winter was coming in. 794 00:47:42,025 --> 00:47:44,755 Oh, I guess I could have found myself an honest job... 795 00:47:44,862 --> 00:47:47,763 as a dishwasher or something, but, no, I took the easy way. 796 00:47:47,865 --> 00:47:50,197 I went on the stage. 797 00:47:50,300 --> 00:47:52,700 I'd never been on the stage, but I told them in Dublin... 798 00:47:52,803 --> 00:47:56,239 I was a famous star from New York, and somehow got them to believe me. 799 00:47:56,340 --> 00:47:58,365 That's how I started. 800 00:47:58,475 --> 00:48:01,000 Began at the top, and have been working my way down ever since. 801 00:48:01,111 --> 00:48:04,672 If acting is an art, cooking up that bogus Broadway career... 802 00:48:04,781 --> 00:48:07,272 was a fine case of art forgery. 803 00:48:07,384 --> 00:48:11,115 And then later, on the radio - Well, we've seen how Elmyr started. 804 00:48:11,221 --> 00:48:13,189 In my past there aren't any Picassos. 805 00:48:13,290 --> 00:48:19,058 No. My next flight into fakery was by flying saucer. 806 00:48:26,703 --> 00:48:29,137 We interrupt this program to bring you a news bulletin. 807 00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,140 High government sources have ceased to deny... 808 00:48:32,242 --> 00:48:35,075 the presence in many parts of the country of nonterrestrial objects. 809 00:48:35,178 --> 00:48:38,614 We return you now to the Starlight Terrace of the Hotel Glory in Scranton... 810 00:48:38,715 --> 00:48:43,778 to the singing strings of Laszlo Gabor and His Melodeons. 811 00:48:43,887 --> 00:48:47,015 On the radio, I got my first job from Paul Stewart... 812 00:48:47,124 --> 00:48:49,957 and we were lucky enough to have him join us later in the Mercury. 813 00:48:50,060 --> 00:48:53,188 Paul was a real capo mafia in the Martian caper. 814 00:48:53,297 --> 00:48:56,664 "The War of the Worlds" was before World War II, remember. 815 00:48:56,767 --> 00:48:59,292 Before television, in the great days of radio. 816 00:48:59,403 --> 00:49:01,667 Maybe that's what made it all possible. 817 00:49:01,772 --> 00:49:03,501 Another bulletin, ladies and gentlemen. 818 00:49:03,607 --> 00:49:06,132 The latest word on the monsters from outer space. 819 00:49:06,243 --> 00:49:07,938 Correction, from Mars. 820 00:49:08,045 --> 00:49:12,106 Sorry, folks, that's what experts are saying. They are Martians. 821 00:49:12,215 --> 00:49:15,207 TV would have shown us up. Half the population... 822 00:49:15,319 --> 00:49:17,446 got the screaming jeebies just because they couldn't see... 823 00:49:17,554 --> 00:49:20,546 how silly it all would have looked. 824 00:49:20,657 --> 00:49:23,455 We said that the Martians were releasing a noxious gas... 825 00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:27,621 across the Jersey meadows that was drifting towards New York. 826 00:49:27,731 --> 00:49:29,858 So, people took to the hills. 827 00:49:33,904 --> 00:49:36,065 I met a welfare worker years later... 828 00:49:36,173 --> 00:49:40,234 who told me he spent weeks trying to woo some of the refugees back to civilization. 829 00:49:40,344 --> 00:49:43,040 The entire state of New Jersey has now been cordoned off. 830 00:49:43,146 --> 00:49:45,706 State highways- Uh, yes? 831 00:49:45,816 --> 00:49:47,977 Ladies and gentlemen, a special news flash from Washington. 832 00:49:48,085 --> 00:49:50,383 Any moment now, President Roosevelt will be receiving... 833 00:49:50,487 --> 00:49:52,512 a delegation from Mars. 834 00:49:52,622 --> 00:49:55,056 From Mars. Peace talks are expected- 835 00:49:59,196 --> 00:50:00,925 A woman-you just have to believe this- 836 00:50:01,031 --> 00:50:05,730 rushed into a police station out in San Francisco with her clothes in tatters... 837 00:50:05,836 --> 00:50:09,499 to report that she'd been repeatedly attacked by Martians. 838 00:50:11,975 --> 00:50:13,875 She tried to take poison for the shame of it... 839 00:50:13,977 --> 00:50:16,002 and they stopped her just in time. 840 00:50:16,113 --> 00:50:18,343 Were they little green men, or what? 841 00:50:20,784 --> 00:50:24,276 "I can't describe it, she said. "It's hell. " 842 00:50:24,388 --> 00:50:26,686 Somebody down in South America... 843 00:50:26,790 --> 00:50:29,918 did an imitation of that broadcast... 844 00:50:30,027 --> 00:50:31,619 and he ended up in prison. 845 00:50:31,728 --> 00:50:35,129 So I shouldn't complain, I guess. 846 00:50:35,232 --> 00:50:37,200 I didn't go to jail. 847 00:50:38,668 --> 00:50:40,568 I went to Hollywood. 848 00:50:40,670 --> 00:50:43,935 And to testify to yet another coincidence, here's a leading film director. 849 00:50:44,041 --> 00:50:48,978 All those years ago, he went west with the rest of us to make our first movie. Richard Wilson. 850 00:50:49,079 --> 00:50:51,104 Our first movie? 851 00:50:51,214 --> 00:50:55,173 Well, among the first of our projects was to be a story... 852 00:50:55,285 --> 00:50:58,482 based on the fictionalized life of a certain famous tycoon. 853 00:50:58,588 --> 00:51:01,182 Joe Cotten was to have played the part. 854 00:51:01,291 --> 00:51:05,057 That certain famous tycoon, yes. But when the character was changed... 855 00:51:05,162 --> 00:51:07,722 to the famous newspaper tycoon, it became obvious... 856 00:51:07,831 --> 00:51:10,356 that Orson should play the part, which, of course, he did. 857 00:51:10,467 --> 00:51:12,162 Oh, I'm not complaining. 858 00:51:12,269 --> 00:51:15,295 No. I had a fine part in Citizen Kane. 859 00:51:15,405 --> 00:51:18,340 But I was just wondering. 860 00:51:18,442 --> 00:51:21,639 That original concept may have been fun. 861 00:51:23,013 --> 00:51:24,913 Yes, I was just wondering... 862 00:51:25,015 --> 00:51:28,143 if I would have been the first or the last... 863 00:51:28,251 --> 00:51:30,276 to impersonate... 864 00:51:30,387 --> 00:51:32,287 Howard Hughes. 865 00:51:42,032 --> 00:51:45,195 This week, as it must to all aviation's pioneers... 866 00:51:45,302 --> 00:51:47,668 the great heart of a welcoming nation went out... 867 00:51:47,771 --> 00:51:51,298 to handsome, well-heeled hero, Howard Hughes. 868 00:51:51,408 --> 00:51:55,208 Broken for speed are all records for round-the-world solo flights. 869 00:51:55,312 --> 00:51:59,772 Broken, too, is the garbage man's record for sheer tonnage in ticker tape. 870 00:51:59,883 --> 00:52:03,512 Well noted by observers is the appropriate nature of ticker tape... 871 00:52:03,620 --> 00:52:06,612 as a tribute to the high-flying Mr. Moneybags himself. 872 00:52:06,723 --> 00:52:08,623 Why did we change our minds? 873 00:52:08,725 --> 00:52:12,161 Change tycoons? Of course, we'd have to change his name. 874 00:52:12,262 --> 00:52:15,288 And as a character in fiction... 875 00:52:15,398 --> 00:52:18,856 who could believe that a man like Howard Hughes could exist? 876 00:52:18,969 --> 00:52:23,133 I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation rolled up in it. 877 00:52:24,474 --> 00:52:27,875 Hughes fighting here for the future of a controversial airplane... 878 00:52:27,978 --> 00:52:31,607 an all-wood behemoth, the Spruce Goose. 879 00:52:31,715 --> 00:52:33,808 Other inventions had more success. 880 00:52:33,917 --> 00:52:35,817 One example, the brassiere. 881 00:52:35,919 --> 00:52:38,080 Hughes's design for a Hughes-directed hit movie... 882 00:52:38,188 --> 00:52:40,088 was, for mammary America... 883 00:52:40,190 --> 00:52:42,681 the cause of a great uplift. 884 00:52:42,792 --> 00:52:45,158 Less uplifting was the Spruce Goose... 885 00:52:46,096 --> 00:52:48,826 The biggest thing with wings that ever happened- 886 00:52:49,699 --> 00:52:53,692 In fact, it flew for a few minutes only, a few feet in the air. 887 00:52:53,803 --> 00:52:56,397 And I have stated several times that if it's a failure... 888 00:52:56,506 --> 00:52:59,737 I'll probably leave this country and never come back, and I mean it. 889 00:52:59,843 --> 00:53:02,835 And that's what he did, finally. 890 00:53:02,946 --> 00:53:05,676 The super secretive celebrity... 891 00:53:05,782 --> 00:53:08,751 went all out for world fame... 892 00:53:08,852 --> 00:53:13,482 won it, and then got to be more famous trying for privacy. 893 00:53:16,193 --> 00:53:19,026 Maybe he's a loser after all. 894 00:53:19,129 --> 00:53:22,360 A lady from his past once told me that's part of his charm. 895 00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,769 But this lady-killing, wheeling, dealing... 896 00:53:26,870 --> 00:53:30,738 death-defying, life-defying mystery man supreme... 897 00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:34,276 has a strange habit of winning somehow- 898 00:53:34,377 --> 00:53:37,608 sometimes anyway- just at the end. 899 00:53:37,714 --> 00:53:41,548 Is he winning now, at the end of this story? 900 00:53:41,651 --> 00:53:43,983 I only wish I was still in the movie business. 901 00:53:44,087 --> 00:53:48,114 Our semi mythological night bird of a billionaire... 902 00:53:48,225 --> 00:53:50,887 has flown his Vegas coop. 903 00:53:50,994 --> 00:53:53,588 But only to go on mutely roosting... 904 00:53:53,697 --> 00:53:58,100 on the top of various other holiday hotels... 905 00:53:58,201 --> 00:54:00,192 in germfree... 906 00:54:00,303 --> 00:54:03,238 air-conditioned solitude. 907 00:54:04,541 --> 00:54:07,203 Ah, it's his decision. 908 00:54:07,310 --> 00:54:09,107 On this planet... 909 00:54:09,212 --> 00:54:12,306 crowded and computerized... 910 00:54:12,415 --> 00:54:15,248 being yourself- whatever that may be - 911 00:54:15,352 --> 00:54:18,446 and keeping yourself to yourself isn't easy. 912 00:54:18,555 --> 00:54:22,218 Make what you want of Howard Hughes, but not a movie. 913 00:54:22,325 --> 00:54:24,793 Cliff Irving had more courage than we did... 914 00:54:24,894 --> 00:54:29,092 and as sure a hand, certainly, at fiction. 915 00:54:29,199 --> 00:54:33,898 Also, I'll admit that he's nudging the Martians a bit... 916 00:54:34,004 --> 00:54:36,165 for the championship title. 917 00:54:36,273 --> 00:54:40,607 It taxes your imagination to believe that a thing like this could happen. 918 00:54:40,710 --> 00:54:44,441 "I do not know Clifford Irving, said the voice. 919 00:54:44,547 --> 00:54:49,382 Until a matter of days ago, when this thing first came to my attention. 920 00:54:50,620 --> 00:54:54,317 All over the world, people were saying that the fishiest thing in this whole business... 921 00:54:54,424 --> 00:54:56,392 was not Irving's part in it... 922 00:54:56,493 --> 00:55:01,226 but the identity of whoever it was who claimed to Irving he was Hughes. 923 00:55:01,331 --> 00:55:03,822 And who do you think is still mixed up in all this? 924 00:55:03,933 --> 00:55:09,030 According to one theory, who else but Elmyr, a man so skilled in art forgery... 925 00:55:09,139 --> 00:55:10,629 could have forged that manuscript? 926 00:55:10,740 --> 00:55:13,265 Irving's lawyer is speculating about a host of theories. 927 00:55:13,376 --> 00:55:15,901 Theories, if, for instance, that telephone voice... 928 00:55:16,012 --> 00:55:18,845 was Hughes and was telling the truth, we should remember... 929 00:55:18,948 --> 00:55:23,885 that Hughes had been known to make use of doubles. 930 00:55:23,987 --> 00:55:25,887 And here comes another theory: 931 00:55:25,989 --> 00:55:29,720 Now a double might be making use of Hughes. 932 00:55:29,826 --> 00:55:33,728 According to informed sources, high officials in the Hughes empire... 933 00:55:33,830 --> 00:55:38,164 are not even now fully satisfied that the mystery is completely unraveled. 934 00:55:38,268 --> 00:55:42,364 They are searching for a "Mr. Big" behind it all. 935 00:55:42,472 --> 00:55:45,839 Was "Mr. Big" Mrs. . Big? 936 00:55:45,942 --> 00:55:48,570 Edith, maybe? 937 00:55:48,678 --> 00:55:51,704 Cliff Irving topped all this and stopped it dead... 938 00:55:51,815 --> 00:55:53,715 with a confession. 939 00:55:53,817 --> 00:55:57,116 Charges could result in as much as 100 years imprisonment. 940 00:55:57,220 --> 00:55:59,279 But this may be softened if Clifford Irving... 941 00:55:59,389 --> 00:56:02,790 agrees to come clean on the whole story. 942 00:56:02,892 --> 00:56:05,087 He did. He told it all... 943 00:56:05,195 --> 00:56:07,026 not only to the courts, but in a book. 944 00:56:07,130 --> 00:56:10,258 And now, as Elmyr leaves that story... 945 00:56:10,367 --> 00:56:12,961 and a chapter in ours comes to a close... 946 00:56:13,069 --> 00:56:14,969 things may well be looking up just a bit... 947 00:56:15,071 --> 00:56:18,165 for his biographer, jail or not. 948 00:56:18,274 --> 00:56:21,038 This is a headline in London's Sunday Times: 949 00:56:21,144 --> 00:56:24,307 "Hoaxer Irving Makes a Handsome Profit. " 950 00:56:24,414 --> 00:56:28,680 - No, no, no. - And for Elmyr, at least and at last... 951 00:56:28,785 --> 00:56:32,084 that story has a happy ending: He's in the clear. 952 00:56:33,790 --> 00:56:35,781 Here's another coincidence for you. 953 00:56:35,892 --> 00:56:38,053 To Connecticut, yeah. 954 00:56:38,161 --> 00:56:41,324 Somebody else from Ibiza. This is our co producer. 955 00:56:41,431 --> 00:56:44,127 - Who's calling? - Richard Drewett. 956 00:56:44,234 --> 00:56:48,432 Richard Drewett, the only simon-pure noncharlatan in this movie. 957 00:56:48,538 --> 00:56:51,974 Irving just now is holed up in Connecticut, and we're calling him from Paris. 958 00:56:52,075 --> 00:56:56,273 And so excruciating is Richard's honesty, that he's insisted on warning... 959 00:56:56,379 --> 00:56:58,870 Time magazine's nomination for con man of the year... 960 00:56:58,982 --> 00:57:01,007 that our call to him is being taped. 961 00:57:01,117 --> 00:57:03,017 - Hello? - The book. 962 00:57:03,119 --> 00:57:05,144 Can you say anything about the, um - 963 00:57:05,255 --> 00:57:07,155 the deal that you've managed to do with the book? 964 00:57:07,257 --> 00:57:11,159 I mean, is it- h-has it turned out as well as you'd expected? 965 00:57:13,096 --> 00:57:15,394 - Th-The deal? - Are you going to tell the whole truth? 966 00:57:15,498 --> 00:57:17,523 Yes. Absolutely. 967 00:57:17,634 --> 00:57:21,161 - Yeah. - In fact the title is The Book About the Book. 968 00:57:21,271 --> 00:57:24,638 In two years, Cliff, you are going to write "The Book About the book About the Book. " 969 00:57:24,741 --> 00:57:28,404 Gentlemen, was that the real voice of Clifford Irving? 970 00:57:28,912 --> 00:57:31,676 Well, Irving's real voice as a writer... 971 00:57:31,781 --> 00:57:34,011 he may well have found now in his new book. 972 00:57:34,117 --> 00:57:36,017 The new title is What Really Happened. 973 00:57:36,085 --> 00:57:38,144 I want to paint my own paintings. 974 00:57:38,288 --> 00:57:40,654 I want the right uniquely... 975 00:57:40,757 --> 00:57:44,557 and exclusively of my work. 976 00:57:44,661 --> 00:57:48,563 And Elmyr? Will there ever be another book about him? 977 00:57:48,665 --> 00:57:50,963 He's told so many stories about himself... 978 00:57:51,067 --> 00:57:56,004 - always telling this story to that one and another story to that one. - Uh, I don't - 979 00:57:56,105 --> 00:57:58,471 He's lived always on the run. 980 00:57:58,575 --> 00:58:04,036 I, uh, stayed ultimately 12 years in the United States. 981 00:58:04,147 --> 00:58:07,412 Which he spent there illegally, since he only had a three-month visa. 982 00:58:07,517 --> 00:58:11,578 I lived very simply. I lived, uh, on my own paintings. 983 00:58:11,688 --> 00:58:14,486 I sold them for $ 10, $ 15. 984 00:58:14,591 --> 00:58:18,584 My own canvases. And then sometimes when I had absolutely no money... 985 00:58:18,695 --> 00:58:22,096 I was completely broke, I made a Modigliani drawing. 986 00:58:22,198 --> 00:58:26,100 I took 'em to one of the big dealers around Beverly Hills. 987 00:58:26,202 --> 00:58:28,568 It never happened that I didn't sell them. 988 00:58:28,671 --> 00:58:30,571 I always sold them. 989 00:58:30,673 --> 00:58:33,198 One reason he was able to get away with what he was doing... 990 00:58:33,309 --> 00:58:37,040 for- for 22 years, selling fakes all over the world... 991 00:58:37,146 --> 00:58:39,046 all over the United States... 992 00:58:39,148 --> 00:58:41,616 was the existence of something new in the art world. 993 00:58:41,718 --> 00:58:44,380 And that was the art market. 994 00:58:44,487 --> 00:58:47,047 It enabled him to live from day to day... 995 00:58:47,156 --> 00:58:49,681 from painting to painting, from fake to fake... 996 00:58:49,792 --> 00:58:54,092 from- from con man to con man, from crook to crook... 997 00:58:54,197 --> 00:58:56,097 and from town to town. 998 00:58:56,199 --> 00:58:58,531 Who knows? What is it? What -What makes you travel? 999 00:58:58,635 --> 00:59:01,069 You want a change of landscape. You want to meet new people. 1000 00:59:01,170 --> 00:59:02,797 You want to meet new faces. 1001 00:59:02,906 --> 00:59:07,809 You think you'll meet somebody more attractive in the next town as you met there. 1002 00:59:07,911 --> 00:59:10,209 You never know. Why? Why people travel. Do you know? 1003 00:59:10,313 --> 00:59:14,079 Because the F.B.I. And the police in four different states were on his tail. 1004 00:59:14,183 --> 00:59:17,277 - But, uh - - And he had to be one jump ahead of them. 1005 00:59:17,387 --> 00:59:21,414 He had to whip off to Mexico and then up to Canada, and then back to New York. 1006 00:59:21,524 --> 00:59:24,721 And then when he heard that the police were knocking on his door in Miami Beach... 1007 00:59:24,827 --> 00:59:27,819 he had to scuttle out of town on a Greyhound bus to Texas. 1008 00:59:27,931 --> 00:59:31,423 Hit hard by Torborg, but right to third baseman, Aurelio Rodriguez. 1009 00:59:31,534 --> 00:59:33,764 After one hop, the ball really flattened out for him. 1010 00:59:33,870 --> 00:59:37,101 Then, finally, on a distant island... 1011 00:59:37,206 --> 00:59:39,106 he did find a home. 1012 00:59:40,910 --> 00:59:44,346 He doesn't own it, remember, but it's a splendid villa... 1013 00:59:44,447 --> 00:59:46,972 with a fine view of the village... 1014 00:59:47,083 --> 00:59:48,983 and the village jail. 1015 00:59:49,085 --> 00:59:51,576 To be in jail here is probably, I would say- 1016 00:59:51,688 --> 00:59:53,588 here is better than somewhere else. 1017 00:59:53,690 --> 00:59:57,990 - But a jail is a jail. Let's face it. - Moment of truth. 1018 00:59:58,094 --> 01:00:01,325 He's talking about the time they took him down... 1019 01:00:01,431 --> 01:00:05,128 out of that villa, which he doesn't own, and put him into prison. 1020 01:00:06,703 --> 01:00:08,694 Let me show you that again. 1021 01:00:08,805 --> 01:00:12,172 To be in jail here is probably, I would say- 1022 01:00:12,275 --> 01:00:14,175 here is better than somewhere else. 1023 01:00:14,277 --> 01:00:17,474 But a jail is a jail. Let's face it. 1024 01:00:17,580 --> 01:00:21,380 Hemingway wrote a great short story... 1025 01:00:21,484 --> 01:00:27,047 about an old bullfighter called "The Undefeated. " 1026 01:00:28,558 --> 01:00:31,618 Well, all the heroes aren't in the bullring. 1027 01:00:31,728 --> 01:00:34,720 Here's our hero, our ex-jailbird... 1028 01:00:34,831 --> 01:00:36,992 flying high above his troubles. 1029 01:00:37,100 --> 01:00:39,000 Watch the quick recovery. 1030 01:00:39,102 --> 01:00:41,832 That was quite a disgusting person. 1031 01:00:43,439 --> 01:00:45,873 He looks disgusting too, doesn't he? 1032 01:00:48,011 --> 01:00:49,911 He was, again, a German... 1033 01:00:50,013 --> 01:00:52,982 whose main preoccupation was his mustache. 1034 01:00:53,082 --> 01:00:56,074 He kept doing nothing but touching his mustache. 1035 01:00:56,185 --> 01:01:00,212 He just kept on curling and curling and curling his mustache. 1036 01:01:01,424 --> 01:01:05,258 These other drawings are made during the time I was in prison. 1037 01:01:05,361 --> 01:01:09,855 In the very end, the judge himself thanked me... 1038 01:01:09,966 --> 01:01:14,266 and he declared that I'm a very generous and a very kind person. 1039 01:01:14,370 --> 01:01:17,635 Now that he's out of prison, what will he do? 1040 01:01:19,275 --> 01:01:22,836 He'll give a party. Another party. 1041 01:01:36,125 --> 01:01:38,218 Elmyr, how do you mean you were not in prison? 1042 01:01:38,327 --> 01:01:41,728 Because I wasn't a prisoner in the full sense of word. 1043 01:01:41,831 --> 01:01:46,359 I was not imprisoned. I was interned. 1044 01:01:46,469 --> 01:01:50,428 She's a great friend of mine. 1045 01:01:50,540 --> 01:01:53,270 She's a great friend of mine She was very sweet and kind to me. 1046 01:01:53,376 --> 01:01:56,209 When I was in prison, she came to see me every day. 1047 01:01:56,312 --> 01:01:58,780 Most of the days of the week. 1048 01:01:58,881 --> 01:02:03,909 Jean-Pierre Ramon. I had a Spanish-Polish prince... 1049 01:02:04,020 --> 01:02:07,319 Charles-Touriski Bourbon, who's a cousin germain... 1050 01:02:07,423 --> 01:02:11,655 of the next king of Spain, Juan Carlos, who came every day. 1051 01:02:11,761 --> 01:02:13,661 I had every day coming in Nina. 1052 01:02:13,763 --> 01:02:16,254 Nina, that morsel plucked... 1053 01:02:16,365 --> 01:02:19,163 from our name-dropper's list of prison visitors... 1054 01:02:19,268 --> 01:02:21,862 is the Baroness Van Pallandt. 1055 01:02:21,971 --> 01:02:23,905 She was a witness against Irving. 1056 01:02:24,006 --> 01:02:27,669 It seems he couldn't have had a secret rendezvous with Howard Hughes in Mexico... 1057 01:02:27,777 --> 01:02:29,745 because he spent every minute there with the baroness. 1058 01:02:29,846 --> 01:02:33,475 She used to be a famous folk singer, and now she's famous again. 1059 01:02:33,649 --> 01:02:38,177 Many other ladies flitted across the front pages. 1060 01:02:38,287 --> 01:02:40,187 No, our cameras never got close to them. 1061 01:02:40,289 --> 01:02:42,689 But Oja Kodar was something else. 1062 01:02:42,792 --> 01:02:46,853 - Uh, Miss Kodar- - The newspapers have been calling you the Hungarian connection. 1063 01:02:46,963 --> 01:02:48,863 Because of my connection with Irving? 1064 01:02:48,965 --> 01:02:51,297 This is from the tape of a recent interview. 1065 01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:53,925 - There's quite a list. - Indeed. 1066 01:02:54,036 --> 01:02:59,269 - If only half of all that is true, I wonder how he ever got away to his typewriter. - Well, Miss Kodar. 1067 01:02:59,375 --> 01:03:02,105 - You wouldn't say that forgery's a crime? - And the experts? 1068 01:03:02,211 --> 01:03:06,307 As long as there are fakers, I guess there'll have to be experts. 1069 01:03:06,415 --> 01:03:09,077 But if there weren't any experts... 1070 01:03:09,185 --> 01:03:11,676 would there be any fakers? 1071 01:03:11,788 --> 01:03:14,348 A friend-another friend- 1072 01:03:14,457 --> 01:03:17,051 once showed a Picasso to Picasso... 1073 01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:18,855 who said, no, it was a fake. 1074 01:03:18,961 --> 01:03:22,397 The same friend brought him, from yet another source... 1075 01:03:22,498 --> 01:03:26,025 another would-be Picasso, and Picasso said that, too, was a fake. 1076 01:03:26,135 --> 01:03:28,865 Then yet another from another source. "Also fake, said Picasso. 1077 01:03:28,971 --> 01:03:31,667 "But, Pablo, said his friend... 1078 01:03:31,774 --> 01:03:33,833 "I watched you paint that with my own eyes. " 1079 01:03:33,943 --> 01:03:38,903 Said Picasso, "I can paint false Picassos as well as anybody. " 1080 01:03:40,283 --> 01:03:44,310 I'm not excusing myself. I'm not trying to make an excuse. 1081 01:03:44,420 --> 01:03:48,015 I'm trying to explain a psychological situation... 1082 01:03:48,124 --> 01:03:50,251 and a human weakness. 1083 01:03:50,359 --> 01:03:52,919 He's not in jail today for basically two reasons. 1084 01:03:53,029 --> 01:03:57,489 A court case would bring such publicity upon the art world... 1085 01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:02,435 that any art dealer who took the stand would automatically become suspect. 1086 01:04:02,538 --> 01:04:04,870 The other reason he's not in jail is because... 1087 01:04:04,974 --> 01:04:08,910 the French police have explained to me that in order to jail him in France... 1088 01:04:09,011 --> 01:04:11,377 they would have to have two witnesses... 1089 01:04:11,480 --> 01:04:13,380 who saw him doing the paintings... 1090 01:04:13,482 --> 01:04:15,507 who saw him signing the paintings... 1091 01:04:15,618 --> 01:04:18,052 as Vlamincks or Derains or Picassos. 1092 01:04:18,154 --> 01:04:20,088 The signatures were put on... 1093 01:04:20,189 --> 01:04:23,124 much later than the paintings were painted. 1094 01:04:23,226 --> 01:04:26,855 I never signed any painting anyway. 1095 01:04:28,030 --> 01:04:30,464 That's a very important matter. 1096 01:04:40,309 --> 01:04:43,039 No, I never signed any of them. 1097 01:04:46,082 --> 01:04:48,380 No. Never did. No. 1098 01:04:48,484 --> 01:04:50,782 Never did. 1099 01:05:06,535 --> 01:05:08,435 Of course they were signed. 1100 01:05:10,106 --> 01:05:14,270 Well, whoever did sign them... 1101 01:05:14,377 --> 01:05:17,107 his paintings are in so many great collections... 1102 01:05:17,213 --> 01:05:19,113 that surely it must be said of Elmyr... 1103 01:05:19,215 --> 01:05:22,184 that he has achieved a certain immortality... 1104 01:05:23,819 --> 01:05:27,778 under various other signatures. 1105 01:05:30,459 --> 01:05:33,860 If you-you hang them in a museum or your collection of great paintings... 1106 01:05:33,963 --> 01:05:36,989 and if they hang long enough there, they become real. 1107 01:05:38,434 --> 01:05:42,302 Now, this has been standing here for centuries. 1108 01:05:42,405 --> 01:05:45,772 The premiere work of man, perhaps, in the whole Western world. 1109 01:05:45,875 --> 01:05:49,333 And it's without a signature. 1110 01:05:50,379 --> 01:05:52,279 Chartres. 1111 01:05:57,053 --> 01:06:02,047 A celebration to God's glory and to the dignity of man. 1112 01:06:05,227 --> 01:06:08,094 Well, all that's left, most artists seem to feel these days... 1113 01:06:08,197 --> 01:06:10,597 is man. 1114 01:06:12,368 --> 01:06:14,802 Naked. 1115 01:06:14,904 --> 01:06:18,533 Poor, forked radish. 1116 01:06:20,476 --> 01:06:23,036 There aren't any celebrations. 1117 01:06:24,513 --> 01:06:27,004 Ours, the scientists keep telling us... 1118 01:06:27,116 --> 01:06:30,415 is a universe which is disposable. 1119 01:06:33,422 --> 01:06:38,121 You know, it might be just this one anonymous glory... 1120 01:06:38,227 --> 01:06:40,320 of all things- 1121 01:06:40,429 --> 01:06:42,829 this rich stone forest... 1122 01:06:42,932 --> 01:06:45,833 this epic chant, this gaiety... 1123 01:06:45,935 --> 01:06:50,565 this grand choiring shout of affirmation... 1124 01:06:50,673 --> 01:06:52,834 which we choose... 1125 01:06:52,942 --> 01:06:55,433 when all our cities are dust... 1126 01:06:55,544 --> 01:06:57,569 to stand intact... 1127 01:06:57,680 --> 01:06:59,910 to mark where we have been... 1128 01:07:01,684 --> 01:07:04,710 to testify to what we had it in us... 1129 01:07:04,820 --> 01:07:07,015 to accomplish. 1130 01:07:08,758 --> 01:07:13,923 Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared- 1131 01:07:14,030 --> 01:07:17,727 some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two- 1132 01:07:17,833 --> 01:07:21,462 but everything must finally fall in war... 1133 01:07:21,570 --> 01:07:26,337 or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash. 1134 01:07:26,442 --> 01:07:29,206 The triumphs and the frauds... 1135 01:07:29,311 --> 01:07:31,472 the treasures and the fakes. 1136 01:07:31,580 --> 01:07:34,413 A fact of life. 1137 01:07:34,517 --> 01:07:36,644 We're going to die. 1138 01:07:36,752 --> 01:07:38,777 "Be of good heart"... 1139 01:07:38,888 --> 01:07:44,224 cry the dead artists out of the living past. 1140 01:07:44,326 --> 01:07:46,658 "Our songs... 1141 01:07:46,762 --> 01:07:49,788 "will all be silenced. 1142 01:07:49,899 --> 01:07:51,799 "But what of it? 1143 01:07:54,503 --> 01:07:56,835 Go on singing. " 1144 01:07:59,041 --> 01:08:01,874 Maybe a man's name... 1145 01:08:02,912 --> 01:08:04,812 doesn't matter... 1146 01:08:06,082 --> 01:08:08,175 all that much. 1147 01:08:14,390 --> 01:08:16,381 And now, at last, we come to Oja. 1148 01:08:20,229 --> 01:08:24,165 For this true story, and with her kind collaboration... 1149 01:08:24,266 --> 01:08:28,134 we offer now- well, you might call it a reenactment of recent history. 1150 01:08:28,804 --> 01:08:32,103 As we told you at the start, she comes into this only at the end. 1151 01:08:32,208 --> 01:08:34,506 And that's where we've left her, for the end. 1152 01:08:38,647 --> 01:08:40,774 And as for coincidence- 1153 01:08:40,883 --> 01:08:44,444 Just for instance, I give you Oja's grandfather. 1154 01:08:44,553 --> 01:08:47,147 Oh, no. 1155 01:08:47,256 --> 01:08:50,248 No, let's take him back for a while and save him for later. 1156 01:08:50,359 --> 01:08:53,328 The mixture's rich enough as it is. 1157 01:08:53,429 --> 01:08:55,454 Oja, as far as I know... 1158 01:08:55,564 --> 01:08:58,624 never breathed a word about him to any of us. 1159 01:08:58,734 --> 01:09:01,965 She comes into this when she herself came to the attention of- 1160 01:09:02,071 --> 01:09:07,839 well, who else, but the first genius among all the artists of our age. 1161 01:09:07,943 --> 01:09:10,571 The most celebrated, certainly the wealthiest painter... 1162 01:09:10,679 --> 01:09:12,977 in 6,000 years. 1163 01:09:14,517 --> 01:09:19,352 Well, Picasso is the biggest phenomenon of our time. 1164 01:09:19,455 --> 01:09:24,825 It never existed that a painter was able... 1165 01:09:24,927 --> 01:09:28,624 with one movement of his hand - 1166 01:09:28,731 --> 01:09:33,566 what necessarily didn't involve more than 10 seconds - 1167 01:09:33,669 --> 01:09:35,967 that movement of the hand... 1168 01:09:36,071 --> 01:09:39,165 transformed in gold. 1169 01:09:39,275 --> 01:09:43,211 Not even John D. Rockefeller was able to do that. 1170 01:09:46,882 --> 01:09:49,214 His estate has been valued at... 1171 01:09:49,318 --> 01:09:53,220 $ 750 million. 1172 01:09:54,523 --> 01:09:58,015 Oja turned him into a girl watcher. 1173 01:09:59,261 --> 01:10:01,821 This happened not so very long ago... 1174 01:10:01,931 --> 01:10:03,796 when Picasso, for reasons of his own... 1175 01:10:03,899 --> 01:10:07,630 went to paint for a while in the little village of Toussaint. 1176 01:10:09,004 --> 01:10:12,462 Oja was there too, on her holidays. 1177 01:10:13,542 --> 01:10:17,103 And she had a friend with her, a boy named Olaf... 1178 01:10:17,213 --> 01:10:19,443 from somewhere in the Viking country. 1179 01:10:22,218 --> 01:10:24,482 In his homeland, up there in the frozen north... 1180 01:10:24,587 --> 01:10:26,748 Olaf had been infected rather imperfectly... 1181 01:10:26,855 --> 01:10:29,619 with a taste for the classic jazz of New Orleans... 1182 01:10:29,725 --> 01:10:33,855 and his researches in this area took place under Picasso's window... 1183 01:10:33,963 --> 01:10:38,263 where morning and night he practiced the trombone. 1184 01:10:42,972 --> 01:10:45,270 Olaf's trombone commenced early... 1185 01:10:47,209 --> 01:10:49,336 finished late... 1186 01:10:49,445 --> 01:10:51,777 and nearly drove Picasso out of his skull. 1187 01:10:53,882 --> 01:10:57,682 And then - then there was another distraction. 1188 01:10:58,988 --> 01:11:00,888 Far more disturbing. 1189 01:11:03,592 --> 01:11:05,492 Oja. 1190 01:11:08,097 --> 01:11:11,066 Oja in the morning, on her way to the beach. 1191 01:11:12,735 --> 01:11:15,602 Oja at 10:00, coming back for the suntan lotion. 1192 01:11:18,274 --> 01:11:21,266 To the beach again... 1193 01:11:21,377 --> 01:11:25,336 and back once more at noon for lunch. 1194 01:11:29,251 --> 01:11:32,982 In that climate, after lunch one takes a siesta. 1195 01:11:33,088 --> 01:11:35,852 Not Oja. And not Picasso either. 1196 01:11:37,726 --> 01:11:40,524 Cocktail time. 1197 01:11:40,629 --> 01:11:42,324 Dinnertime. 1198 01:11:42,431 --> 01:11:44,524 Anytime. 1199 01:11:45,834 --> 01:11:49,531 Oja on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday... 1200 01:11:49,638 --> 01:11:51,868 and all through the week. 1201 01:11:53,475 --> 01:11:55,841 Week after week. 1202 01:11:56,612 --> 01:11:59,308 Oja checking on the trombone. 1203 01:11:59,415 --> 01:12:01,713 Oja escaping from it. 1204 01:12:01,817 --> 01:12:04,445 But no escaping for Picasso. 1205 01:12:38,220 --> 01:12:40,586 Was he tempted? 1206 01:12:50,332 --> 01:12:53,631 Perhaps he was... inspired. 1207 01:14:25,127 --> 01:14:29,029 I can't tell you what happened in there. 1208 01:14:29,131 --> 01:14:32,999 But Picasso was a fast worker, by which - 1209 01:14:33,101 --> 01:14:35,160 I mean to say, you understand, that... 1210 01:14:35,270 --> 01:14:38,239 the results of this encounter were, to say the least of it... 1211 01:14:38,340 --> 01:14:41,138 extremely fruitful. 1212 01:15:04,433 --> 01:15:07,561 Figs sweetened on the trees. 1213 01:15:07,669 --> 01:15:12,106 Grapes burst into ripeness on the vines. 1214 01:15:13,141 --> 01:15:15,837 And 22-22- 1215 01:15:15,944 --> 01:15:19,072 large portraits of Miss Oja Kodar... 1216 01:15:19,181 --> 01:15:22,275 were born under that virile brush. 1217 01:15:24,486 --> 01:15:28,946 Money. We've heard Elmyr on that subject. 1218 01:15:29,057 --> 01:15:31,525 Well, Picasso didn't make all that bread... 1219 01:15:31,627 --> 01:15:35,154 by casting any crumbs of it on the waters, or feeding it to the birds... 1220 01:15:35,264 --> 01:15:38,256 or giving away any pictures to his models. 1221 01:15:38,367 --> 01:15:42,030 But Oja laid down conditions. She put a price... 1222 01:15:42,137 --> 01:15:43,695 on the sunshine. 1223 01:15:43,805 --> 01:15:47,536 To give it up, he had to give something to her. And this is true, you know. 1224 01:15:47,643 --> 01:15:50,737 What she exacted from Picasso was no less than this: 1225 01:15:50,846 --> 01:15:53,974 All those pictures - all 22 of them - 1226 01:15:54,082 --> 01:15:56,550 were to be hers, outright. 1227 01:15:56,652 --> 01:16:00,850 Her property. Oja's very own to pick up and carry away... 1228 01:16:00,956 --> 01:16:02,890 which is just exactly what she did with them. 1229 01:16:04,626 --> 01:16:08,323 The lot. Let's call it the loot. 1230 01:16:08,430 --> 01:16:11,263 She got away with it all. 1231 01:16:12,200 --> 01:16:14,828 Well, no wonder she's rich, you'll say. 1232 01:16:15,270 --> 01:16:17,238 But wait, there's more to this. 1233 01:16:17,339 --> 01:16:21,105 Just now, Paris is fogbound. 1234 01:16:21,209 --> 01:16:24,337 Just then - and this is important to our story- 1235 01:16:24,446 --> 01:16:26,914 there was another sort of paralysis. 1236 01:16:27,015 --> 01:16:29,745 Uh, Paris was suffering from August. 1237 01:16:29,851 --> 01:16:31,751 This happens every year. 1238 01:16:31,853 --> 01:16:34,344 It shuts down, closes up... 1239 01:16:34,456 --> 01:16:38,392 and this is the time when an invader could take the country by telephone... 1240 01:16:38,493 --> 01:16:40,961 if he could get somebody to answer it. 1241 01:16:41,063 --> 01:16:44,590 And this is the time, of all time... 1242 01:16:44,700 --> 01:16:47,897 when, down there in Toussaint... 1243 01:16:48,003 --> 01:16:51,769 Picasso, opening his morning newspaper... 1244 01:16:51,873 --> 01:16:54,239 read that in a little-known art gallery in Paris... 1245 01:16:54,343 --> 01:16:56,811 there had been opened to the public an exposition... 1246 01:16:56,912 --> 01:16:59,278 of the works of Pablo Picasso.! 1247 01:16:59,381 --> 01:17:03,681 At this, a species of atomic blast... 1248 01:17:03,785 --> 01:17:06,310 stormed out of the Riviera.! 1249 01:17:07,456 --> 01:17:09,981 In the American hemisphere... 1250 01:17:10,092 --> 01:17:12,788 we give our bigger tornadoes... 1251 01:17:12,894 --> 01:17:17,228 names like Ethel, Mary Lou and Dolores. 1252 01:17:17,332 --> 01:17:20,460 Well, what shook the South of France that day... 1253 01:17:20,569 --> 01:17:23,163 should've been called "Pablo. " 1254 01:17:23,271 --> 01:17:25,831 Booking a seat on the first available plane... 1255 01:17:25,941 --> 01:17:28,535 the storm now moved toward Paris. 1256 01:17:28,644 --> 01:17:31,135 And there wasn't any improvement in the atmospheric conditions... 1257 01:17:31,246 --> 01:17:35,842 at the airport when another newspaper came to the artist's furious attention. 1258 01:17:35,951 --> 01:17:37,919 "Picasso, said the headline... 1259 01:17:38,020 --> 01:17:39,954 "has been born again. " 1260 01:17:40,055 --> 01:17:45,118 Critics were hailing the freshness, the force, the fecundity. 1261 01:17:45,227 --> 01:17:47,593 But who cared? Not Picasso. 1262 01:17:47,696 --> 01:17:51,097 No. There'd been a very clear understanding. 1263 01:17:51,199 --> 01:17:55,158 None of those portraits were ever to be sold. 1264 01:17:55,270 --> 01:17:59,400 Oja'd get rich, but not a penny's profit for Pablo. 1265 01:17:59,508 --> 01:18:05,071 There are witnesses who swear that an aureole of blue flame... 1266 01:18:05,180 --> 01:18:07,648 sizzled about that noble head... 1267 01:18:07,749 --> 01:18:11,014 as the great painter burst into the picture gallery. 1268 01:18:12,054 --> 01:18:15,751 What is remembered - what will never be forgotten - 1269 01:18:15,857 --> 01:18:19,918 is the terrible incandescence... 1270 01:18:20,028 --> 01:18:22,428 of Picasso's rage. 1271 01:18:22,531 --> 01:18:25,989 And then there came a sudden... 1272 01:18:26,101 --> 01:18:28,797 and quite remarkable change. 1273 01:18:28,904 --> 01:18:32,738 Those famous staring eyes... 1274 01:18:32,841 --> 01:18:36,971 now stared as eyes have never stared before. 1275 01:18:43,351 --> 01:18:48,448 From picture to picture they traveled. 1276 01:18:50,125 --> 01:18:53,583 All 22 of them... 1277 01:18:53,695 --> 01:18:55,788 recognizing... 1278 01:18:55,897 --> 01:18:57,922 none. 1279 01:19:01,503 --> 01:19:05,200 Not one single canvas... 1280 01:19:05,307 --> 01:19:07,832 in that whole collection... 1281 01:19:10,479 --> 01:19:13,471 had been painted by Picasso. 1282 01:19:16,685 --> 01:19:18,744 And there she was... 1283 01:19:18,854 --> 01:19:21,584 standing beside him. 1284 01:19:21,690 --> 01:19:24,284 You told him about your... 1285 01:19:25,627 --> 01:19:28,152 grandfather... 1286 01:19:28,263 --> 01:19:30,163 that he was dying. 1287 01:19:31,433 --> 01:19:34,095 - He didn't even know he existed. - Nobody did. 1288 01:19:34,202 --> 01:19:36,102 The greatest of all the art forgers... 1289 01:19:36,204 --> 01:19:39,799 remained always a legend, mentioned only in whispers. 1290 01:19:39,908 --> 01:19:42,536 Oja, tell us what you did with Picasso. 1291 01:19:42,644 --> 01:19:44,942 I just took him by the hand and led him out... 1292 01:19:45,046 --> 01:19:46,946 and put him in my little car. 1293 01:19:47,048 --> 01:19:50,609 And drove him to your grandfather's secret studio? 1294 01:19:51,920 --> 01:19:55,788 This is true, you know. What's amazing is that he went with her. 1295 01:19:55,891 --> 01:19:57,916 Here are some pictures. These are the last I took of him. 1296 01:19:58,026 --> 01:19:59,618 And the first to be made public, hmm? 1297 01:19:59,728 --> 01:20:02,891 He was never photographed, except in the family. 1298 01:20:02,998 --> 01:20:05,865 - He was very careful about that. - That's why he was never caught. 1299 01:20:05,967 --> 01:20:09,528 You know, I never thought to ask Elmyr about him. After all, they're both Hungarians. 1300 01:20:09,638 --> 01:20:13,233 There are many great painters in the Renaissance, but only one da Vinci. 1301 01:20:13,341 --> 01:20:15,241 The point being, that among great art forgers... 1302 01:20:15,343 --> 01:20:17,311 your grandfather is the da Vinci? 1303 01:20:17,412 --> 01:20:20,074 One of his da Vinci's is so famous I don't dare to name it. 1304 01:20:20,182 --> 01:20:23,640 Giving him credit is as tough as nailing him for the crime. 1305 01:20:23,752 --> 01:20:25,811 - Crime? - Well... 1306 01:20:25,921 --> 01:20:27,889 he painted every last one of those phony Picassos of you. 1307 01:20:27,989 --> 01:20:32,050 For every last one of which Picasso was very highly praised. 1308 01:20:32,160 --> 01:20:35,926 But not, to put it mildly, highly pleased. You must have known you couldn't get away with it. 1309 01:20:36,031 --> 01:20:38,022 I got to meet Picasso. 1310 01:20:38,133 --> 01:20:42,502 So, here they are, the world's best and least known geniuses. 1311 01:20:42,604 --> 01:20:45,767 My grandfather was very glad to see him. 1312 01:20:45,874 --> 01:20:47,739 "Picasso"... 1313 01:20:47,843 --> 01:20:49,834 said her grandfather... 1314 01:20:49,945 --> 01:20:52,709 "I've been painting you for years. 1315 01:20:53,515 --> 01:20:57,281 All the great Picasso periods. " 1316 01:20:57,385 --> 01:21:00,183 I'm not trying too hard for the Hungarian accent... 1317 01:21:00,288 --> 01:21:02,620 - but I think that's how it went. - Oh, yes. 1318 01:21:02,724 --> 01:21:07,286 "This girl," said Picasso, "claims that you're dying. " 1319 01:21:07,395 --> 01:21:10,262 "A dying art forger," he said, "is still an art forger. " 1320 01:21:10,365 --> 01:21:12,765 Well, you tell us what Picasso said. 1321 01:21:12,868 --> 01:21:14,802 He called us both a couple of crooks. 1322 01:21:14,903 --> 01:21:17,428 "Oja," said your grandfather, "is quite as honest... 1323 01:21:17,539 --> 01:21:20,872 "as anyone that young, that beautiful... 1324 01:21:20,976 --> 01:21:23,274 and that Hungarian has any need to be. " 1325 01:21:23,378 --> 01:21:26,370 "She's stolen my pictures," said Picasso. 1326 01:21:26,481 --> 01:21:28,949 "She made you a gift, señor. She gave you a whole summer. " 1327 01:21:29,050 --> 01:21:33,248 "It's not more than the price of 22 Picassos. And where, for God's sake, are they now?" 1328 01:21:33,355 --> 01:21:34,982 "Pablo - 1329 01:21:35,090 --> 01:21:37,058 "May I call you Pablo? 1330 01:21:39,160 --> 01:21:41,060 "No. 1331 01:21:42,764 --> 01:21:45,130 "Well, señor... 1332 01:21:45,233 --> 01:21:48,134 "it seems that in my son-in-law's new little art gallery... 1333 01:21:48,236 --> 01:21:51,569 "there are 22 paintings, every one of which has been acclaimed... 1334 01:21:51,673 --> 01:21:53,937 "as a masterpiece. 1335 01:21:54,042 --> 01:21:57,478 At least, that's the best critical opinion. " 1336 01:21:57,579 --> 01:22:00,844 "The best critical opinion is a load of horse manure. " 1337 01:22:00,949 --> 01:22:03,679 Or words to that effect. 1338 01:22:03,785 --> 01:22:07,346 "How perfectly we agree on that, señor. 1339 01:22:07,455 --> 01:22:09,946 "But you have so little reason to be bitter. 1340 01:22:10,058 --> 01:22:13,516 "Is there a man in all the world who doesn't know your name? 1341 01:22:13,628 --> 01:22:15,619 And who in all the world knows mine?" 1342 01:22:15,730 --> 01:22:18,255 "You're one of those that use so many names that you forget your own!" 1343 01:22:18,366 --> 01:22:21,995 "I, señor, am not one... 1344 01:22:22,103 --> 01:22:24,367 "of anything. 1345 01:22:24,472 --> 01:22:28,670 "Like you, I am unique. 1346 01:22:28,777 --> 01:22:32,213 "You've seen my big Cézanne at the Metropolitan? 1347 01:22:32,314 --> 01:22:36,410 "Is that just a forgery, my friend? 1348 01:22:37,752 --> 01:22:40,721 Is it not also a painting?" 1349 01:22:43,391 --> 01:22:46,121 Now, you tell us what Picasso had to say to that. 1350 01:22:46,227 --> 01:22:48,388 Something dirty in Spanish, I think. 1351 01:22:48,496 --> 01:22:51,192 He did accuse your grandfather of arrogance. 1352 01:22:51,299 --> 01:22:55,963 Arrogance? A man who never in his life signed his own name to a picture. 1353 01:22:56,071 --> 01:22:57,971 What could be more modest than that? 1354 01:22:58,073 --> 01:23:00,769 "It's true that when you think of those great Rembrandts" - 1355 01:23:00,875 --> 01:23:04,208 - Chicago has five of them. Important ones. - "And London. 1356 01:23:04,312 --> 01:23:09,716 "Why, just those two small Tintorettos in Brazil. 1357 01:23:09,818 --> 01:23:12,582 - "And Tokyo. - The big one. 1358 01:23:12,687 --> 01:23:17,021 In Cincinnati. Did all the Goyas and most of the Grecos. " 1359 01:23:17,125 --> 01:23:20,060 And the Monet. And the Manet in Detroit. 1360 01:23:20,161 --> 01:23:23,221 "So, am I not then myself"... 1361 01:23:23,331 --> 01:23:26,892 said your grandfather, "one of the great painters? 1362 01:23:27,002 --> 01:23:29,903 "No? No. 1363 01:23:31,139 --> 01:23:35,508 "Yet here you are, Picasso, standing at the deathbed of a ghost. 1364 01:23:35,610 --> 01:23:37,737 "For all my life I've been a ghost. 1365 01:23:37,846 --> 01:23:42,783 "And for all time, the galleries and museums will be haunted with my works. 1366 01:23:42,884 --> 01:23:47,048 "Do you think I should confess? To what? 1367 01:23:47,155 --> 01:23:50,420 "Committing masterpieces? 1368 01:23:50,525 --> 01:23:55,394 "They'd all be torn down from the walls. And what then would be left of me? 1369 01:23:55,497 --> 01:23:59,593 "But before I die, I find I need something. 1370 01:24:01,036 --> 01:24:03,197 "To believe - 1371 01:24:05,774 --> 01:24:08,675 "I must believe... 1372 01:24:08,777 --> 01:24:11,769 "that art itself... 1373 01:24:13,148 --> 01:24:15,048 "is real. 1374 01:24:17,886 --> 01:24:20,116 If it is not, señor" - 1375 01:24:21,856 --> 01:24:24,689 Here, my grandfather was interrupted by Picasso... 1376 01:24:24,793 --> 01:24:27,284 who asked him to stop making speeches. 1377 01:24:27,395 --> 01:24:29,625 "We've only to settle the fate... 1378 01:24:29,731 --> 01:24:32,291 "of 22 large canvases... 1379 01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:34,300 "painted by me. 1380 01:24:34,402 --> 01:24:37,394 "Picasso, you move so easily... 1381 01:24:37,505 --> 01:24:40,372 "from one Picasso period to another... 1382 01:24:40,475 --> 01:24:43,342 "change like a-an actor... 1383 01:24:43,445 --> 01:24:46,608 "like an art forger yourself. 1384 01:24:46,714 --> 01:24:49,581 "Won't you give to me, who admire you so much... 1385 01:24:50,652 --> 01:24:53,052 "a happy death? 1386 01:24:53,154 --> 01:24:55,315 "Can you not let me go knowing that at last... 1387 01:24:55,423 --> 01:24:59,189 "I've managed to give something new... 1388 01:24:59,294 --> 01:25:01,194 "to the world? 1389 01:25:02,230 --> 01:25:05,290 "One whole Picasso period. 1390 01:25:07,969 --> 01:25:09,869 Would you give me this?" 1391 01:25:09,971 --> 01:25:13,202 "Give me my pictures," said Picasso. 1392 01:25:13,308 --> 01:25:15,868 "Give me back my 22 paintings. " 1393 01:25:15,977 --> 01:25:19,413 "Ah," said your grandfather. "That is impossible. 1394 01:25:22,217 --> 01:25:24,117 I have burnt them. " 1395 01:25:25,753 --> 01:25:29,189 Well, good-bye, Picasso. 1396 01:25:29,324 --> 01:25:31,189 Time for a confession? 1397 01:25:32,827 --> 01:25:34,795 - Time to go. - Good night, Oja. 1398 01:25:36,798 --> 01:25:38,698 That's her real name, you know. 1399 01:25:39,501 --> 01:25:42,095 Oja. Oja Kodar. 1400 01:25:42,203 --> 01:25:46,037 I don't think that young gentleman's a trombone player... 1401 01:25:46,141 --> 01:25:49,042 but Oja's grandfather was Hungarian. 1402 01:25:49,144 --> 01:25:52,705 - Did he paint any pictures? - Never in his life. 1403 01:25:52,814 --> 01:25:57,012 Ladies and gentlemen, we did use Oja's grandfather... 1404 01:25:57,118 --> 01:26:00,485 to lend verisimilitude to the reenactment of this story. 1405 01:26:00,588 --> 01:26:03,648 But is "reenactment" really the word? 1406 01:26:03,758 --> 01:26:06,591 What I mean is, with a story this hard to believe... 1407 01:26:06,694 --> 01:26:09,959 reenactment isn't easy. 1408 01:26:10,064 --> 01:26:12,328 - Right, François? - Right. 1409 01:26:12,433 --> 01:26:15,834 At the very beginning, I - of all this - I did make you a promise. 1410 01:26:15,937 --> 01:26:18,804 Remember? I did promise... 1411 01:26:18,907 --> 01:26:22,536 that for one hour I'd tell you only the truth. 1412 01:26:27,115 --> 01:26:29,743 That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. 1413 01:26:29,851 --> 01:26:33,719 For the past 17 minutes, I've been lying my head off. 1414 01:26:35,056 --> 01:26:38,514 The truth- and please forgive us for it- 1415 01:26:38,626 --> 01:26:41,959 is that we've been forging an art story. 1416 01:26:42,063 --> 01:26:46,693 As a charlatan, of course, my job was to try to make it real... 1417 01:26:46,801 --> 01:26:50,532 not that reality has anything to do with it. 1418 01:26:50,638 --> 01:26:53,971 Reality? It's the toothbrush... 1419 01:26:54,075 --> 01:26:57,101 waiting at home for you in its glass. 1420 01:26:57,212 --> 01:27:01,114 A bus ticket, a paycheck... 1421 01:27:01,216 --> 01:27:03,275 and the grave. 1422 01:27:03,384 --> 01:27:06,945 In the right mood, perhaps, Elmyr has just as few regrets... 1423 01:27:07,055 --> 01:27:08,955 as I have to have been a charlatan. 1424 01:27:09,057 --> 01:27:11,582 But we're not so proud, either of us... 1425 01:27:11,693 --> 01:27:13,820 as to lay any superior claim... 1426 01:27:13,928 --> 01:27:16,761 to being very much worse than the rest of you. 1427 01:27:21,436 --> 01:27:25,964 No, what we professional liars hope to serve is truth. 1428 01:27:26,074 --> 01:27:28,440 I'm afraid the pompous word for that is "art. " 1429 01:27:28,543 --> 01:27:31,239 Picasso himself said it. 1430 01:27:31,346 --> 01:27:33,906 "Art, "he said, "is a lie- 1431 01:27:35,016 --> 01:27:37,484 "a lie that makes us... 1432 01:27:37,585 --> 01:27:39,485 realize the truth. " 1433 01:27:40,722 --> 01:27:44,749 Oja's grandfather, floating here in the air... 1434 01:27:44,859 --> 01:27:46,656 has no comment, which isn't surprising... 1435 01:27:46,761 --> 01:27:49,662 because he never existed. 1436 01:27:49,764 --> 01:27:52,597 To the memory of that great man who will never cease to exist... 1437 01:27:52,700 --> 01:27:56,693 I offer my apologies... 1438 01:27:56,804 --> 01:27:58,704 and wish you all... 1439 01:27:58,806 --> 01:28:02,298 true and false... 1440 01:28:02,410 --> 01:28:05,402 a very pleasant good evening. 1441 01:28:15,403 --> 01:28:18,203 Ripped by: SkyFury