Late Modernists at Cross Purposes in F is for Fake

Chartres Monologue from F is for Fake

In the wake of the modernist period, artists find this question particularly troubling. Modern artworks sprung from a rejection of all that had come before, but by the time the late modernists were writing (and painting, etc), the revolution was over and there was no institution left to fight against. Late modernists found themselves in the awkward position of trying to emulate the tradition of modernism where the whole philosophy was based on rebelling against tradition. If this fighting against the status quo is the philosophical centre of the work, how do you continue with integrity when the status quo is something you wholly agree with and admire?

Were late modernists betraying their artistic philosophy by creating beautiful works of art that nevertheless did not break from convention and reach new aesthetic heights? Could the modernist spirit survive when it was no longer avant-garde - was there anything else to modernism upon which artists could place their trust? Welles, in the true post-modern spirit, is asking the artistic community to accept their position as emulators of a once-avant-garde style, as frauds. That it does not matter if you are the first or the last to think like a modernist - if your work is genuine to the human condition, if it speaks in the same way as those art works you admire, then your art has value. Picasso’s paintings are artistically genius whether they are painted by Picasso himself, by de Hory, or simply captured via photograph. People can still see the beauty of his collage, the disruption of his line, and be affected by it. The preoccupation with the creator of the artwork is simply a capitalist construction, a way of affirming financial value (and often, social value).

This monologue, set against scenes of the medieval cathedral of Chartres, spinning out to us through Orson Welles’ ponderously precise rumble, sets the medieval period up in relation to the hay-day of high modernism. Both are renaissance periods of tremendous artistic growth and production. The artists from both periods had purpose and dynamism, and the left their mark on the world. From this stance we view the period after modernism in a grim light: “All that’s left most artists seem to feel these days is man. Naked. Poor. Forked, reddish. There aren’t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable.” But by the end of the monologue, he concludes, as I have said, by musing, “maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.” The human spirit will remember and revive that art which is best by simply virtue of desire, and long after the ownership of a painting has been long forgotten, the painting will still be there fresh and new. The art will live on without the artist, and that should be the aim of the artist, not personal fame or wealth.

And yet, Welles’ presence in the film belies his anxiety. As an aging artist himself, as a parody in many ways of his former self (certainly in the eyes of the critics if not himself), Welles has inserted himself directly into his movie, making himself the narrator, a character and the creator all at once. It is almost as if he cannot bear to go through his artistic life and find at the end of it that he was not there at all, that his presence will never matter a whit after he himself is too dead to collect royalties. As he waxes poetical on the “anonymous glory” of Chartres, he can’t help but blazon himself across his film, physically winding his face and his voice and his speech in among the long strips of his film. But I think it’s precisely this double-talk, these cross purposes, that characterise late modernism and is a large part of what makes it so charming, so complex. Welles knows that he should rise above his petty desire to be remembered as a success and as a classic. He knows that to remain true to what he believes in he should be able to shrug off the pressure of notoriety and longevity to create what he believes must be created. But he just can’t help himself! And in the process, he adds yet another narrative of treasures and fakes to this film, yet another subtextual plotline scuttling between the edges of the cuts and edits. He turns himself into just another character at the butt end of a joke as he wrestles with his doubts publically, in the face of the neutral eye of the camera, left open and waiting for us to judge for ourselves.