Skip to main content

THE HOAX. Dir Lasse Hallström. 2006


Image result for movie images the hoax hallstrom


This doesn’t sound like an interesting premise for a film; an unsuccessful writer faking the autobiography of Howard Hughes and getting caught, but it’s gripping, and true.

Clifford Irving’s breathtaking audacity is so outrageous and implausible that you have to keep watching because you can’t believe he’ll pull it off, and he nearly does. Richard Gere plays Irving with what looks like a dodgy black perm and he looks so unlike the Gere we know that he manages to convince.

Although the film is about the trickery involved in fooling his publicist, the publishers and their legal advisors, it is also a close study of friendship and relationships. Irving’s friend joins him rather reluctantly in the venture, which is a sort of literary hussle, but fails to put a brake on the increasingly complicated and unnerving fraud, while Irving’s wife has concerns about his easy lying in his private life.

Irving’s obsession with Hughes grows, and threatens to disrupt his life; he becomes almost deluded and paranoiac. Hallström weaves in sinister scenes which provide terrific tension, making the film a literary thriller. Irving comes to believe that Hughes wants to use him as a tool to topple Nixon’s corrupt government, so what started out as a desire to write a publishable book becomes a deranged mission to take on the White House and the CIA, to tell the truth and make a difference to the world. Was Irving going off the rails or was he a tool and a scapegoat? Hughes' power combined with our suspicion of CIA activities at the time of the Nixon administration, intimate that it could be possible.

Whatever is the real truth, Irving and his close relationships suffer from his casual deceit and betrayal and the film is a fascinating study of a man whose love of story, lively imagination, agile thinking and determination are really impressive. It's a pity his talents didn’t work to his, and his loved ones, advantage. His confidence, fearlessness, and talent as an actor suggest a bold, courageous or desperate man, and make for a fascinating character study. Not sure if he's likeable though.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ACCATONE! Dir Piers Paulo Pasolini. 1961

Accatone! (1961) is the first film by director Piers Paulo Pasolini and re-relased as part of a box set of his work. Accatone! features a pitiless, self-serving, manipulative young pimp living in the slums and rubble of Rome, whose lassitude is infectious. Images of his death recur throughout the film and he seems barely living. The exclamation mark in the title may be there to try and wake him up. Pasolini shot the film on the streets, using the people he found there rather than professional actors. The effect is a slow moving realism which casts the viewer as reluctant voyeur; it is impossible to gain any distance from the unrelenting sadism of hollow machismo. Seeing this film fifty years after it was made, the misogyny in this film is deeply disturbing; women are either Madonna, virgin or whore. Accatone says prostitution is ‘a mother’s situation’ which provides the mixed message that it’s selfless and necessary for survival, yet he and his friends view whores as trash; to...
Post a Comment
Read more

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Dir Mike Leigh. 2008

Simple, retarded asthmatic gasps and giggles her way through this nonsensical film from Mike Leigh. 30 year old Poppy’s arrested development is masked by her carer who provides meals and stability. This form of care in the community works well so that Poppy is able to extend her adolescence in this flat-sharing arrangement by climbing into bed with her carer and exhibiting teenage tactile behaviour. Her flatmate is tolerant, even when getting no answers as to where Poppy has been and whether or not she’s ok. To Poppy’s credit she holds down a job. Inconceivably a primary school teacher, she is left in a position of responsibility with young children for long periods without supervision. However, classroom activities are restricted to making masks out of brown paper bags in case anyone thought primary school teaching involved real work. Leigh raises the possibility of serious subject matter when a boy begins to bully others. Without parental involvement, a Socia...
Post a Comment
Read more

e-Marketing 3

Why bother with social media? Specialize in email marketing, business to business, using mailing lists. email campaigns are: Cost effective, immediate, flexible, interactive, measurable and environmentally friendly. Targetted emails are welcome whereas Spam is a nuisance so it’s important to research your mailing list, discover what the recipients are interested in, either hobbies or products, and narrow down the list so the campaign is more likely to hit interested people – and not be deleted before reading. Some companies opt to supplement email campaigns with occasional high quality postal mailings, ie brochures- their promotional material sending a tangible message of quality and style. This is a sophisticated method. The measurable element includes basic statistics such as how many emails were sent and at what time, then quantifies how many of those were delivered, bounced back, opened, read, how many were ‘clicked through’ to the company website or unsubscribed. Conversio...
Post a Comment
Read more