Vérités et mensonges

Orson Welles (1915–1985)

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Truths and Lies – this is the accurate and factual original title of the pseudo-documentary, whose protagonists include the eccentric billionaire and film director Howard Hughes, the painters Picasso and Velázquez, Chartres Cathedral, and forgers of all kinds.

"Truths and Lies is not only a manifesto of all of Welles' work, but also his reflection on film. (...) Nietzsche's great theory of falsifiers can be found in the fourth part of Zarathustra. Here we encounter statesmen and men of religion, morality, and science... Each corresponds to one power of falsehood – at the same time, they are inseparable from one another. The man of truth (the true one) is the first power of falsehood, which develops through the others. The artist himself, as a forger, is the last power of falsehood, for he strives for metamorphosis instead of accepting form (the form of the true, the good, etc.). Will as the will to power thus has two extreme degrees, two polar states of life: on the one hand, it wants to take or rule; on the other hand, it wants to identify with being and metamorphosis, to be a giving virtue. Viewed from the second position, Nietzsche could claim to be the creator of truth, even though he insisted on his criticism of the true.

Welles' Nietzscheanism seems to echo the fundamental points of Nietzsche's critique of truth: the true world does not exist, but if it did, it would be unattainable and we would not be able to remember it, and if we could, it would be useless and futile. The truthful man and the forger are links in the same chain, (...) but the artist is the creator of truth, found where falsehood finds its ultimate power, goodness, and generosity. Nietzsche exhibits a list of the will to power: the truthful man, followed by all the falsifiers who presuppose him and whom he presupposes, then the long and weary procession of higher men, and finally Zarathustra, the new man, the artist, or overflowing life."

Gilles Deleuze