Thomas Doherty, professor of American studies at Brandeis University, takes advantage of two new books and a Criterion DVD release of auteur Sam Fuller's work to take a fresh pulse reading of Fuller's impact on American cinema and culture. Doherty's look at Sam Fuller's life and career in the Chronicle of Higher Education makes for an excellent short read and introduction to one of the fathers of indie filmmaking.Fuller had a penchant for the hard-boiled and worked tough-minded story elements into many of his films. He crossed lines and broke molds, and controversy was never far away. He broached racism back in 1951, with The Steel Helmet. He dealt with small-town immorality in The Naked Kiss (1964). He confronted insanity and media exploitation in Shock Corridor (1963). I'm barely scratching the surface at that.
Fuller was almost a stereotype defined. A cigar-loving two-fisted writer, Fuller was prolific in all he produced -- journalism, fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and of course his work behind the camera, directing nearly 30 films. He was also an infantryman in World War II, seeing intense action in North Africa and into Italy with the 1st Army -- the Big Red One of his biographical film's title (and, as it happens, one of the greatest war films ever made -- seriously underappreciated).
Doherty closes with a delicious memory of Fuller, too good to let go unmentioned:
If you've never seen a Sam Fuller film, please allow me to recommend a few favorites:Since everyone has a favorite Sam Fuller story, here's mine. Years ago, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the old man spoke with some bemusement of his status as a poster boy for the French auteurists. Chomping on the inevitable stogie, in blithe disdain of municipal fire codes, he recalled a tribute at the Cinémathèque Française, in Paris, when Godard feted him with a program of screenings. With Gallic exuberance, Godard praised Fuller for his generative influence — how this shot from Forty Guns had inspired that shot from Breathless, how the spirit of The Steel Helmet had infused Les Carabiniers, and so on and on.
"Now, this guy thinks he's complimenting me," growled Fuller. "But I'm sitting there thinking: He's a parasite, a thief. So when he finishes, I tell him flat-out, You're not an original filmmaker. You've just been ripping me off."
"Ah, Monsieur Fuller," replied Godard. "In English, 'rip-off.' In French — hommage."
Alas, we lost Sam in 1997. Gone, but never, ever forgotten.
