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| Samuel
Fuller |
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| Director
/ Screenwriter / Producer / Actor |
| 1912 - 1997 |
| Born August 12,
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA |
| Key
Production Country: USA |
| Key Genres:
War Drama, War, Drama, Western, Thriller, Psychological Drama, Combat
Films, Thriller, Romance |
| Key
Collaborators: Paul Dubov (Character
Player), Gene Evans (Leading Player), Paul Dunlap (Composer), Joseph Biroc (Cinematographer), Jerome Thoms (Editor),
Gene Fowler Jr. (Editor), Harry Sukman (Composer), Lyle Wheeler
(Production Designer), Gerald Milton (Character Player), Joseph
MacDonald (Cinematographer) |
| Highly Recommended: Pickup
on South Street (1953), House of Bamboo (1955), Forty Guns (1957), The Crimson Kimono
(1959), Underworld, U.S.A.
(1961), Shock Corridor
(1963), The Naked Kiss (1964), White Dog (1982) |
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Recommended:
I Shot Jesse James (1949), The Steel Helmet
(1951), Big Red One (1980) |
| Links:
[ IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Film Reference ]
[ Sam
Fuller Article by Gerald Peary ] [
Images
Journal Noir Interview ] [
Images Journal Article ] [
Wikipedia ] [
Senses of Cinema Article (Tag Gallagher) ] [
Guardian Article by Wim Wenders (2007) ] [
Books and Writers Biography
] [
Criterion Collection
Article (2008)
] |
| Books:
[
A
Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking ] [
The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You ]
[
Sam
Fuller: Film is a Battleground ]
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| DVD's:
[ Amazon
] |
| 1,000
Greatest Films: Pickup
on South Street (1953), Forty Guns (1957), Shock Corridor (1963) |
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250 Quintessential Noirs:
Pickup on South Street (1953), The Crimson Kimono (1959), Underworld,
U.S.A. (1961), The Naked Kiss (1964) |
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Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own:
China Gate (1957) |
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"Fuller is an authentic
American primitive whose works have to be seen to be understood.
Seen, not heard or synopsized...Fuller's ideas are undoubtedly
too broad and over-simplified for any serious analysis, but it
is the artistic force with which his ideas are expressed that
makes his career so fascinating to critics who can rise above
their political prejudices...It is time the cinema followed the
other arts in honoring its primitives. Fuller belongs to the
cinema, and not to literature and sociology." - Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Fuller
is both a director of rapid, abrupt, shocking montage, as in the
alternating close-ups of robber and victim in I Shot Jesse
James, and a director who uses extremely long takes
incorporating a complex mix of camera movement and character
action. Fuller's style is the opposite of graceful; his style
seems to suggest that in a world where grace provides little
redemption, its utilization would be a kind of lie." -
Dana B. Polan (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998) |
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"Often using
a moving camera as a blunt instrument, Sam Fuller created direct
and raw films that reflect his experience in tabloid journalism
and in the U.S. army...It is Fuller's war films that are his
greatest achievement. The Steel Helmet (1950) ands
Fixed Bayonets (1951) were the first of his taut, tough, and
truthful war films, which followed a group of multi-racial
Americans fighting to survive." -
Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)
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"Another great director of low-budget films, Fuller writes and
lenses about "all the emotions" in a stark, raw manner which
sometimes reflects his penchant for realism and patriotism." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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""If
you don’t like Sam Fuller, you just don’t like cinema.” -
Martin Scorsese |
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"I
researched every milieu. If I were to do a movie tomorrow about
a fashion designer, say, I would have to spend some time to find
out what language they spoke. Because I would never be satisfied
with my dialogue, I want something that gives you the color of
that character right away." -
Samuel Fuller |
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"Movement
should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or
whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing,
for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the
characters." - Samuel Fuller |
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