DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
10.09.–12.10.2014

A Fuller Life

The American filmmaker Samuel Fuller (1912–97) was one of the great documentary filmmakers and directors whose work was shaped by war. As a soldier in the Second World War in the famous U.S. First Infantry Division (code name: Big Red One), Fuller witnessed the liberation of the Falkenau concentration camp, which he documented in his “first amateur film.” Later he explored the traumatic effects of war on the human psyche in feature films such as Shock Corridor (1963) and The Big Red One (1980). “How does one relate to the unimaginable? How can we tell the world what we experienced?”

For the hundredth anniversary of her father’s birth, Samantha Fuller is offering us a look at his archive. The director found dozens of unreleased 16-mm film reels with footage from the Second World War, which became the point of departure for her film. A series of illustrious actors and directors meet in Fuller’s fascinating study and office: Jennifer Beals, William Friedkin, Monte Hellman, Tim Roth, Bill Duke, Wim Wenders, James Franco, and many others, read excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face: A Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking. The film deftly combines stories with the found film footage and offers a sympathetic homage to one of the most interesting and controversial figures in American cinema.