Fuller On Fuller
Samantha Fuller Speaks to the Legacy of Her Father, Sam Fuller
A Fuller Life is a special tribute to maverick filmmaker Samuel Fuller, directed by his daughter Samantha. Fuller was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. His raw and unbridled stories favored the underdog and dared to question and highlight the grim reality of war, racism and manipulation from experiences that he had lived first hand. Starting as a crime reporter, he enrolled himself in the infantry during World War II, exposed the horrors of concentration camps, and was awarded the Purple Heart for his bravery. His persona was bigger than life. He was known for smoking a large cigar and calling action by firing a Colt .45 into the air. From The Big Red One to Shock Corridor and White Dog, his indelible mark influenced countless directors. Scorsese once said of him, “If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller, then you just don’t like cinema. Or at least you don’t understand it.”
Focusing on the director’s character, the film is an artful mix of movie clips and never before seen footage from Fuller’s “shack,” while celebrities bring his memoirs to life against the backdrop of his retreat for creative inspiration.
Sam Fuller, from A Fuller Life
CYNTHIA BIRET: Your father had an exceptional life; he never shied away from adventure and risk, physically and intellectually.
SAMANTHA FULLER: Absolutely true, and this is the reason that I chose not to go in depth into his film career, but to keep it very personal instead. There have been other films made about him, such as The Typewriter, The Rifle and The Movie Camera, with Tim Robbins, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, and Martin Scorsese, where he also talks about himself; The Men Who Made The Movies, by Richard Schickel, focuses on my father’s film career and just brushes over the fact that he was a journalist and that he was in the infantry before working in Hollywood. What I find interesting about his life is how the early years of journalism and the years spent during the war formed the films that he made.
BIRET: How did you format the storyline?
To read the rest of Biret’s interview with Samantha Fuller at Riot Material magazine: https://www.riotmaterial.com/interview-samantha-fuller/
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