It's a Wonderful Life

Cinema is "like a battleground: love, hate, action, violence, death -- in one word, emotion." Fuller (l) wowed 'em at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and signed a Naked Kiss poster for former Chronicle sports editor Scott Bowles (center): "Scott, you like this movie -- don't try a sequel unless your head likes the thud of a phone." (Photo By Nick Barbaro)

Sam Fuller was the stubborn exception through the end, a prophet who lived well into his 80s, busy even after health finally started giving him hell. We're not used to that. We're used to our prophets being tracked down and tortured to death, whether by their enemies or their own minds. He was a gambler who outlived the dangerous waver of luck. He was a newspaperman, a cartoonist, a soldier, a novelist, a screenwriter, a director, a husband, a father, a mentor, an agitator. He was a storyteller. He defied. He was big life.

How, then, to capture that which can't be trapped? Fuller must have known that his biggest and best yarn would be his own memoir. But he also knew that he didn't want to tell it. He wasn't interested. Thankfully, other people were, and A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking was released in the fall of 2002 (see www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-12-06/screens_string_all.html for Marjorie Baumgarten's review).

"He wanted to write other people's stories, not his own," says Jerome Rudes. "But we convinced him. It was a project of love: love for the man, 'cause I really love the guy, and I miss him terribly; love for the work; and love for what he represents. He is a kind of icon for many.

"I wanted to make sure that this book was a voice for Sam to tell his story, which was a great responsibility."

The Austin Film Society will screen Sam Fuller's 1959 film noir The Crimson Kimono on Feb. 5. Fuller's widow, Christa Lang Fuller, and longtime friend Jerome Rudes will be in attendance.

Rudes is a graduate of the University of Texas and founder of the Avignon Film Festival. He became close friends with Fuller and Fuller's wife, Christa Lang Fuller, while living in France. "He was like a father figure to me, or like a funny, smart uncle who'd smoke cigars and drink vodka with you."

After Fuller's mid-Nineties stroke, Rudes and Lang Fuller focused on getting the writer-director's voice on tape, and would worry about the details later. "We had over a thousand pages when Sam passed away [in 1997]," says Lang Fuller, a German-born actress who appeared in the likes of Alphaville and Le Scandale, as well as Fuller's searing and little-seen race study, White Dog. "It was a gigantic enterprise that took us five years to complete. I mean, it's Sam's life, an American Candide."

Rudes and Lang Fuller will be in Austin on Feb. 4 and 5 to celebrate the book's release and participate in a presentation of Fuller's noirish The Crimson Kimono (1959). Rudes will also teach a master class at UT.

"The book is a stone in the water, and we're hoping it makes a ripple," Rudes says. "We're hoping that this whole generation of American directors who are aware of one or two of his films that really shook them up are encouraged to pursue more."

And both Rudes and Lang Fuller spoke of the director's cut of The Big Red One, which could benefit from a sustained Fuller reappreciation. "Thanks to Christa and his friends Scorsese and [Curtis] Hanson and some of his other friends, there might be a chance, a movement," Rudes offered. "It might take a little strong-arming of the studios, though." The war epic, which Fuller (and many others) considered his masterwork, was rather rudely trimmed from four-plus to two-minus hours upon its release in 1980. It broke Fuller's heart, not to mention his association with Hollywood.

"The idea of the book was to put him and his career in some kind of perspective," Rudes says. "He was a trailblazer. What he did was talk about these themes and make movies in a system that didn't want to talk about those themes. And he got it done, whatever he did, whether it was his charm, his wit, or his contacts, he was successful."

"He was inspirational, not only as a creator, but as a person," agrees Lang Fuller, who scoffs at a recent New Yorker piece lamenting Fuller's relative underexposure, and how he was a victim of the Hollywood machine. "No. No, that's not it at all. How can you feel sorry for him? Sam was not a morose man. He made mistakes and good choices, just like anyone. And he knew human nature very well. Sam wasn't a victim! Sam led a pretty wonderful life."