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Title: A Third Face : My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking by Samuel Fuller ISBN: 0-375-40165-2 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 05 November, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.88 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A helluva yarn of a life. Go have a copy!
Comment: It was someone else's review that sparked my interest in this book. I even didn't know who this Mr. Fuller was!
Life is short, and I always look for suggestions from elder people: especially those who lived their life with passion and at full speed.
"If there's one reason to recount my personal history, something inspirational that I'd like my life experiences to offer you, the reader, be you young or young at heart, then it would be to encourage you to persist with all your heart and energy in what you want to achieve - no matter how crazy your dreams seems to others. Believe me, you will prevail over all the naysayers (...) who are telling you it can't be done!"
And inspirational indeed it is!
I warmly suggest you to read this book because it is well written, because the yarn makes sense, because it is enthralling, because it tells you a life full of energy, because it'll give you relief when you are in pain, hope when you're dreaming a better future, reasons and support while you fight for your ideals - like Fuller did, and not just in a metaphorical sense - and of course, because it's the author's true experience (i.e. it can be done - don't listen to the naysayers!).
It is possible to roughly divide this book in three parts: part one is when Fuller was able to work as a reporter in New York; part two is the tale of Fuller that chose to volunteer into the Second World War, infantry, that makes about thirty percent of an army and suffers eighty percent of its losses.
Third part (it makes up for more than half the book) tells of Fuller back from the war, when he had quite a successful career as a film director.
I'd just like to quote excerpts from the book, I think this is the best way to lure you into reading it!
A dialogue between Sam Fuller and Hank Wales: " 'Let's you and I write a movie together!' said Hank. 'Got any good stories?'
We both laughed. With all his amazing experiences, Hank Wales was asking me for a yarn. I was thrilled that such a remarkable guy wanted to collaborate with me. But I had a book to finish.
'Look, Hank,' I said, 'I'm writing the great American novel!'
'Everyone is writing the great American novel, Sammy. Forget about greatness. Let's have some fun.' "
"One guy I couldn't forget was Griff, who'd barely survived a land mine explosion. When I first got back to the States, I went down to Washington, D.C., and visited Griff at a veterans' hospital there. He was a basket case, no legs, no arms. Only mumbled words came out of his lips. Believe it or not, we had a wonderful reunion. Griff's eyes sparkled when he saw me. He laughed when I recalled some of the funny shit we'd gone through together in the war. I put my arm around his neck and kissed him, happy to find him alive. I couldn't keep the tears back. Griff didn't want me feeling sorry for him. He was born optimist and refused to accept my pity. Or anyone's. I was trembling when I left the hospital that day.
Griff's invincible spirit would always be an inspiration. I will take his optimism with me to my grave. Life is too precious and far too short to get hooked on negativity. In my scripts and stories, you'll find a helluva lot of characters named Griff. It was my way of saying thanks for his will to survive."
"Young writers and directors, seize your audience (...) as soon as the credits hit the screen and hang on to them! Smack people right in the face with the passion of your story! Make the public love your characters of hate them, but (...) never - never! - leave them indifferent!"
"You young people sitting around watching the (...) television! (...) Go see the world! Throw yourselves into different cultures! You will be always be wealthy if you count your riches, as I do, in adventures, full of life-changing experiences."
Rating: 5
Summary: He Did It His Way
Comment: Among film historians and critics, director Sam Fuller has a disproportionately large legend for such a small body of work. If you exclude his early screenwriting career and his self-imposed exile in Europe, he was active as a director for only 16 years, from I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949) to THE NAKED KISS (1965). But what films those were! THE STEEL HELMET (1950) is probably one of the two or three best war films ever made; and PARK ROW (1952) is in a class by itself as a valentine to American journalism in its heyday.
Hollywood autobiographies are notorious for settling old scores, and Fuller certainly had a lot of scores to settle. Coming into the business by way of writing, Fuller fought hard to keep his ideas intact through the shredding machine that was the old studio system. Film is a communal art form, and only rarely has the finished product reflected the vision of a single creator, sometimes because the filmmaker was a powerful producer/director such as Hitchcock or Ford, or sometimes, as in the case of Fuller's own SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963) or THE NAKED KISS, because no one was looking.
Around the middle of the 1960s, many of the independent directors such as Fuller, Orson Welles, and Fritz Lang found themselves drawn to Europe, where they managed to eke out a very few more films that were not up to their previous work. After THE NAKED KISS, it becomes painfully apparent in the autobiography that Fuller had little else to do but write, attempt to put together funding for (mostly) aborted projects, or receive the homages of critics and other filmmakers.
What makes A THIRD FACE such a good book is Fuller's passion as a journalist, soldier, and filmmaker. He never lost this passion, but to quote Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BOULEVARD, it was the movies that became small. By the mid 1960s, Hollywood was a spent force. The torch had passed to Japan (Kurosawa), France (the New Wave), Sweden (Bergman), Italy (Fellini, Visconti, and Rossellini), and points in between. There were still some great films to come, but the number of productions had decreased; television continued to grow; and Americans were torn between superspies, hippies, and blockbusters.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sam Fuller, Independent
Comment: An amazing man, an amazing life, an amazing body of work. Sam Fuller was the real deal, he lived the life of 10 men. As a boy selling newspapers, to being a teenage crime reporter to a writer of pulp fiction. At age 29 Sam joined the army, he turned down the cushy army journalist job to be in first infantry "The Big Red One". The book covers his fighting in N. Africa, Italy, and his role in the third row of boats landing on Normandy. Later, he went to Hollywood and directed films, his way, one of the first independent filmmakers. He made "Merril's Mauraders, I shot Jesse James, Run of the Arrow, Pickup on South Street and the Steel Helmet. In the 60's he made the classic pulp films "Shock Corridor" and "The Naked Kiss" ...
He was offered "Patton" but wouldn't do it because he though Patton was an jerk. He was offered John Wayne movies, but wouldn't do it because he thought Wayne was a phony. He had full control of his films, when that was a rarity.
In 1980, after 20+years of wrangling, he finally made the film based on his battle history, "The Big Red One" with James Coburn. Probably the most realistic WWII film out there.
Fuller died a few years back, unknown to many, but loved by those in the know.
Sam Fuller lived the life of 10 men and his book is the best read I've had in years, go get it.
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Title: Sam Fuller: Film Is a Battleground: A Critical Study, With Interviews, a Filmography and a Bibliography by Lee Server ISBN: 0786400080 Publisher: McFarland & Company Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title:Pickup on South Street - Criterion Collection ASIN: B00012L786 Publisher: Public Media Inc Pub. Date: 17 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $25.46 |
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Title: The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson ISBN: 0375411283 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Jean-Pierre Melville : An American in Paris by Ginette Vincendeau ISBN: 0851709494 Publisher: British Film Inst Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Searching for John Ford: A Life by Joseph McBride ISBN: 0312310110 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: 05 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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