MoMA Presents: A Fuller Life
August 6—16, 2014
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
Calling on a wide range of her father’s collaborators and fellow travelers, from James Franco to
William Friedkin, to read from his autobiography, the filmmaker Samantha Fuller evokes the inimitable
voice and spirit of her father, the legendary writer-director Sam Fuller. Shot entirely within “The
Shack,” as Fuller called the backyard writing refuge he filled with notes for future projects, the film
follows Fuller on his path from New York tabloid journalist to Hollywood hyphenate—including his
formative experiences as an infantryman in World War II. Generously illustrated with scenes from his
films and newly discovered home movies, A Fuller Life is a celebration of a passionate individualist and
a major American artist. MoMA's weeklong run of A Fuller Life is accompanied by a selection of Sam
Fuller's work, presented in archival prints.
Organized by Dave Kehr, Adjunct Curator, Department of Film.
Press Contact:
Meg Montgoris, (212) 708-9757, meg_montgoris@moma.org
For downloadable high-resolution images, register at MoMA.org/press.
*************************
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Screening Schedule
MoMA Presents: A Fuller Life
August 6—16, 2014
Wednesday, August 6
7:00
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP.
Thursday, August 7
4:30
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
7:30
I Shot Jesse James. 1949. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Preston Foster,
Barbara Britton, Reed Hadley. Fuller’s first film as a director reveals a fully formed
visual stylist and a master of multilayered narrative structure, all in the context of a
low-budget Western—the true story of Bob Ford (John Ireland), the assassin of Jesse
James—that quickly goes meta as Ford finds himself sentenced to play out his story
again and again, on stage and in life. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 81 min.
Friday, August 8
4:30
Merrill’s Marauders. 1962. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Jeff Chandler, Ty
Hardin, Will Hutchins. Shot in the Philippines in color and CinemaScope, Fuller’s
account of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)—known as “Merrill’s Marauders”
after the unit’s commander, Brigadier General Frank D. Merill (Jeff Chandler)—covers
the same territory as Raoul Walsh’s Operation Burma, as the 3,000-man division fights
its way through the Southeast Asian theater of World War II. Though cut by Warner
Bros. to blunt Fuller’s bleak, absurdist vision of warfare, the film still startles with its
pessimism. 35mm. 98 min.
8:00
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
Saturday, August 9
2:00
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
5:00
Run of the Arrow. 1957. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Rod Steiger, Sara
Montiel, Brian Keith. Fuller’s most politically charged Western stars Rod Steiger as an
embittered Confederate veteran who, rather than join the Union, resolves to remake
himself as a Sioux warrior. Fuller’s fascination with us/them divisions reaches new
heights, as complicated by the Irish origins of Steiger’s character and his romance
with a Sioux (the Spanish star Sara Montiel). 35mm. 86 min.
8:00
The Baron of Arizona. 1950. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Vincent Price,
Ellen Drew, Vladimir Sokoloff. Fuller’s second film— a sterling example of what the
filmmaker liked to call “a good yarn”—tells the improbable tale of a land office clerk
(Price) who spends years of his life laying the groundwork for a fraudulent claim to the
entire territory of Arizona. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 97 min.
Sunday, August 10
2:30
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction. 2004. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With
Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine. Fuller’s 1980 magnum opus, a fictionalized
account of his World War II experiences with the First Infantry Division from North
Africa to Falkenau, was brutally cut by its original distributor. This reconstruction,
supervised by the critic Richard Schickel in 2004, restores Fuller’s structure, adds
some 40 minutes of new footage, and removes a gratuitous voice-over narration.
35mm. 158 min.
5:30
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
Monday, August 11
4:30
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
8:00
Merrill’s Marauders. 1962. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Jeff Chandler, Ty
Hardin, Will Hutchins. Shot in the Philippines in color and CinemaScope, Fuller’s
account of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)—known as “Merrill’s Marauders”
after the unit’s commander, Brigadier General Frank D. Merill (Jeff Chandler)—covers
the same territory as Raoul Walsh’s Operation Burma, as the 3,000-man division fights
its way through the Southeast Asian theater of World War II. Though cut by Warner
Bros. to blunt Fuller’s bleak, absurdist vision of warfare, the film still startles with its
pessimism.
Tuesday, August 12
4:30
The Steel Helmet. 1951. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Gene Evans, Steve
Brodie, Richard Loo. Fuller poured his experience as an infantryman during World War
II into the first of his films to deal with the madness of combat and the politics of race.
In Korea, a company of stragglers, survivors, and misfits attempts to establish an
observation post in a Buddhist temple. Tensions within the mixed group come to pose
as much of a threat as the mostly unseen enemy. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 85 min.
8:00
A Fuller Life. 2013. USA. Directed by Samantha Fuller. With James Franco, Jennifer
Beals, Bill Duke, James Toback, Kelly Ward, Perry Lang, Robert Carradine, Mark
Hamill, Joe Dante, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Monte Hellman, Buck Henry, Constance
Towers, William Friedkin. Director Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her father, the
legendary filmmaker Sam Fuller, conjures his voice through passages from his
autobiography, A Third Face, as read by a circle of his friends and coworkers. DCP. 80
mins.
Wednesday, August 13
4:30
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction. 2004. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With
Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine. Fuller’s 1980 magnum opus, a fictionalized
account of his World War II experiences with the First Infantry Division from North
Africa to Falkenau, was brutally cut by its original distributor. This reconstruction,
supervised by the critic Richard Schickel in 2004, restores Fuller’s structure, adds
some 40 minutes of new footage, and removes a gratuitous voice-over narration.
35mm. 158 min.
8:00
Run of the Arrow. 1957. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Rod Steiger, Sara
Montiel, Brian Keith. Fuller’s most politically charged Western stars Rod Steiger as an
embittered Confederate veteran who, rather than join the Union, resolves to remake
himself as a Sioux warrior. Fuller’s fascination with us/them divisions reaches new
heights, as complicated by the Irish origins of Steiger’s character and his romance
with a Sioux (the Spanish star Sara Montiel). 35mm. 86 min.
Thursday, August 14
5:00
House of Bamboo. 1955. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Robert Ryan, Robert
Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi. The arrival of color and CinemaScope added two new
weapons to Fuller’s expressive arsenal, which he here trains on another vivid fable of
race, identity, and violence, shot on location in Tokyo. Robert Ryan is the tightly
wound criminal mastermind; Robert Stack is the outsider who infiltrates his militarystyle operation. 35mm. 102 min.
8:00
Hats Off. 1936. USA. Directed by Boris Petroff. Screenplay by Samuel Fuller, Edmund
Joseph. With Mae Clarke, John Payne, Richard “Skeets” Gallagher. Fuller received his
first film credit, for story and screenplay, on this rarely seen comedy, an exceptionally
ambitious effort from the Poverty Row studio Grand National. Clarke (then on her way
down as a star) and Payne (then on his way up) are press agents who will stop at
nothing to promote their respective clients: expositions staged by rival “twin cities” in
Texas. 35mm. 70 min.
Friday, August 15
4:30
Hats Off. 1936. USA. Directed by Boris Petroff. Screenplay by Samuel Fuller, Edmund
Joseph. With Mae Clarke, John Payne, Richard “Skeets” Gallagher. Fuller received his
first film credit, for story and screenplay, on this rarely seen comedy, an exceptionally
ambitious effort from the Poverty Row studio Grand National. Clarke (then on her way
down as a star) and Payne (then on his way up) are press agents who will stop at
nothing to promote their respective clients: expositions staged by rival “twin cities” in
Texas. 35mm. 70 min.
8:00
House of Bamboo. 1955. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Robert Ryan, Robert
Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi. The arrival of color and CinemaScope added two new
weapons to Fuller’s expressive arsenal, which he here trains on another vivid fable of
race, identity, and violence, shot on location in Tokyo. Robert Ryan is the tightly
wound criminal mastermind; Robert Stack is the outsider who infiltrates his militarystyle operation. 35mm. 102 min.
Saturday, August 16
2:00
I Shot Jesse James. 1949. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Preston Foster,
Barbara Britton, Reed Hadley. Fuller’s first film as a director reveals a fully formed
visual stylist and a master of multilayered narrative structure, all in the context of a
low-budget Western—the true story of Bob Ford (John Ireland), the assassin of Jesse
James—that quickly goes meta as Ford finds himself sentenced to play out his story
again and again, on stage and in life. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 81 min.
5:00
The Baron of Arizona. 1950. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Vincent Price,
Ellen Drew, Vladimir Sokoloff. Fuller’s second film— a sterling example of what the
filmmaker liked to call “a good yarn”—tells the improbable tale of a land office clerk
(Price) who spends years of his life laying the groundwork for a fraudulent claim to the
entire territory of Arizona. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 97 min.
8:00
The Steel Helmet. 1951. USA. Directed by Samuel Fuller. With Gene Evans, Steve
Brodie, Richard Loo. Fuller poured his experience as an infantryman during World War
II into the first of his films to deal with the madness of combat and the politics of race.
In Korea, a company of stragglers, survivors, and misfits attempts to establish an
observation post in a Buddhist temple. Tensions within the mixed group come to pose
as much of a threat as the mostly unseen enemy. Restored by MoMA. 35mm. 85 min.