Audio transcription
John Quackenbush 0:00
July 19, 2015. The Harvard Film Archive screened A Fuller Life. This is the audio recording of the introduction and the Q&A that followed. Participating are filmmaker Samantha Fuller and HFA Director Haden Guest.
Haden Guest 0:21
The film is disarmingly simple in form, and yet it's within that directness, that simplicity, that I think that its real power lies. I'll say no more, because we have the director here tonight to introduce her film. We'll be having a conversation afterwards. I should also point out that Samantha will be back tomorrow night, for a very special evening. We're going to be seeing a premiere, of sorts, of a television pilot, a short film that Sam Fuller directed in the late 50s, called Dogface. And that's a film that's never been screened publicly before. So we could call it a theatrical premiere. And Samantha will also be sharing with us some very rare materials, some footage shot by her father, as well as some letters and other extra surprises. So come back tomorrow night for a very special evening. Right now, though, please join me in welcoming Samantha Fuller.
[APPLAUSE]
Samantha Fuller 1:25
Alright! Hello! And I brought Sam along, my dad, who's going to spend time with us tonight. This film was actually made as a centennial birthday gift for my father. That's really what kicked off this whole project. You know, my dad had me at the age of sixty-three. And he always promised me we'd have a big celebration for his 100th birthday. And even though physically, he left us when he was eighty-five, when his 100th birthday came around, I felt like paying tribute and having the celebration we always spoke about. And I thought, what better way than to have a party for him. And what better place to have that party than in his shack. His shack is actually his office, a place that I left untouched since the day he died. And it's a wonderful place to go and spend time with him still. It's like pretty much living in his brain there, and the walls are lined with all his research books and memorabilia. Actually, Haden and I spent time together there many years ago. And I just love having guests and friends come to visit. I have a hard time parting with this material, so I keep it all at home. But the doors are always welcome for friends to come visit, and students to come study, if they're doing some research on my dad. But this film, in a way, is great because I get to invite everyone into the shack. And basically, we shot the film during an entire year and had a whole year of celebration in the office. And it was a lot of fun. We spent more time actually having meals after the shoot with each reader who read out of this book, his autobiography. And so we had drinks, and wonderful meals cooked by my mother. She was the caterer of the film, making a couscous every time we shot. And it was just loads of fun. Most of the people were already friends. And so we had a great time. Actually in the room tonight, I do have my mother with us and a good friend, Tyler Purcell, who's the editor and the DP on the film. So yay, Tyler! [APPLAUSE] ...who’s from around here! [APPLAUSE] And it's great to watch it together with his parents, and it's really a family affair. So welcome to our home, which you're gonna see very shortly. And I made sure to keep the film short and punchy, in the spirit of my father. He liked [SNAPS] things to go quick. So it's intense. It is simple, but it's actually very deep, and hopefully will leave you with a lot to think about, and wanting more by reading more stories in his autobiography. And Haden and I will be here to host a little discussion after. And I'll be glad to talk a little more after the film. So since we had a little bit of a late start, we'll get this going. And I'll see you in eighty minutes. Thank you!
[APPLAUSE]
John Quackenbush 4:29
And now the discussion.
Haden Guest 4:31
Please join me in welcoming back Samantha Fuller!
[APPLAUSE]
Samantha Fuller 4:51
Alrighty!
Haden Guest 4:52
Thanks so much, Samantha...
Samantha Fuller
Stand him up right there.
Haden Guest
..for sharing this film, with you. And I wanted to ask you. I mean, you know, you found a way, really, I think a unique, and special way to make your father's voice alive by casting this wonderful group of actors and directors. And I was wondering if you could speak a bit about the selection, about the casting, if you will. Because some of these, you know, are, are obvious, in the sense of the choice. Constance Towers, or–
Samantha Fuller 5:29
Those who worked with him. Unfortunately, a lot of them passed away.
Haden Guest 5:32
Right.
Samantha Fuller 5:32
So I couldn't not only resurrect my dad, but I wish I could have brought everyone back.
Haden Guest 5:38
But when we–
Samantha Fuller 5:38
I miss all these folks, but um, so.
Haden Guest 5:40
But for instance, you know, William Friedkin, Billy Friedkin, who's a good friend of the Archive. And I mean, in some way, he gives such a powerful closure to the film. How did his inclusion come about?
Samantha Fuller 5:53
Yeah, well, you know, there's a subtle casting process, actually, to the film. Some were obvious, but also, which segment I was going to assign to them. And so I really wanted to select the reader who would relate the most to the segment they were going to read. And I mean, out of all the directors, William Friedkin has such a well-rounded background and filmography. Hemade an array of films that, all very different. And he has that wisdom, and I just felt that he would be right. And it worked well. I mean, everything fell into place, nothing was over-thought. It just happened organically, in the sense that, Oh! This guy would be great for that part. And it just, somehow, by magic, it worked. I think everything was channeling itself to come together. The whole process, even from the moment I woke up one morning and said, I'm doing this, you know, it just, it was magical, in a way. A lot of it was just meant to be. And so yeah, William Friedkin is great at the end, I agree. And it was just like spending great time together, hearing my father's words coming out of these friends' mouths, basically, you know? Yeah, it was very touching, William Friedkin's performance at the end.
Haden Guest 7:11
Well, I mean, he's also I think, a true maverick in the spirit and in the letter of your father as well. And I think something similar could be said, of course, of Monte Hellman, who I think is really kind of the heart of the film, to a certain extent. That really just gripping passage that he reads.
Samantha Fuller 7:32
The reason Monte– Everyone has a reason in that sense, you know? Like William Friedkin for his wisdom and his experience. That he kind of did fight, you know, to make the movies he made, like my father. And so, you know, it is a good closing chapter. But it happened that Monte Hellman and my family, we were together in Karlovy Vary, a couple years ago, in the Czech Republic. And we went to revisit the concentration camps in Sokolov. The camp’s named Falkenau. We were together. We retraced my father's footsteps during the liberation of the concentration camp. So I knew he could definitely relate to that segment. And so that's why he was assigned that part, of course. Because we just earlier, a couple months earlier, had been there together.
Yeah, so you know, it's something that may not come across right away, unlike Constance Towers, who worked with him, or Jennifer Beals or Bill Duke. But our friends who, you know, were included in the film, they really had something that connected them to that segment. And people often ask me, for example, “Why James Franco? What's he doing in the film?” And I'm gonna just answer that on my own behalf… First of all, we met Franco when he was very young, before he became the star that he is now. He was still doing Freaks and Geeks. It was before his James Dean part. And he knew all about Fuller. So he's a real cinephile. And he came up to the house. He was going to be in a film of a friend, that didn't happen. But he knew all about my father. And when I wanted to open the film with a younger person, actually, someone also, you know, who would spark interest in younger generations in the film, I thought about him, because, not only is he a Fuller fan, but also, he's a Renaissance man. He's not scared to tackle anything. Like my father. My father was a reporter. He was a cartoonist, as you know. He was in the military, he did a bit of everything and did it with all his heart. And so I feel like, you know, Franco was the right guy to read that part. And at first I had an all-male cast, actually. And it's my mother who kept saying, “Come on, bring in some ladies here!” And she was absolutely right. And I'm really happy that Jennifer Beals gave such a great performance too. And I want to call it performance, but it's not really, because they're very natural. They're just reading the text that's in front of them. I deliberately told them not to overact. After shooting with Bill Duke, I learned that very quickly.
[LAUGHTER]
He was our, he was our first reader. And he really tried to do an impersonation which was great, actually. Just a little, you know, that spiced it up, and just leave a spark of that in there. But actually, the directing instructions I gave everybody is, please do not impersonate him.
Haden Guest
I see.
Samantha Fuller
If not, it's gonna turn into an SNL skit, and...
Haden Guest 10:26
Right.
Samantha Fuller 10:27
Actually, we had Franco. And then we got a letter. Bill Hader was interested, from word of mouth, to be in the project. And then I thought, oh, this is gonna become too comic.
Haden Guest 10:35
Right, right.
Samantha Fuller 10:36
It was hard. I actually had to turn someone down out of the project, which was strange. And I could have kept on going, I would have loved to shoot the whole book, and read the whole book on film, and make it a five-hour film. But that would have been harsh on a lot of people. But I was really sad when we ended the shoot. This whole year of celebration came to an end. And it was just so much fun. I had such a good time doing it that it really opened my appetite to do more. Yeah...
Haden Guest 11:05
Well, I mean, this film was also something of a– There's quite a bit of detective work that went into this as well. And you wound up making this great discovery of this cache of films. And I was wondering, you know, I've spent a good bit of time in that space myself. And I was so amazed...
Samantha Fuller 11:24
Hidden treasures!
Haden Guest 11:25
...that, yeah, there's still more to be found there.
Samantha Fuller 11:27
Yeah, and still more! I'm actually reluctant to discover everything in there, then the fun will be over. I kind of like keeping a little mystery. And a few drawers that I haven't really quite inspected yet. But it was such a revelation, because we were shooting... The first day of shooting with Bill Duke—he's a really tall man, and we needed to make room under my dad's desk for the sound guy to climb under—and so there are these boxes that I had been through that are in the front of the desk, and there was this one box pushed way, it was tucked way behind. And I opened it, and there, to my big surprise, were all 103 reels of 16 millimeter film. All unlabeled. I had no idea what it was. Unveiled when I held it up to the light and realized it's more war footage. And it was almost like my dad saying, “Hey, if you're gonna make a movie about me, now's the time to include it.” I really felt he was present the whole way through, and just kind of nudging me along, and making it fun and easy and pleasurable. Never had any stress. Yeah, it was just unbelievable to discover that material out of the blue. And I keep looking for more fun stuff like that in the office. Who knows what's gonna pop up. And yeah, as I'm saying, I'm still reluctant to open certain drawers, and keep it for later. I have a lifelong of good times in there.
Haden Guest 12:55
Well, not to mention all the scripts that are there that line the shelves, which are all incredibly alive.
Samantha Fuller 13:01
Oh, my gosh. You know, you cannot step into that office for just a couple minutes. When you walk in there, you know, like three hours are gone of your day. You just cannot just run in there and grab– There's so many interesting things. It's a lifelong of research. He was a historian, he was a writer. And you know, he worked in the days before the internet. So all of his research was, you know, hard copy material.
Haden Guest 13:24
Clippings, too...
Samantha Fuller 13:25
Oh, a lot of clippings. And just open these file cabinets, and it's all alphabetically classified. And he's very organized with his story ideas, and his research. And it's fantastic. It's a great space. And that's really why I just don't want to dismantle it, and I'm keeping it intact, selfishly. But as I'm saying, I do open the doors. And this was the best way to share that space.
Haden Guest 13:49
Absolutely.
Samantha Fuller 13:50
But I mean, I wish I could just keep going and sharing that. Because it's so interesting. You know, of course, I did it. I love my father. He’s a great guy, but he's a great character. And I guess even had we not been related, I'd really be into all this research.
Haden Guest 14:05
Well, no, as the quote in the film, where he says, you know, his life was really parallel to that of the 20th century. And not only just, sort of, coincidentally. I mean, he was actually present at so many key moments...
Samantha Fuller 14:21
Right.
Haden Guest 14:21
What I feel like, in the formation of the, well, if we could call it sort of the “imagination” of the 20th century, these sort of images of the 20th century. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that that's something that's really captured not only in this book, but in his films as well. But it makes me all the more curious to see more of the footage that you discovered. So can you tell us about your plans or ideas to...
Samantha Fuller 14:46
Yeah, so I got all these reels of film, brought them down to the Academy and wound through them, and then raised the money via Kickstarter, mostly, to transfer the footage. I really didn't want any private investors involved, so we can retain all the rights to this material. And so we wound up with a good two hours of film. Unfortunately, I could only include about ten minutes in here. And a lot of it is repetitious, in the sense, you know, it's mostly women and children. The kind of war footage you're not used to seeing. Because he was close with the people, and he was not a war correspondent. So his mother sent him this Bell and Howell camera.
Haden Guest 15:27
He asked for it, right?
Samantha Fuller 15:28
He asked for it. He had a camera with him. So I have a lot of photographs that he took. The camera didn't arrive till after D-Day, until he was in Germany already, actually. And he did everything you know, by foot in the infantry. And he got this camera, and he shot the ruins, and he shot the locals who would receive him. And since he was not a war correspondent, he was instructed not to film during battle. So we have no action shots. Unlike other war footage that you'll see during action, this is really while they were at rest. You know, it's a dogface's after-battle, after combat, in resting mode, mingling with the locals, playing with the children. And you really see the ruins. And part of the footage I'm going to show tomorrow night is another ten-minute excerpt, actually, which is quite interesting, because he shot that in Bonn at the Beethoven Museum. And he was a big Beethoven fan. And for him to wind up in Bonn, in 1945, at the Beethoven House was just incredible for him, you know.
Haden Guest
That's a great story that's, that's told in this book.
Samantha Fuller
Yeah, it's in the book. I wish I could have included all the great stories. It was really hard, by the way, to you know, make that selection, what I'm going to put in or not. And, but this Beethoven footage, actually, I brought it to the Beethoven House last year. And they were very excited to have it. And they want to feature, they want to showcase it in the museum now. So it's great that my dad and Beethoven are now side by side for all eternity.
Haden Guest 16:59
Spending more time in the Beethoven House, right?
Samantha Fuller 17:02
Yeah, absolutely. It was great to go back there and visit the same locations, and see where they also shot Dead Pigeon. And it hasn't changed. Hasn't changed. It's incredible. And so with that footage, I'm also planning another documentary.
Haden Guest 17:18
Okay.
Samantha Fuller 17:19
It's called Organized Insanity, which is a quote from my father. And tomorrow, I'm going to be reading some excerpts from his war correspondence. He was a real mama's boy. He wrote to his mother religiously. I have so many letters, close to 300 letters while he was on the front. Three and a half years of combat, 300 letters.
Haden Guest 17:40
Wow.
Samantha Fuller 17:41
And it's incredible. So that's about two a week, letters that he wrote home to his mother and his brother, and I'm going to read some excerpts tomorrow, over the war footage. And Organized Insanity is going to be that. It's going to be these letters with the remaining war footage put together. And his illustrations.
Haden Guest 18:00
Right, the cartoons. Right.
Samantha Fuller 18:01
Yeah. That are really funny, actually. They’re really funny. The way he portrays Hitler is really fun. You'll see some tomorrow.
Haden Guest 18:10
Great. Well, we're looking forward to seeing that film.
Samantha Fuller 18:14
Oh, and I just want to make a note, too.
Haden Guest 18:16
Please.
Samantha Fuller 18:16
Before, like, it slips my mind. Is the music in the film.
Haden Guest 18:20
Oh, yeah.
Samantha Fuller 18:21
Yeah, the music in the film. My father loved music, all sorts of music, including hip hop. Yeah. He'd beat his foot to any rhythm that he could pick up on. Actually, when we'd watch a movie, as soon as the soundtrack would come on, the whole row would be shaking. I had to calm his knee down. He would just get into tune. And he was a self-taught musician too. He could play the piano, without ever having taken a lesson. And so I really wanted to layer music all throughout the film. And at first, I wanted songs by Marlene Dietrich and Nat King Cole and I had all these big plans, you know, for the soundtrack. But then it quickly slowed me down, when I saw how much the rights cost.
Haden Guest 19:04
Right.
Samantha Fuller 19:05
Yeah. So I asked my cousin.
Haden Guest 19:08
Okay.
Samantha Fuller 19:08
Paul Alexander, who's my dad's great nephew. And it's Ray's grandson, his brother who was in the film, that he went to meet in Paris. It's Ray's grandson.
Haden Guest
Wow, great!
Samantha Fuller
Paul Alexander. He was twenty-seven, now he’s twenty-nine, twenty-seven years old, just graduated from CalArts music school. And I said, “I want you to score the film.” And he took it upon himself to do so. And he even sings the last song there, at the end credit. So it's really a family affair. It was a labor of love. You know, shot at home. My cousin, my mother's a producer on there, she helped, she worked day and night to help raise the money on Kickstarter. And we really did that so we could just keep full control of this film. There was no way I was going to sell out my father to anybody. And all the way throughout distribution, full control of this film. It's a Fuller film, it's staying in the family. And I don't know if I'll do that with any other project in the future, because it's a lot of work. But it was a great film school, all the way through. Yeah!
Haden Guest 20:14
Courage
Samantha Fuller 20:16
Yeah! And it wouldn't have been possible, honestly, I gotta say, Tyler is a good friend. We made a short together a couple years ago, out in the desert, in a couple days. And I saw what a trooper he could be. And he doesn't mind boot camp. He's a fighter. And so he came on board. And he's here tonight. If you want to come up, Tyler, and say a few words here? Because honestly, it takes good friends in these kind of projects...
Haden Guest 20:42
Absolutely.
Samantha Fuller 20:42
...to help you believe. And we're gonna work on our next project together, too.
[APPLAUSE]
So here's Tyler Purcell!
[APPLAUSE]
Yeah! Happens to be, he's from this part of town. Well, close by.
Tyler Purcell 20:56
I am. From Wellesley!
Samantha Fuller 20:57
There we go! Yeah. So there's Tyler.
Tyler Purcell 21:01
Here I am. Made it.
Samantha Fuller 21:02
And we're still friends.
[LAUGHTER]
Tyler Purcell 21:04
After three years–
Samantha Fuller 21:05
Yeah.
Tyler Purcell 21:05
on this project.
Samantha Fuller 21:07
Yeah.
Haden Guest
Oh, and here comes executive producer!
Samantha Fuller 21:09
Christa, [APPLAUSE] who made sure that Tyler was always fed when he came home. There we go. So there...
Christa Lang Fuller
This guy gets two credits on the movie.
Tyler Purcell 21:22
Two credits. More than you!
Christa Lang Fuller 21:22
More than me. Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
Samantha Fuller 21:26
Well, the editing was quite something else on here. Ah, here we go.
Tyler Purcell 21:30
Here we go. She’s gonna start.`
Christa Lang Fuller 21:32
I helped Sam finishing this book.
Samantha Fuller 21:35
Right.
Christa Lang Fuller 21:36
His autobiography. He already had had a stroke. And we wrote it together with a dying man. So it was published after his death. And it gets great reviews. And Samantha took excerpts that our main characters read. So it becomes like 100 years of American history seen through Sam Fuller's eyes. And all the stuff is authentic. All what you told them.
Samantha Fuller 22:04
Yeah, and actually, they had 2000 pages to narrow down, to bring it to 600 pages. And then my job was to narrow it down to 100-page script, to make it into an eighty-minute movie. And so I mean, really, it's just the essence. There's so much more in here. She put years and years and years... Not only was she married to the man, knew all his stories already, but to actually put it together in this book format. And it's worth it. It's worth it. We love him for who he is. But also, he has such a great story. He's a great storyteller. But his story was always just tremendous. Yeah.
Christa Lang Fuller 22:43
We went to visit his home place, today, in Worcester.
Haden Guest 22:46
This afternoon.
Christa Lang Fuller 22:47
Haden Guest took us there. And his story is really from rags to riches.
Samantha Fuller 22:53
Oh, yeah.
Christa Lang Fuller 22:54
Even though by the time I got to him, the riches were not there anymore.
[LAUGHTER]
All went to the wife before. [LAUGHTER] And we had to struggle hard. But hey, it was a challenge. You know?
Haden Guest
It was.
Christa Lang Fuller 23:07
He was a wonderful person.
Samantha Fuller 23:09
Right. Yeah. Is there any…?
Haden Guest 23:12
If we have any questions at all, from the audience, for Samantha, for Christa, for Tyler? Any at all?
Samantha Fuller 23:21
Well, we'll be back tomorrow. Oh, there’s one!
Haden Guest 23:22
Oh, we've got one right here.
Audience 1 23:27
I just had two questions. One was about White Dog. Is it on DVD? And if you could talk about the film itself.
Samantha Fuller 23:35
Yes. Criterion released it on DVD a couple years ago.
Audience 1 23:38
Okay.
Samantha Fuller 23:38
Yeah.
Haden Guest 23:39
After being unavailable for a long time.
Audience 1 23:42
Did he, I'm sorry, so did you finally, the Fuller family get the rights back? Or...?
Samantha Fuller 23:46
No, we don't have the rights to that.
Haden Guest 23:48
It's a Paramount film. So, the studio still has the rights. We'll be showing White Dog later on, and so take a look at the calendar. Also, we'll be seeing Park Row, and many of the films that you've...
Audience 1 24:00
Is the film, I'm sorry, I do want to ask one other thing, but just more on White Dog. The film, like the DVD version, is that also the edited version? Or was your father satisfied with that?
Samantha Fuller 24:11
Well, that's a version that was released under his approval.
Audience 1 24:15
Yeah, I've never seen it, so.
Samantha Fuller 24:16
Oh, yeah, that's,
Haden Guest 24:18
Oh, you have to see it.
Samantha Fuller 24:18
Yeah, great Ennio Morricone score. And it's so absurd, because the film was shelved and wasn't released in the United States…
Audience 1 24:27
I remembered that.
Samantha Fuller 24:28
..initially. It did get a little release on the Z Channel, a couple years later. And then again, in 1994, it was put in a few theaters, but really, it didn't get what it deserved. But at the time—we moved to France, actually, during that period—and when we arrived in France, the movie was just being released theatrically there, and it was a hit! And we went to see–
Christa Lang Fuller 24:51
Rave reviews!
Samantha Fuller 24:52
Wonderful reviews, and we went down the Champs-Élysées, where all the big major theatres are, and there was a line for this movie. And so we went in and we watched it with an audience in a packed theater. And we were like, “How could this happen?” How can, like, in one country it can do so well?
Christa Lang Fuller 25:11
Threre was a little girl, I remember she asked her father, “Daddy, how come they did that to the dog?” She was so sad.
Samantha Fuller 25:17
And, I was so happy. [LAUGHS]
Christa Lang Fuller 25:18
Yeah. Well, it was actually based– White Dog is based on a book by Romain Gary. And Romain Gary committed suicide in 1980. And a year before, his wife, Jean Seberg, was found dead in a car. It's very tragic, his life. He was only sixty years old. And their son just wrote a book recently, and he's in and out of, you know, homes. But he wrote a beautiful book. He opened the drawer, and he sees a picture of his beautiful mother, Jean Seberg, and his father on their wedding day, and they both committed suicide within… You know, it's really tragic. And Romain Gary wrote the book called White Dog because he was a– It's based on a real dog.
Haden Guest 26:08
That he had, right.
Christa Lang Fuller 26:09
It's not fiction. He was a French Consul in Beverly Hills, and he had a white dog. And whenever this white dog saw a person of color, not only Afro-American, but it could be just dark skin, the dog went berserk. So Romain Gary, being a writer—he wrote some very fine books; he got the Prix Goncourt twice—he did research, and he found out that in the South, they used white dogs for runaway slaves. The Nazis used [them] for prisoners of war, and they can train this beautiful white dog to become an attack dog. And so he wrote a short story for Life magazine first, and then he wrote it as a book, and Paramount bought the rights. And they first said “Roman Polanski,” but you know, he was not wanted in this country. And then they had Arthur Penn, and nobody could lick this dark side of Americana. And then Sam did The Big Red One. And so Curtis Hanson said to the head of the studio, “What about Sam Fuller? He's so good, you know, he really knows the dark side of America. The good side and the dark side.” So they hired Sam and Curtis to write the screenplay. And while they were writing the screenplay, there was this scene where the white dog enters a church and kills a black man in the church. And Curtis Hanson and I first thought it was too much over the top. And look what happened in South Carolina a few weeks ago. This young kid who killed all these people in a Black church, you know? And this hate crime, this horrible hate crime. So Sam really knew what he was talking about.
Now the movie White Dog is on Criterion, they're gonna put it out in Blu-ray, it sort of has gotten a cult status. But at the time, we were really shocked. My husband wasn't young anymore, and we had a young child to support. So this young French fellow comes and he says, “Would Mr. Fuller like to make a movie in France?” Yes, yes, yes! They weren't offering any movies anymore in Hollywood, you know? It's sad, you know? I mean, Sam, for Hollywood, should be a national treasure. But it's a strange place, so...
Audience 1 28:31
I just wanted to ask, um, well, I wanted to ask the mother something, then the daughter something that occurred to me also. Christa, I wanted to ask you, if you could use one or two words to describe your late husband, Mr. Fuller, just one or two words. Or what did you learn from him the most?
Samantha Fuller 28:53
Describe him in one or two words.
Christa Lang Fuller 28:55
What?
Samantha Fuller 28:56
Describe him in one or two words.
Christa Lang Fuller 28:58
Who, Sam?
Samantha Fuller 28:59
Yeah. Not physically!
[LAUGHTER]
Christa Lang Fuller
[JOKINGLY] Wow, he had, uh, mmm!! [LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
Christa Lang Fuller 29:10
Yeah, like Connie Towers says, exuberant! Always very positive. He was very enthusiastic about things. And I really admired that he was so positive with all the bullshit he had to live through, you know?
Samantha Fuller 29:29
He really did have a lot of integrity. It's unbelievable how composed he could be.
Christa Lang Fuller 29:34
And he was a very modest man. He never wanted to be a cult figure. The French made him a cult figure, you know?
Samantha Fuller 29:40
So modest, and he was so fun.
Christa Lang Fuller 29:40
Truffaut, and Godard, all these guys, they said, [WITH EXAGGERATED FRENCH ACCENT] Samuel Fuller! Oh, he was a cult figure. Much more than in America. Actually, when he made his first film, I Shot Jesse James, he got a rave review in the New York Times, and the reviewer, Ezra Goodman, he said it was the first adult Western. Because in I Shot Jesse James, he shows that Bob Ford and Jesse James actually were in love with each other. And at the end, Bob Ford says, “I'm sorry for what I did to Jesse. I loved him.” And that's the end of the picture. You know? So he shows, in real life, there were–
Samantha Fuller 29:45
He was in your face.
Christa Lang Fuller 30:24
Yeah, exactly. He was very frank. I don't think he ever lied to me. Sam never lied to me. I think his honesty got him into trouble a lot of times. And he was very sincere, you know? Like "without wax," "sans cera." And it's not easy to live that way, you know? I introduced him to Henry Miller one day. And Henry Miller said, “Take good care of your husband, he's an innocent.” Here I'm marrying an older guy to be protected. You know? I didn't have a dad until I was four years old. And all of a sudden, I wind up protecting him. Ah, innocent, how can anybody be innocent? I think he has seen so much shit during his youth, as a crime reporter. And then the war and everything, that he kept that innocent side that we all have, intact, to be able to continue to create. You know what I mean? He didn't become a cynic.
Samantha Fuller 31:31
Good description.
Haden Guest 31:33
Thank you. A few more than two words, but–
Samantha Fuller 31:35
Yeah.
Haden Guest 31:35
...all the worth it.
Samantha Fuller 31:37
So, yeah.
Haden Guest 31:38
So I think we will...
Samantha Fuller 31:39
That was nice. There's more tomorrow, still, you know, but–
Haden Guest 31:43
We'll be back tomorrow night
Samantha Fuller 31:44
It was a pleasure showing the film here, I gotta say. My dad came here in the early 90s. And he had his honorary degree given by Harvard. It's wonderful...
Christa Lang Fuller 31:52
I totally forgot. Where did you put it? Did you sell it?
[LAUGHTER]
Samantha Fuller 31:56
It’s somewhere in the kitchen cabinet. But it's there. It's in the house. We kept everything. And, just to be back here, and you know, be in this part of town where I know he walked. And I love retracing his footsteps. Today, visiting Mott Street was unforgettable.
Christa Lang Fuller 32:15
Yeah, I really could see, hey, it's really from rags to riches there.
Haden Guest 32:18
Yeah, yeah.
Samantha Fuller 32:19
Yeah.
Christa Lang Fuller 32:20
How he got himself out of [UNKNOWN] immigrants, you know, from Russia and Poland.
Samantha Fuller 32:27
He came a long way. And he survived a lot of things.
Christa Lang Fuller 32:31
And he worked to be... until he was eighty-five.
Haden Guest 32:33
Right.
Samantha Fuller 32:35
And he told me, I'll be around forever. And geez, mark his words. There's not a day that we don't talk about him, as if he's still there. Yeah. Actually, I'm wearing his dog tags tonight.
Haden Guest 32:47
Oh, wow.
Samantha Fuller 32:47
So I did bring another little piece.
Haden Guest 32:49
Oh, wow.
Samantha Fuller 32:50
There we go. These lived through D-day, you know? Yeah. And a lot more. And yeah, there's not a day that goes by that we don't think about him, or talk about him like he's still there. Left us a great legacy, great stories, a ton of scripts still. And hopefully we'll bring them to life. Tyler and I are reading through them, and getting excited. And just a matter of getting these off the ground.
Christa Lang Fuller 33:17
Plus we have all the letters he wrote to his mother during the war.
Haden Guest 33:20
Oh, yeah. And we'll hear some of those tomorrow.
Samantha Fuller 33:22
Great. So thank you, everybody.
Haden Guest
Thank you all! Be back tomorrow.
[APPLAUSE]
Samantha Fuller
Thank you Tyler! Thank you Haden! Lovely.
Haden Guest
That was great.
© Harvard Film Archive
