SAMUEL FULLER: UNRAVELING THE LEGEND OF AN OUTCAST

Abstract

Samuel Fuller is an icon in the history of filmmaking during the classic period, from 1950s to 1960s. His idiosyncratic and stunning filmography inspired future generations of filmmakers and generated debates among film critics throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Even today, Fuller's films leave no one indifferent because they tackle themes that are part of everyday modern western societies. Fuller was a twentieth-century man with messages to convey for his viewers, and he aimed to express them bluntly and vehemently. However, the circumstances and controversy surrounding the production of his films demonstrate that these very same messages were too provocative and too reactionary for the cultural standards and expectations of the American film industry at the time his films were produced. That is why film critics and filmmakers who praised him postulated him as a Hollywood rebel. Within this framework, Fuller's filmography calls for a reevaluation, one that reconsiders the historical reasons that posed him as an icon in film history, as well as evaluates why the topics he exposed in his films are still so relevant in present times. Fuller's films are entertaining, but they also expose a self-reflexive understanding of democratic values and warfare—an understanding whose ambivalence validates those topics, while pointing out their shortcomings.