Sam Fuller: The Big Red One (1980)

Cinematheque Ontario, 2004. 10. 17

Although when watching, I was not involved --- except for some brief moments, such as the madhouse capturing sequence, from a historical perspective, this film is still more or less interesting. It is quintessentially American, although it belongs to 'the other' great American tradition --- the tradition of anti-epic epics, the tradition of anti-hero heroics. And probably it owes its direct influence to the age of 1960's and 1970's. Films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone preceded it. Two more recent big names of this cinematic tradition (if not a literary tradition as well), are Gus van Sant and Tarantino(?). This tradition is more of a frequent departure from the main stream American (pop) epic and (pop) heroic tradition. It replaces the latter's (seemingly) seriousness with absurdity, poshness with ugliness, dramatic coherence with fragmentation, romanticism with decorativism. Let me repeat it: it's absurd, ugly, fragmented and decorative. Yet its purpose is to induce the same profound sentiment the mainstream tradition claims to be presenting, in a more genuine manner and with way more powerful effects. It tries to bring out the weight by conveying the lightness (of history, of human being, of life --- and death). This Sam Fuller film has good ideas and departure points: the war and the youthfulness; the game-like playful nature of history. Yet the film fails to sparkle (as Peckingpah's Wild Bunch does). Probably the failure is due to the conflict between its layout and its aesthetic choice: it refuses to focus, yet fails to be truly stylish and flamboyant, thus it's not 'decorative' enough. I must point out, all I just said are mere tentative impression. There are two aspects of facts to be considered: 1) What we saw today is other people's 'reconstruction', not director's own final version; 2) The film does feature American teenage conversation and expression (facial or gestural) --- because of linguistic and cultural limitations, I probably missed a lot of things that I should have appreciated. (F. Zhang)

>> Back to What’s New <<