Search The Archive
What's MIFF without another Sam Fuller film!? This new documentary about the iconoclastic, cigar-puffing octogenarian filmmaker captures Fuller's feisty and loquacious character as well as his principal thematic concerns. As always, Fuller is highly-charged and entertaining throughout, elaborating on his hard-hitting cinematic style in such cult classic as Shock Corridor (1964), The Naked Kiss (1967) and Underworld USA (1962) Admirers of Fuller-including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Jim larmusch-complete the picture of the man's accomplishments and reveal the deep influence he had on contemporary works, Scorsese illustrating, with clips, how he drew inspiration for one of the key fight scenes in Raging Bull from Fuller's Steel Helmet (1951).
As narrator and executive producer Tim Robbins admits, at the opening of the film, that he knew little of Fuller until recently and he plays an essentially passive role as interlocutor and tour guide through key aspects of the tough-talking helmer's career. As a primer for students and filmgoers not intimately acquainted with this cult favorite, The Typewriter, The Rifle And The Movie Camera will serve the worthy task of inspiring them to check out his work. A superb account of an incredibly rich personality.