Samuel Fuller

This is classic Fuller filmmaking … and as Dominik Graf notes, there is no mistaking the director’s “brand of ecstatic underground cinema.”

Fuller stands as one of the most unique, daring, and accomplished of American filmmakers, and The Big Red One might just be his magnum opus.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the major international powers and their smaller, less imposing friends aligned themselves along two extremely divisive ideological lines: the Western pro-capitalists and the Eastern Bloc, the latter driven by a bastardized version of communism. The present column shan’t delve into lessons of political or economic history of the mid-twentieth century, save to mention the above detail and tie it into film noir.

The Criterion Collection is known as the most prestigious video-distribution company, releasing “important classic and contemporary films” to cinema aficionados. Created in 1984 by Janus Films and the Voyager Company, The Criterion Collection now has 562 titles under it’s belt. This week The company is releasing new versions of Samuel Fuller’s The Naked Kiss and …