Samuel Fuller

Before enlisting in the army at the age of 29, Samuel Fuller earned a living as a journalist. He began his own directing career, lasting over forty years, with the western I Shot Jesse James (1949). The following decade was crucial for his career when, together with Robert Aldrich and Nicholas Ray, he was part of a new generation of filmmakers who retuned the classic melodrama more in the direction of film noir poetics, emphasising the darkly romantic side with a tendency towards the lyricism of violence (e.g. Pickup on South Street, 1953). In the sixties, Fuller became celebrated for the films Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964), which are more Hollywood B movies, yet still remarkable works for their time, particularly thanks to the unconventional treatment of popular stories from cheap magazines. This was also why Fuller was considered by European critics as one of the pure auteurs.

MFF Karlovy Vary