The Big Red One: The Reconstruction

Named after the First Infantry Division in which Samuel Fuller served in World War II, The Big Red One follows a rifle squad from the Allied attack on North Africa to the invasion of Sicily, and from the D-Day landings to the liberation of a concentration camp, recreating Fuller’s own wartime experience without a shred of the heroics or glorified camaraderie found in most war movies. With this triumphant culmination of a filmmaking career largely devoted to depicting the randomness and cruelty of war, Fuller captures the cold determination and absolute lack of sentimentality required to survive in battle, yet serves up typically potent images in which pulp meets poetry: ants crawl into the eyes of a crucifix overlooking a battlefield, a body hangs upside down from a tree in radiant afternoon sunlight, a soldier dons a helmet decorated with flowers pinned on by a child. As the nameless sergeant leading the rifle squad, Lee Marvin is at his best, allowing a hairline of vulnerability to appear in his stony façade as he wrestles with the difference between killing and murder. Film at Lincoln Center is pleased to present the 2004 “reconstruction” that recreated Fuller’s original cut of the film Daney described as the director’s “magnum opus.”