The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (1980). Photofest.
(Samuel Fuller, US 1980, 160 min., 35mm)
D-Day. First released at 113 minutes, Samuel Fuller’s poetic, tough, and riveting WWII drama has been re-assembled by acclaimed film critic Richard Schickel to include almost 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage from the original director’s cut. Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, and Robert Carradine are three members of a weary platoon that survives four years of combat during WWII. Loaded with metaphysical imagery and gorgeous location shooting in North Africa, Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia, Fuller’s most ambitious statement on combat reminds us that “surviving is the only glory in war.” Now, it can be truly appreciated as a masterpiece.
Admission free to active and retired military personnel (with ID) and their families.