CWC Classics: The Big Red One

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Samuel Fuller’s war film masterpiece The Big Red One (1980) is a raw journey through the Second World War, based on the director’s own combat experience as a foot soldier with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division. The film follows a grizzled veteran Sergeant (Lee Marvin) and his core squad (the “Horsemen”), as they cross the desert sands of North Africa, the hills of Sicily, and the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy, before finally confronting the horrific reality of the Nazi concentration camps. Fuller, who had captured 16mm footage of the liberation and horrors of the Falkenau concentration camp in 1945 as an infantryman, presents a realistic view of warfare where survival, rather than glory, is the primary mission. This “must-make” project for the veteran filmmaker lives on as an unsparing statement against the unmerciful nature of combat and dehumanization, making this a “must-see” for audiences around the world, where wars rage on.

Fuller’s story focuses on the lived experience of the infantrymen, emphasizing the camaraderie, numbing fatigue, and arbitrary violence of the front lines. In his autobiography A Third Face, Fuller wrote, “The only war film I really wanted to make was The Big Red One.” In the film, he distills the grand scope of the Second World War into the experiences of five men, challenging audiences to confront the physical and emotional toll of total war.

The Carsey-Wolf Center is proud to present The Big Red One in its rarely seen 162-minute reconstructed version. After being heavily edited for its initial 1980 release, the film was meticulously reconstructed in 2004 by Warner Bros with the help of historian Richard Schickel to faithfully reflect Fuller’s original vision.

The Carsey-Wolf Center is pleased to welcome Samantha Fuller (director of A Fuller Life and daughter of director Samuel Fuller) and actors Bobby Di Cicco, Mark Hamill, Perry Lang, and Kelly Ward to the Pollock Theater. They will join moderator Andréas-Benjamin Seyfert (Germanic and Slavic Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of The Big Red One.