A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking

by Samuel Fuller;Christa Lang Fuller;Jerome Henry Rudes

  Back in 1978, when I was in preproduction for The Big Red One, Peckinpah phoned me and offered to be my second-unit director on the picture without salary. It wasn't a joke. I was touched by the gesture. Sam and I were living a similar paradox. We both were known as tough guys making tough films. The yarns we chose to tell weren't comedies. There was action, drawn from real life, and many times disturbed, flawed, or tyrannical characters who, based on their nature, resorted to violence. What Peckinpah and I feared most was people becoming indifferent to violence. He'd served in the Marine Corps and detested war. I'd been an infantryman and was tortured the rest of my life by the atrocities I'd witnessed on the front lines. We knew the truth about violence, that it was visceral, merciless, and unnecessary. We also knew it wasn't glamorous.

  I talked to Peckinpah about my novel The Rifle, set in the Vietnam War. The yarn began as a script, but when no producer was willing to back it, I wrote it as a book, following a rifle as it moved through the hands of combatants and civilians caught up in the strife. Peckinpah loved my slant. He was one of a dying breed in Hollywood, a straight shooter who told you what he thought whether you liked it or not. How could I not empathize with a guy who'd fought tooth and nail for his vision of a movie, tangling with any studio trying to tamper with his final cut? I missed Sam.

  My old body started playing tricks on me. At my yearly checkup, Doctor Weinberger discovered a lump that turned out to be an aneurysm. A top French surgeon, Professor Lagneau, operated a few days later at the American Hospital, inserting a prosthesis to save my life. All the doctors and nurses were simply terrific. In no time I was back on my feet, gradually able to resume my morning walks around the neighborhood, only at a slower pace than before.

  Thank God for Beethoven's music. Ludwig got me through a lot of rough times. He said, `Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. "Holy cow, was he right!

  While recovering from that operation, I got a call from Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai. He wanted to cast me in a film that he was about to shoot in Paris called Golem, The Spirit of the Exile (1992), the last part of his trilogy that began with Esther (1986) and Berlin Jerusalem (1989). Anx ious to get back to work but still not up to full speed, I got Amos's assurance that my role was passive. I was to play the venerable Elimelech, who was dead. Hell, you can't get more passive than a corpse! The cast Amos assembled was impressive: filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Philippe Garrel; actresses Marisa Paredes from Spain, Hanna Schygulla from Germany, and Ophrah Shemesh from Israel; and the critic Bernard Eisen- schitz. To top it off, Amos's DP was the legendary cameraman Henri Alekan, who was a few years older than me.2 Damn it, if Alekan was doing Golem, so was I.

  Amos's script was based on the Old Testament and the sixteenthcentury cabalistic legend about wise men who could instill life in effigies, or "golems." My scenes took place in a courtyard at the Gare du Nord train station. Amos, a talented storyteller, loved mixing the contemporary and the ancient, juxtaposing shots of Paris with scenes from the Middle East, supposedly ancient Moab. According to the Book of Ruth, Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their family, including their daughter-in-law, Ruth, took refuge in Moab from a famine in Bethlehem. Played by the beautiful Ophrah Shemesh, Naomi is bereaved by the loss of her old husband. She tries to breathe life back into Elimelech's corpse, but it's hopeless. It was good being on a movie set again, lying there under the hot lights and busy crew with my eyes closed and Ophrah's mouth close to mine, her exotic perfume filling my nostrils. So what if I didn't have any lines and was half asleep? It beat the crap out of being cooped up in a hospital room that smelled of ammonia.

  Amos Gitai's film turned out beautifully. Working on it was hypnotic. I was hooked on the guy's worldly vision. Gitai was well read and thoughtful, with a smart, attractive wife and two beautiful children. At a young age, he'd lost his father, a respected architect and one of the founders of the Bauhaus school of design in Berlin. I loved the way Amos had sent for his mother, then in her eighties, to be with her son and grandchildren on location.

  By the time we'd finished Golem, Amos and I had become friends. He asked me to take part in another of his pet projects, a live spectacle-part theater, part opera-called Metamorphosis of a Melody. Amos was going to produce and direct this grand event in a Roman amphitheater at Gibbelina, on the island of Sicily, near Palermo, in the summer of 1992. His script was based on the writings of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian whose seven-volume History of the Jewish War described the revolt by the Jewish Zealots against Roman rule.3 Begun in A.D. 66, the uprising was finally squelched in A.D. 73 after a two-year siege of the mountain fortress at Masada. As the world now knows, a thousand men, women, and chil dren killed themselves rather than surrender to the Roman Tenth Legion in Masada, today an Israeli shrine.

  I was to play Flavius, narrating the Roman armies' destruction of Jerusalem, while an international cast acted out scenes across Gibbelina's amphitheater, its massive white stones in chaos since an earthquake had struck it a few decades earlier. My fellow cast members were from many countries, all speaking or singing in their native tongues, be it Hebrew, Italian, French, German, or English. Many were nonactors like Jerome Koenig, who played Titus, the general in command of the Roman armies. Koenig was a newspaperman from New York. Eating and working together, we were like a big family that wonderful summer in Sicily.

  My narrative was lifted directly from Flavius's writings. For the other actors, Amos weaved together artful passages borrowed from Oscar Wilde and Rainer Maria Rilke. To make the show contemporary and ballsy, Amos took some flights of fancy, like having Roman soldiers ride in on Harley-Davidson motorcycles as their chariots. The show was an amazing gamble, mixing fact with poetry and fantasy to create an emotional, haunting evening, revisiting that terrible, two-thousand-year-old conflict.

  Amos and I shared a passion for unearthing historical events to get a better perspective on our own times. He was amazed that I knew a helluva lot about Flavius Josephus. I told him I owned my own copy of Jewish War, which once belonged to President Andrew Jackson. My guess was that Flavius had tried to be as impartial as he could, but his writings also had to glorify Roman power and military prowess. After all, he was on their payroll. Any modern reader of Flavius's account is impressed by the Jews' strength and tenacity. A helluva war correspondent, Flavius's descriptions of atrocities were still moving two millennia later:

  All human feelings, alas, yield to hunger, of which decency is always the first victim; for when hunger reigns, restraint is abandoned. Wives snatched food out of husbands' mouths, children out of fathers' mouths, and the most sorrowful sight of all: mothers snatching food out of their babies' mouths. Everywhere the partisans were ready to swoop on such pickings. Wherever they saw a locked door, they rushed in, and hardly stopped short at squeezing throats to force out the morsels of food! No one was spared or pitied.

  For the premiere of Metamorphosis of a Melody, the amphitheater at Gibbelina was packed. Electricity was in the air. The lights came down. Then a small spot came up on me, sitting on a podium just above the audience, the battlefield behind. No silly toga and sandals for me, I wore jeans, a sweater, and a jacket.

  "Ruins," I said, beginning the performance, "that is all that is left of the city." Playing Flavius with conviction was a natural. I empathized with the man's passion for recounting war experiences, his exactitude as a reporter, his good fortune to have survived those violent times. "A bitter war between two factions. And in the midst of all of this was the people, like one great body writhing in agony, yet still breathing."

  Metamorphosis of a Melody was an unabashed success. My participation was exciting for me because it was a journey back to my roots as a crime reporter. I was thrilled that Amos Gitai had taken me with him to Sicily. I'd last seen the island's turquoise skies and deep blue Mediterranean waters in July 1943. Back then, the star-studded nights were distressful and restless, as I lay thinking of the next day's battles. Now in the twilight of m
y life, the same crystal-clear night skies filled me with a sense of peace and contentment. I smelled the scent of jasmine and lemon blossoms, put aside thoughts of wars and movies, and relished the marvelous gift of life.

  Amos Gitai announced he was putting on Metamorphosis the following summer in Italy as part of the renowned Biennale of Venice. He was enthusiastic about wanting me in it again. Though I wasn't used to being a member of another director's family of actors, the satisfaction of playing Flavius was matched by my delight at being able to contribute to a work of such force and harmony. "Next summer in Venice" sounded damned good to my ears. I told Amos I'd do it, but only if I were still alive.

  Long, Long

  Thoughts

  58i

  You gotta be kidding!"

  Wim Wenders was calling to tell me Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto wanted me to model some of his new clothes in a Paris fashion show. Me, a model in a fashion show? I trusted Wenders completely, but, for Chrissakes, this had to be a joke. My everyday wardrobe looked like it had come from the local thrift shop, peppered with cigar burns and coffee stains. Yamamoto's offer was for real. I hesitated until I saw Samantha get all excited about her daddy being in a fashion show. I said I'd do it.

  The walkway was lined with fashion critics, bright lights, and photographers. I came out three times in three different outfits. A flock of Yamamoto's assistants backstage helped me change. As I strolled onstage, there was a helluva ovation, pop music pounding and photographers' cameras clicking. For a guy who'd never given a good goddamn about his outward appearance, there I was strutting up and down the runway, my long white hair brushed back like a lion's mane, as I cockily looked left and right at the noisy onlookers and flashing cameras. At the end of the show, Yamamoto joined all the models onstage and the audience went wild. The biggest thrill for me was the look in my daughter's eyes. She was so proud of her father.

  Afterward, Yamamoto organized a dinner for his crew and models. Late that night, Christa, Samantha, and I walked back home along the banks of the Seine. We were in a great mood after the memorable evening, singing silly songs like drunken sailors as we strolled together. With the two women of my life on either arm, I considered myself damned lucky.

  Harvard University hosted the Avignon Film Festival in the spring of 1993, calling the American version of the event "Avignon/Cambridge." Screenings of my films were set up along with a parallel series of discussions and panels with students and teachers. We flew over to Boston with Jerry Rudes to participate. The Harvard Film Archive decided to give me some kind of achievement award. I was touched more deeply than they could imagine. After all, here I was being recognized by one of the world's greatest institutions of higher learning, and I'd never even finished high school.

  From Boston, we took a delightful train ride down to New York City. Christa had never been to Manhattan before, and I wanted to show it to her myself. Like the multitudes of tourists, we visited some of Manhattan's most famous landmarks. Christa loved it all, the towering skyscrapers, the noise, the energy, the light. Among the must-sees, we went down to Park Row, the street that used to be the epicenter of American journalism, and up to Washington Heights, where Rebecca Fuller had moved our family in 1923 to give her fatherless children new opportunities.

  Why a top designer like Yohji Yamamoto would want me in his fashion show was a mystery, but there I was, strolling down the runway and feelingproud to be there.

  One evening we had a delightful meal with a group of young filmmaker friends, including Mika Kaurismaki, Jim Jarmusch, and Sara Driver. The conversation somehow turned to my old Bell & Howell 16-mm camera and the footage of my 1954 visit to Brazil that was stored away at the Shack. I told them how Zanuck sent me into the jungles of South America to scout locations for a movie called Tigrero that I was supposed to do for Fox. Over dinner, Christa suggested we all take a journey back into the same jungles today and make a movie about the adventure. Mika and Jim loved the idea of returning with me to Brazil's Mato Grosso forty years later. By the third bottle of wine, Mika had promised to write a treatment, put together financing, and get a crew. Christa would recover my old footage in California so that it could be incorporated into the new movie. Jim would be my sidekick on this escapade, and Sara would shoot stills.

  Knowing how few movie projects actually get any further than animated dinner-table conversations, I played it cool. Sure, it was thrilling to fantasize about a journey hack into the Mato Grosso. Would we even be able to locate the Karaja tribe, the joyful, generous Indians who'd welcomed me into their village in the fifties? The prospect made my heart beat wildly. Outwardly, I gave the young, upbeat filmmakers a paternal smile, grateful for their support and love. I said I'd do the picture, half-expecting them to fail to put together the project.

  During our stay in New York, Jonathan Demme invited us for lunch at his country home up in Nyack. An assistant picked up Christa and me and drove us north along the Hudson. As I puffed on my cigar and gazed out the car window, I thought about my old health-crazed boss, Bernarr Macfadden of the New York Evening Graphic, who'd lived in Nyack and actually walked into Manhattan barefoot. Thinking about the Graphic and the twenties made me remember my friend and mentor Gene Fowler. Then my mind wandered to all those other remarkable characters I'd crossed paths with in the twenties. My reverie was interrupted when the car pulled up at Jonathan's tasteful New England-style cottage. Jonathan and his wife, Joanne, couldn't have been sweeter or more gracious. Their two beautiful kids, Ramona and Brooklyn, were delightful.

  While the hamburgers were cooking on the outdoor grill, we drank wine, chatted, and laughed at each other's anecdotes. Despite having just made two of the outstanding movies of the nineties, The Silence of the Lambs (i991) and Philadelphia (1993), Jonathan was still the same unpretentious, congenial guy we'd known for the last twenty years. Out of the blue, he turned to me and said the goddamnedest thing: "Sam, Marty Scorsese and I want to produce a Fuller movie."

  My cigar almost fell out of my mouth. Holy mackerel, two of the world's most respected filmmakers wanted to back my next picture!

  "For real?"

  "We're serious," said Demme. "What've you got for us?"

  Suddenly all the juices started to flow, my brain was afire, and my heart was pounding like a youngster. My daydreaming during the ride up from Manhattan suddenly made perfect sense.

  "Ruth Snyder!" I said excitedly, grabbing Jonathan's arm tightly. "Ruth Snyder, for Chrissakes, that's what!"

  Ruth Snyder, the first woman executed in the United States in the electric chair. The date was frozen in my memory-Friday, January 12, 1928as was the tabloid shot of Ruth at Sing Sing. It was one of the biggest stories Gene Fowler had ever covered, probably the biggest of the decade, knocking everything-Sacco and Vanzetti, even President Coolidge-off the front page.

  Walking with Jerry Rudes to a seminar at Harvard University as special guest of Avignon/Cambridge. Behind us are (left) cinematographer John Bailey and (right) Columbia Studio vice president Michael Schlesinger. Christa is directly behind me, unseen, gabbing to the boys.

  I explained to Jonathan that Ruth Snyder had been damned, applauded, shunned, envied, and devoured by newspaper readers across America. Her love affair with Judd Gray and their complicity in the murder of her husband, Albert, had inspired James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Cain's book had been turned into a play in 1936, and adapted twice for the movies, first in 1946, with Lana Turner, then in 1981, with Jessica Lange. I'd always wanted to do the yarn my own way, not like those pictures or Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat (1981), coined from the lustful aspects of the story.

  "You're going to be Ruth Snyder for fourteen years, my boy!" I told Jonathan. "From 1914 to 1928, you'll live inside Ruth's passionate, complex head. And on that Friday morning in January of 1928, you'll burn with her as thousands of volts surge through your body!"

  Excited with my Ruth Snyder yarn, I forgot how hard I was squeezing Jonathan's arm. He was thoroughl
y enjoying my impassioned pitch, relishing the heady atmosphere of the freewheeling twenties. Back then, I was still a copyboy dreaming of becoming a crime reporter. Ruth Snyder had fascinated me ever since her case exploded across every front page in the country. I described for Jonathan the national media circus that swelled around the pro- and anti-Ruth camps, those bellowing for Ruth to get the chair and those clamoring for Ruth to be spared, bolstered by a national outcry of injustice that rose out of the Sacco and Vanzetti electrocutions in August 1927. I'd weave some of that era's remarkable characters into my yarn, reporters Gene Fowler, Damon Runyon, and Rhea Gore, Chicago Tribune news photographer Torn Howard, New York Evening World editor Charles Chapin, boxer Jess Willard, poet Carl Sandburg, evangelist Billy Sunday, New York governor Alfred E. Smith, Sing Sing prison warden Lewis E. Lawes, and pioneer moviemaker D. W. Griffith. I already had a title for the movie: The Chair vs. Ruth Snyder.

  After the picnic with Jonathan Demme, I could hardly sleep. I kept waking up in the middle of the night to jot down notes for my Ruth Snyder yarn. Before we returned to Paris, Marty Scorsese invited us over to dinner at his place, a narrow, black, ultramodern skyscraper next to Carnegie Hall. We ate in an elegant private dining room about forty floors up. Along with Marty, there was his longtime editor, Thelma Schoon- maker, and actress Illeana Douglas. Marty loved my stories about the old studio days, working with Zanuck, so I tried not to disappoint him. We finally got around to discussing the Ruth Snyder project. Marty recon firmed that he and Jonathan were committed to coproducing The Chair vs. Ruth Snyder, though he was especially aware of the difficulties of making period movies after adapting The Age of Innocence (1993). Their plan was to get one of the studios to put up the dough, then guide the project, shielding me from all the pitfalls.