The Big Red One: The Reconstruction

On its premiere, in 1980, The Big Red One didn’t last for two hours and was far from the version that Samuel Fuller had imagined for his war epic. Twenty-five years later, the film critic Richard Schickel and the producer Brian Jamieson retrieved whatever they could from the original film, considered to be hopelessly lost, and restored to the screen The Big Red One. The Reconstruction, 40 minutes longer, in what migh as well be the closest to Fuller’s original vision. Semi-autobiographical war movie, inspired by the director’s experience at the service of Big Red One Task Force during Second World War, the film is a summary of stories of a military group composed by the veteran Sergeant Possum and four young soldiers that survive in the midst of chaos and horror of the world-wide conflict. Eight complete sequences have been added, including an appearance of Fuller himself – as an action cameraman – and his wife Christa – acting as a German countess. Delirious and episodic, the film combines realism and surrealism, lyricism and dark comedy, and represents a modern and ruthless insight into the war.