Christa Lang-Fuller’s Top10
Author and actor Christa Lang-Fuller married director Samuel Fuller in 1967. In 1981, they founded Chrisam Films, which Lang-Fuller has continued to run since her husband’s death, in 1997. She coedited Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face, for Random House and is currently writing a new book and working on two screenplays. She has one daughter by Fuller, Samantha, a glass artist and actor, and a granddaughter, Samira, eight years old. They are all big film buffs.
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1
Marcel Carné
Children of Paradise
Marcel Carné’s masterpiece, starring the unforgettable Jean-Louis Barrault and the divine Arletty.
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2
Jean Renoir
The Rules of the Game
Jean Renoir’s exposé of French bourgeois hypocrisy—always a great subject!
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3
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4
Robert Bresson
Pickpocket
To be viewed with Pickup on South Street. Samuel Fuller originally wanted to use the same title as Bresson’s film.
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5
Volker Schlöndorff
The Tin Drum
Volker Schlöndorff’s brilliant adaptation of the great Günter Grass novel.
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6
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
The Marriage of Maria Braun
I love the whole BRD trilogy for Fassbinder’s truthful rendering of the German psyche after World War II devastation and post–Marshall Plan de-Nazification, and for the great parts that he offered to his female actors. Being a teenager in the fifties, in Germany, I left for Paris to avoid being sucked into the materialistic obsession displayed here.
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7
Jean-Luc Godard
Alphaville
It has not aged a bit, and it contains my cinema debut, albeit in a small role. And the great Akim Tamiroff gets to die on me! An unforgettable experience. My daughter loves the way I pickpocket Tamiroff while taking his coat off.
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8
Jean-Luc Godard
Contempt
Brigitte Bardot has never been better. The way Jack Palance’s producer brilliantly humiliates Michel Piccoli’s writer, who tries to hold on to his pride, rings a bell. Plus, our friend Fritz Lang as the director . . . Sacré Jean-Luc!
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9
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10 (tie)
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Samuel Fuller
Shock Corridor
Something’s to be said for the Bicameral Mind. Kill the Pig and the Gods will commune through the head on the pole. I think I’m getting Lasik—just in case the veneer shatters.
