Christa Lang-Fuller’s Top 10
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.
1. Marcel Carné’s masterpiece, starring the unforgettable Jean-Louis Barrault and the divine Arletty.
2. Jean Renoir’s exposé of French bourgeois hypocrisy—always a great subject!
3. Luis Buñuel’s take on hypocrisy.
4. To be viewed with Pickup on South Street. Samuel Fuller originally wanted to use the same title as Bresson’s film.
5. Volker Schlöndorff’s brilliant adaptation of the great Günter Grass novel.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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!
9. Anguish and hope, and Peter Lorre’s sterling performance.
10. 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.