De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller

Before becoming a famous Hollywood director, Samuel Fuller honed his visual sensibility as a soldier whose superior officers had entrusted with the task of filming the liberation of Europe by US troops in 1945. The discovery of the Czechoslovakian town of Falkenau and the nearby concentration camp w...

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Main Author: Vincent Souladié
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2022-05-01
Series:Transatlantica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/18943
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author Vincent Souladié
author_facet Vincent Souladié
author_sort Vincent Souladié
collection DOAJ
description Before becoming a famous Hollywood director, Samuel Fuller honed his visual sensibility as a soldier whose superior officers had entrusted with the task of filming the liberation of Europe by US troops in 1945. The discovery of the Czechoslovakian town of Falkenau and the nearby concentration camp was a traumatic experience for him, which he evoked forty years later in the documentary Falkenau, The Impossible (1986). The 16 mm footage he recorded there illuminates, in hindsight, the visual style Fuller developed in his films. The confrontation within the same sensible space between the normalized mendacity of the city and the horrors of the concentration camp, which the 16 mm footage explicitly reveals, seems to have had repercussions throughout his feature films, notably though a poetics of heterogeneity and contradiction. This is particularly the case in the opening sequence of his WW2 film Verboten! (1959). Set among the ruins of a German city, it is Fuller’s first film dealing with his memories of the war, the liberation and the discovery of the concentration camps.
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spelling doaj-art-f16fbe61b6064c348002adfda185b6b82025-01-30T10:43:17ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662022-05-01110.4000/transatlantica.18943De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel FullerVincent SouladiéBefore becoming a famous Hollywood director, Samuel Fuller honed his visual sensibility as a soldier whose superior officers had entrusted with the task of filming the liberation of Europe by US troops in 1945. The discovery of the Czechoslovakian town of Falkenau and the nearby concentration camp was a traumatic experience for him, which he evoked forty years later in the documentary Falkenau, The Impossible (1986). The 16 mm footage he recorded there illuminates, in hindsight, the visual style Fuller developed in his films. The confrontation within the same sensible space between the normalized mendacity of the city and the horrors of the concentration camp, which the 16 mm footage explicitly reveals, seems to have had repercussions throughout his feature films, notably though a poetics of heterogeneity and contradiction. This is particularly the case in the opening sequence of his WW2 film Verboten! (1959). Set among the ruins of a German city, it is Fuller’s first film dealing with his memories of the war, the liberation and the discovery of the concentration camps.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/18943RuinsSamuel FullerVerboten!ShoahFalkenauWar films
spellingShingle Vincent Souladié
De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
Transatlantica
Ruins
Samuel Fuller
Verboten!
Shoah
Falkenau
War films
title De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
title_full De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
title_fullStr De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
title_full_unstemmed De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
title_short De Falkenau aux ruines de Verboten! (1959), les dialectiques formelles de Samuel Fuller
title_sort de falkenau aux ruines de verboten 1959 les dialectiques formelles de samuel fuller
topic Ruins
Samuel Fuller
Verboten!
Shoah
Falkenau
War films
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/18943
work_keys_str_mv AT vincentsouladie defalkenauauxruinesdeverboten1959lesdialectiquesformellesdesamuelfuller