Double Feature: Falkenau, The Impossible/ Merrill’s Marauders

Introduced by Marsha Gordon

Falkenau, The Impossible. Dir. Emil Weiss. 1988, 52 mins. 16mm. With Samuel Fuller. Falkenau,The Impossible is about the first film shot by legendary director Samuel Fuller. As a member of the First Infantry Division, he filmed the liberation of a Czechoslovakian Nazi prison camp in 1945. Forty-three years later, the French filmmaker Emil Weiss revives this footage, with Fuller offering a commentary. His indelible narration emphasizes the significance of visual evidence, and offers cogent reflections on violence, trauma, and remembering.

Followed by:

Merrill’s Marauders. Dir. Samuel Fuller. 1962, 98 mins. 35mm. With Jeff Chandler, Ty Hardin, Peter Brown. During World War II, a 3,000-strong American unit, known as Merrill’s Marauders, battles Japanese forces in Burma. As a Warner Bros. press release described, the film depicts “a continuing series of small, deadly actions and long marches under constant threat of death while jungle diseases nibble away at their number.” Like Fuller’s films on the Korean War, Marauders is a story about survival and tenacity.

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