Having directed 13 function movies over almost half a century, Stanley Kubrick has left an indelible mark on cinematic historical past. Innovative, influential, and meticulous to a tee, the trailblazer from the Bronx first picked up a digital camera as a young person and made a reputation for himself taking pictures nonetheless images for Look journal. After transitioning to quick documentary filmmaking with Day of the Fight and Flying Padre, it appeared solely a matter of time earlier than he’d strive his hand at a feature-length movie. With a beneficiant monetary contribution from his uncle, and utilizing cash he made hustling chess in New York City’s Washington Square Park, Kubrick went to work on what would change into Fear and Desire.
After taking pictures in California’s San Gabriel Mountains with a minimal solid and crew, the hour-long function debuted on the Venice Film Festival and obtained a short-lived theatrical distribution in 1953. But shortly after launch, Fear and Desire disappeared from public view for forty years. What occurred to Kubrick’s movie, and the way did it resurface a long time later?
What Is ‘Fear and Desire’ About?
Written by Howard Sackler, a good friend of Stanley Kubrick’s who would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, and set in a mountainous panorama amidst a nondescript conflict, Fear and Desire tells the story of a gaggle of troopers struggling to outlive behind enemy strains after their airplane crashes. Banding collectively is Sgt. Mac (Frank Silvera), Lt. Corby (Kenneth Harp), Pvt. Sidney (Paul Mazursky), and Pvt. Fletcher (Steve Coit), trudging by hostile territory in hopes of discovering a river that can make them allies. After violent skirmishes with enemy troops, and an encounter that sees the boys maintain a younger civilian lady in opposition to her will, two of the 4 protagonists return to their house base, solely to enterprise again into hurt’s approach to retrieve their fellow troopers. When all is alleged and accomplished, nevertheless, a big toll is taken on their psychological, bodily, and religious well-being.
Working with a shoestring funds, a skeleton crew, and a largely inexperienced solid, Kubrick’s movie explores thematic materials that may change into recurring hallmarks all through his subsequent work. In meditating on the battle between good and evil inherent to the human expertise, Fear and Desire faucets into the notion of psychological instability underneath excessive duress, in addition to the razor-thin line between civilized and barbaric conduct. Much like Full Metal Jacket, the movie is an indictment on the dehumanizing nature of conflict, and the way such circumstances are likely to awaken mankind’s darkest and most damaging impulses. And in the identical vein as Paths of Glory, Kubrick’s debut is decidedly anti-war in highlighting the fraught ethical dilemmas one inevitably faces whereas struggling to outlive.
‘Fear and Desire’ Had a Limited Festival and Theatrical Run
Wrapping manufacturing on his movie in 1952, Kubrick sought help with distribution and finally enlisted the assistance of Joseph Burstyn. A person who specialised in international and arthouse movies, Burstyn agreed to assist the younger filmmaker in securing a screening of Fear and Desire on the 1952 Venice Film Festival, and the next yr, a theatrical launch. The movie obtained some optimistic critiques, with a critic of The New York Times commending the first-time function filmmaker and acknowledging, “Stanley Kubrick, a 24-year-old producer-director-photographer, and his equally younger and unheralded scenarist and solid, have succeeded in turning out a moody, typically visually highly effective research of subdued excitements.”
Though some took favorable discover of Fear and Desire, the movie finally fell flat with the general public and was rapidly pulled from exhibition. The setback was a serious blow to Kubrick, who returned to quick documentary filmmaking with 1953’s The Seafarers and undertook efforts to finance what can be his subsequent function, Killer’s Kiss. But later that yr, destiny intervened and set in movement a set of circumstances that may eradicate Fear and Desire from public view for 4 a long time. In November 1953, distributor Joseph Burstyn handed away, and the movie was basically misplaced. While it is rumored that the movie’s unique unfavourable was destroyed, a variety of circulated prints survived.
Stanley Kubrick Essentially Disowned ‘Fear and Desire’
As a filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick was a person of many qualities, however a willingness to accept something lower than spectacular was not one in all them. Notoriously specific and all the time striving for what appeared like perfection to these he labored with, he held himself to excessive requirements from the get-go. As his star rose over time, Kubrick sometimes supplied candid ideas on Fear and Desire, and they have been something however complimentary. He described the movie as “ineptly accomplished,” “a presumptuous failure,” and one which he does not “bear in mind with any satisfaction, aside from the truth that it was completed.” But regardless of his persistent efforts to stop audiences from seeing the movie, it was made a part of the general public area, and to Kubrick’s displeasure, reemerged after languishing in obscurity for forty years.
‘Fear and Desire’ Finds New Life
By the Nineteen Nineties, Stanley Kubrick was firmly established as one in all cinema’s best storytellers, so it is no shock he had reservations about his function debut instantly resurfacing. But that is what occurred in 1993 when Fear and Desire screened on the Telluride Film Festival. The following yr, a nonprofit theater introduced plans to display it in New York City. Along with Warner Bros., his longtime studio ally, Kubrick issued a press launch in response. He as soon as once more publicly lambasted the movie, this time characterizing it as “written by a failed poet, crewed by a number of buddies, and a very inept oddity, boring and pretentious,” and labeling it a “bumbling amateur film exercise.” Bruce Goldstein, then head of the theater’s programming, challenged Kubrick’s assertions and insisted the filmmaker’s scathing disapproval of Fear and Desire would solely increase public curiosity within the screening. In an interview with NPR, Goldstein stated, “that solely drew extra consideration to it. So it now, now it truly is a must-see, as a result of now it is the image Kubrick desires to suppress. So that makes it even sexier as a field workplace attraction. So I feel he is elevated our attendance four-fold.”
While Fear and Desire clearly does not rank amongst Stanley Kubrick’s finer movies, the subjective lens by which he judged it’s arguably harsh, although understandably biased. Sure, from a technical standpoint, the movie is rickety, however Kubrick’s eager photographic eye delivers some spectacular photographs and kinetic enhancing. Indeed, the narrative throws a number of concepts and existential subtext on the proverbial wall, and never all of it sticks, however its director’s affinity for placing complicated human conduct underneath a microscope is clear by the movie’s exploration of, effectively, fears and needs. The performances and writing might not be top-notch, however the solid and Howard Sackler decide to materials that is decidedly bold regardless of being uneven. For all its flaws and shortcomings, any Stanley Kubrick fan watching Fear and Desire will definitely acknowledge the inventive and thematic tendencies of a hungry, budding filmmaker who would quickly turn into one of many medium’s most singular voices.