Fear and Desire
Short description
Fear and Desire follows four soldiers whose aircraft goes down in a forest behind enemy lines during a war. Cut off from their unit, they make their way through the woods and hope to cross the front at night by building a raft and travelling down a river. Led by a lieutenant, the group kills enemy troops they encounter and takes a local young woman captive, tying her to a tree, and one of the men, whose mind is unsettled, is left to guard her. They also learn that an enemy general is nearby.
The film is Stanley Kubrick's first feature, the opening entry in a directing career that the records list as running to thirteen films, followed two years later by Killer's Kiss. Kubrick produced through his own company, and the screenplay is by Howard Sackler. The cast includes Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Paul Mazursky, Stephen Coit and Virginia Leith, with David Allen providing narration.
Made on a small scale and running just over an hour, the film has drawn modest ratings in later years, sitting at 5.3 on IMDb from around 15,000 votes and 5.4 on TMDB from several hundred. A critics' rating of 5.6 from twenty reviews places it in similar territory to those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- By the time filming of 'Fear and Desire' began, Kubrick was a staff photographer for 'Look' magazine, having shot several newsreels in the early 1950s. His early films were made to order by RKO Radio Pictures and were often shown before screenings in cinemas. Drawing on his experience with documentary films, Kubrick decided to try his hand at feature films. To facilitate filming, he reduced his working hours at 'Look' magazine.
- The screenplay for the film was written by Kubrick's schoolmate (from William Taft High School) Howard Sackler.
- Due to the limited budget of the film, Kubrick had to improvise with the filming equipment. For example, to create the effect of fog, he used an agricultural sprayer. Its use almost suffocated the crew, as the device dispersed insecticide used solely for agricultural work. According to Paul Mazursky’s recollections, Kubrick used rail replacement for smooth camera movements and dissolves: “He didn’t have a dolly, just a baby carriage for moving the camera,” Mazursky mentioned in one interview.
- During post-production, Kubrick encountered a number of further problems. He shot the film completely without sound, hoping to add dubbing and accompanying sound effects later. However, adding sound increased the cost of processing the film. To cover the unforeseen expenses, Kubrick volunteered to shoot a film about the life of Abraham Lincoln for television. Difficulties also arose during the editing of a key scene, when a soldier throws a plate of beans on the floor and enters the frame from the wrong side. Kubrick did not pay attention either to the failure of the scene or to the fact that the actors stepped over the conditional “director’s line,” which was necessary to flip the negative during editing (to maintain continuity); all of this required additional expenses.
- The film was the directorial debut of Stanley Kubrick and was considered lost for a long time.
- The film crew consisted of only 15 people: Stanley Kubrick, five actors (Virginia Leight, Paul Mazursky, Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, and Stephen Coit), five cinematographers (including Kubrick's first wife, Toba Metz), and four Mexican laborers who transported the filming equipment through the San Gabriel Mountains of California, where the film was shot.
- Years after its release, the film was considered lost. Kubrick made considerable efforts to withdraw all known copies of the film so that no one would ever see it again. However, some copies of the film were preserved in private collections. In later years, Kubrick himself was embarrassed when the film was mentioned, referring to it as an amateur work.
- The film's production was funded from the personal funds of the Kubrick family and their friends. The largest contribution came from Kubrick's uncle, Martin Plover, who owned a profitable pharmacy.
- The original copy of the film was discovered in a Puerto Rican film laboratory. The film’s first retrospective screening took place at the Telluride Film Festival in 1993. In January 1994, the 'Film Forum' cinema, a non-profit cinema in Lower Manhattan, announced plans to show a double feature of the film with 'Kiss Me Deadly'. Although the copyright on the film had expired and it had entered the public domain, allowing screenings without the threat of a lawsuit, Kubrick still tried to convince the public that the film had no value. Through Warner Brothers, he made a statement that sharply downplayed the film's worth, calling 'Fear and Desire' an 'awkward amateurish semblance of a film'.
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