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Fear and Desire (1953)
Starring Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Paul Mazursky, and Stephen Coit. Cinematography by Stanley Kubrick. Edited by Stanley Kubrick. Produced by Stanley Kubrick. Written by Howard Sackler and Stanley Kubrick. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Sergeant Mac (played by Frank Silvera), Lieutenant Corby (played by Kenneth Harp), Private Sidney (played by Paul Mazursky), and Private Fletcher (played by Stephen Coit) crash their plane six miles deep in enemy territory. They all survive wreck with minimal injury and now must devise a plan to get back into friendly land. The four soldiers decide to make their way to a nearby river where they can assemble a makeshift raft and float home to freedom.
Under the cover of nightfall they silently drift along the currents, undetected by enemy eyes. Suddenly they find a mysterious and foreign woman (played by Virginia Leith) hiding in the woods. Fearing that she would alert the adversary, they take her hostage and force her to finish their trip with them. And coincidently they also discover the location of an enemy general who, after some debate, they decide to assassinate.
For being such an unbelievably technical director who has been, and will continue to be, endlessly studied and analyzed, it is quite amazing to realize that all of Stanley Kubrick’s filmmaking expertise stems from his own experience. Instead of participating in a formalized education or apprenticeship, he took his love of films and transferred it into first hand participation. He started his filmmaking career with short documentaries like “The Day of the Fight” and “The Flying Padre”.
For his first full length feature project he and his high school friend Howard Sackler constructed a script that follows four fictitious soldiers in an imaginary war as they explore the depths of their deep sexual desires and fears of death and the unknown. Fear and Desire was shot completely independent with money borrowed from Kubrick’s uncle, giving Kubrick total freedom to express his ideas openly and create the film as he saw fit.
Fear and Desire would echo many of the ideas and themes that Kubrick would further explore later in his career. Repressed sexuality and trepidation of the unconscious mind would become major themes in his filmography. Fear and Desire is assembled in an allegorical, nearly poetic, fashion that calls for analysis and interpretation, but unfortunately does little in the area narrative structure. This lyrical approach to filmmaking would shift towards a more literal framework in his subsequent projects, but his workmanship in this film is indicative of the time and place in which it was produce. I
t is an interesting film for fans of the late, great director to see, but is probably not worth the effort of a search for a Kubrickian novice. Kubrick himself was embarrassed of the film, citing it as “pretentious” and “amateurish”, and prevented it from finding distribution. But for those of you who are interested in seeing the film, one can typically find a bootleg copy floating around on eBay or other similar online auction sites. Happy hunting.
Budget: $20,000
Total US Gross: $???
Genre: War
Runtime: 68 Minutes
US Release Date: 4/1/53
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Awards: none
Tagline: none
Quote: “There is war in this forest. Not a war that has been fought, or one that will be, but any war. And the enemies who struggle here do not exist, unless we call them into being. This forest, then, and all that happens now is outside history. Only the unchanging shapes of fear, and doubt, and death, are from our world. These soldiers that you see keep our language and our time, but have no other country but the mind.”
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