Fear and Desire
Encyclopedia
Fear and Desire is a military action/adventure film by Stanley Kubrick
. It is Kubrick’s first feature film and is also one of his least-seen productions. Kubrick served as the film's director, producer, cinematographer and editor.
The story is set during a war between two unidentified countries. An airplane carrying four soldiers from one country has crashed six miles behind enemy lines. The soldiers come upon a river and build a raft, hoping they can use the waterway to reach their battalion. As they are building their raft, they are approached by a young peasant girl who does not speak their language. The soldiers apprehend the girl and bind her to a tree with their belts. One of the soldiers is mentally disturbed. He is left behind to guard the girl but when she escapes he fatally shoots her while shouting about William Shakespeare
's The Tempest
. A second soldier persuades the commander to take the raft for a solo voyage in connection with a plan to capture the headquarters of an enemy general at a nearby base. The remaining two soldiers successfully infiltrate the base, They locate and kill the top ranking general and one of his aides – only to discover the dead men looked exactly like them.
photographer who had directed two short documentaries in 1951, Day of the Fight
and Flying Padre
. Both films were acquired for theatrical release by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on his experiences in creating short films, Kubrick felt he was ready to make a narrative feature film. Kubrick quit his full-time job with Look and set forth to create Fear and Desire.
The screenplay for Fear and Desire was written by Howard Sackler
, a classmate of Kubrick’s at William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx, New York; Sackler later won the Pulitzer Prize
for his 1968 drama The Great White Hope
. Paul Mazursky
, who would later receive recognition as the director of such films as Harry and Tonto
and An Unmarried Woman
, was cast as the soldier who kills the captive peasant.
Funds for Fear and Desire were raised from Kubrick's family and friends, with most of it coming from Martin Perveler, Kubrick’s uncle and the owner of a profitable pharmacy. The film’s original budget has been estimated at $10,000.
The production team consisted of 15 people: five actors (Paul Mazursky, Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Steve Coit and Virginia Leith), five crew members (including Kubrick’s first wife, Tobia Metz) and four Mexican laborers who transported the film equipment around California
's San Gabriel Mountains
, where the film was shot. Due to budget limitations, Kubrick improvised in the use of his equipment. To create fog, Kubrick used a crop sprayer, but the cast and crew was nearly asphyxiated because the machinery still contained the insecticide used for its agricultural work. For tracking shots, Paul Mazursky recalled how Kubrick came up with a novel substitute: "There was no dolly track, just a baby carriage to move the camera," he told an interviewer.
Kubrick ran into several problems during the post-production process. He shot the film without sound, with plans to add the dialogue track later, along with the music score and sound effects. However, this raised the cost of finishing the film. Kubrick took a second unit assignment to shoot footage for a television film on the life of Abraham Lincoln in order to secure funds to finish the Fear and Desire soundtrack.
Kubrick also ran into difficulty in editing a key scene where one of the soldiers throws a plate of beans to the floor and enters the frame from the wrong side. Kubrick's blocking of the crucial scene was faulty, and his actors accidentally crossed the so-called "director’s line," which required the negative to be flipped in the printing process to preserve continuity; this was another expense.
noted: "If Fear and Desire is uneven and sometimes reveals an experimental rather than a polished exterior, its overall effect is entirely worthy of the sincere effort put into it."
Kubrick received praise for Fear and Desire from film critic and screenwriter James Agee
, who reportedly took Kubrick out for a drink and told him, "There are too many good things... to call [Fear and Desire] arty." Columbia University
professor Mark Van Doren
sent Kubrick a letter that stated: "The incident of the girl bound to the tree will make movie history once it is seen... Stanley Kubrick is worth watching for those who want to discover high talent at the moment it appears."
Fear and Desire was not a box office success, and Kubrick had to take a for-hire job directing the promotional short The Seafarers
on behalf of the Seafarers International Union in order to raise funds for his next planned feature, Killer's Kiss
(1954), which would be co-written by Kubrick and Howard Sackler and star Frank Silvera
, one of the Fear and Desire actors.
In the years following its release, Fear and Desire seemed to have disappeared. Joseph Burstyn went out of business and there were stories that Kubrick had spent years acquiring all known prints of the film, with the plan of preventing it from ever being seen again. However, some prints of the film remained in private collections.
Fear and Desire had its first retrospective screening at the 1993 Telluride Film Festival
. In January 1994, the Film Forum
, a nonprofit art and revival theater in lower Manhattan, announced plans to show Fear and Desire on a double bill with Killer's Kiss. Although the film’s copyright lapsed and the property was in the public domain
, thus allowing it to be shown without fear of legal actions, Kubrick tried to discourage it from gaining an audience. Through Warner Brothers, Kubrick issued a statement that severely downplayed the film’s value, and he called Fear and Desire "a bumbling amateur film exercise."
To date, there have been very few public screenings of Fear and Desire; the only commercially available print belongs to the George Eastman House
in Rochester, New York
. Among the rare presentations were a 1993 screening at the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.
, a 2003 one-time screening at the Two Boots Den of Cin in New York City and an August 2008 presentation at the Wexner Center for the Arts
in Columbus, Ohio
. Also, some clips from the film can be seen in the 2001 documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
.
Fear and Desire had yet to see a commercial home entertainment release. Bootleg copies proliferated on DVD and on several online video sites.
In 2010, an original copy of the film was discovered at the Puerto Rican Film laboratory.
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
. It is Kubrick’s first feature film and is also one of his least-seen productions. Kubrick served as the film's director, producer, cinematographer and editor.
Plot
Fear and Desire opens with an off-screen narrator (actor David Allen) who tells the audience:- There is a war in this forest. Not a war that has been fought, nor one that will be, but any war. And the enemies that struggle here do not exist unless we call them into being. For all of them, 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.
The story is set during a war between two unidentified countries. An airplane carrying four soldiers from one country has crashed six miles behind enemy lines. The soldiers come upon a river and build a raft, hoping they can use the waterway to reach their battalion. As they are building their raft, they are approached by a young peasant girl who does not speak their language. The soldiers apprehend the girl and bind her to a tree with their belts. One of the soldiers is mentally disturbed. He is left behind to guard the girl but when she escapes he fatally shoots her while shouting about William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
. A second soldier persuades the commander to take the raft for a solo voyage in connection with a plan to capture the headquarters of an enemy general at a nearby base. The remaining two soldiers successfully infiltrate the base, They locate and kill the top ranking general and one of his aides – only to discover the dead men looked exactly like them.
Production
Prior to shooting Fear and Desire, Kubrick was a LookLook (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
photographer who had directed two short documentaries in 1951, Day of the Fight
Day of the Fight
Day of the Fight is a 1951 American short subject documentary film shot in black-and-white and also the first picture directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick financed the film himself, and it is based on an earlier photo feature he had done as a photographer for Look magazine in 1949...
and Flying Padre
Flying Padre
Flying Padre is a 1951 short subject black-and-white documentary film. It is the second picture directed by Stanley Kubrick, after Day of the Fight. The film is nine minutes long.-Story:...
. Both films were acquired for theatrical release by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on his experiences in creating short films, Kubrick felt he was ready to make a narrative feature film. Kubrick quit his full-time job with Look and set forth to create Fear and Desire.
The screenplay for Fear and Desire was written by Howard Sackler
Howard Sackler
Howard Oliver Sackler , was an American screenwriter and playwright who is best known for writing The Great White Hope . The Great White Hope enjoyed both a successful run on Broadway and, as a film adaptation, in movie theaters...
, a classmate of Kubrick’s at William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx, New York; Sackler later won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for his 1968 drama The Great White Hope
The Great White Hope
The Great White Hope is a 1967 play written by Howard Sackler, later adapted in 1970 for a film of the same name. The play was first produced by Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 3, 1968 for a run of 546 performances, directed by Edwin Sherin...
. Paul Mazursky
Paul Mazursky
Paul Mazursky is an American film director, screenwriter and actor.-Personal life:He was born Irwin Mazursky in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jean , a piano player for dance classes, and David Mazursky, a laborer. Mazursky was born to a Jewish family; his grandfather was an immigrant from...
, who would later receive recognition as the director of such films as Harry and Tonto
Harry and Tonto
Harry and Tonto is a 1974 road movie written by Paul Mazursky and Josh Greenfeld and directed by Mazursky, starring Art Carney.-Synopsis:...
and An Unmarried Woman
An Unmarried Woman
An Unmarried Woman is a 1978 American comedy-drama film that tells the story of the wealthy New York wife Erica Benton whose “perfect” life is shattered when her stockbroker husband Martin leaves her for a younger woman. The film documents Erica's attempts at being single again, where she suffers...
, was cast as the soldier who kills the captive peasant.
Funds for Fear and Desire were raised from Kubrick's family and friends, with most of it coming from Martin Perveler, Kubrick’s uncle and the owner of a profitable pharmacy. The film’s original budget has been estimated at $10,000.
The production team consisted of 15 people: five actors (Paul Mazursky, Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Steve Coit and Virginia Leith), five crew members (including Kubrick’s first wife, Tobia Metz) and four Mexican laborers who transported the film equipment around California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's San Gabriel Mountains
San Gabriel Mountains
The San Gabriel Mountains Range is located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert, with Interstate 5 to the west and Interstate 15 to the east...
, where the film was shot. Due to budget limitations, Kubrick improvised in the use of his equipment. To create fog, Kubrick used a crop sprayer, but the cast and crew was nearly asphyxiated because the machinery still contained the insecticide used for its agricultural work. For tracking shots, Paul Mazursky recalled how Kubrick came up with a novel substitute: "There was no dolly track, just a baby carriage to move the camera," he told an interviewer.
Kubrick ran into several problems during the post-production process. He shot the film without sound, with plans to add the dialogue track later, along with the music score and sound effects. However, this raised the cost of finishing the film. Kubrick took a second unit assignment to shoot footage for a television film on the life of Abraham Lincoln in order to secure funds to finish the Fear and Desire soundtrack.
Kubrick also ran into difficulty in editing a key scene where one of the soldiers throws a plate of beans to the floor and enters the frame from the wrong side. Kubrick's blocking of the crucial scene was faulty, and his actors accidentally crossed the so-called "director’s line," which required the negative to be flipped in the printing process to preserve continuity; this was another expense.
Distribution and disappearance
Fear and Desire was picked up for U.S. theatrical release by Joseph Burstyn, a distributor who specialized in the presentation of European art house titles. In an uncredited review following the New York premiere, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
noted: "If Fear and Desire is uneven and sometimes reveals an experimental rather than a polished exterior, its overall effect is entirely worthy of the sincere effort put into it."
Kubrick received praise for Fear and Desire from film critic and screenwriter James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, who reportedly took Kubrick out for a drink and told him, "There are too many good things... to call [Fear and Desire] arty." Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
professor Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
sent Kubrick a letter that stated: "The incident of the girl bound to the tree will make movie history once it is seen... Stanley Kubrick is worth watching for those who want to discover high talent at the moment it appears."
Fear and Desire was not a box office success, and Kubrick had to take a for-hire job directing the promotional short The Seafarers
The Seafarers
The Seafarers is Stanley Kubrick's third film, a short for the Seafarers International Union, directed in June 1953.There are shots of ships, machinery, a canteen, and a union meeting. The film was shot in color, and was supervised by the staff of The Seafarers Log, the union magazine...
on behalf of the Seafarers International Union in order to raise funds for his next planned feature, Killer's Kiss
Killer's Kiss
Killer's Kiss is a 1955 film noir directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Kubrick and Howard Sackler. It is the second feature film directed by Kubrick...
(1954), which would be co-written by Kubrick and Howard Sackler and star Frank Silvera
Frank Silvera
Frank Alvin Silvera was an American actor and theatrical director.-Career:Silvera was born in Kingston, Jamaica to a Spanish Jewish father and Jamaican mother. His family later emigrated to the United States, settling in Boston where Silvera attended English High School and Northeastern Law School...
, one of the Fear and Desire actors.
In the years following its release, Fear and Desire seemed to have disappeared. Joseph Burstyn went out of business and there were stories that Kubrick had spent years acquiring all known prints of the film, with the plan of preventing it from ever being seen again. However, some prints of the film remained in private collections.
Fear and Desire had its first retrospective screening at the 1993 Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
. In January 1994, the Film Forum
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
, a nonprofit art and revival theater in lower Manhattan, announced plans to show Fear and Desire on a double bill with Killer's Kiss. Although the film’s copyright lapsed and the property was in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, thus allowing it to be shown without fear of legal actions, Kubrick tried to discourage it from gaining an audience. Through Warner Brothers, Kubrick issued a statement that severely downplayed the film’s value, and he called Fear and Desire "a bumbling amateur film exercise."
To date, there have been very few public screenings of Fear and Desire; the only commercially available print belongs to the George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. Among the rare presentations were a 1993 screening at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, a 2003 one-time screening at the Two Boots Den of Cin in New York City and an August 2008 presentation at the Wexner Center for the Arts
Wexner Center for the Arts
The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art...
in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
. Also, some clips from the film can be seen in the 2001 documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures is a 2001 documentary about the life and work of Stanley Kubrick, famed film director, made by his long-time assistant and brother-in-law Jan Harlan...
.
Fear and Desire had yet to see a commercial home entertainment release. Bootleg copies proliferated on DVD and on several online video sites.
In 2010, an original copy of the film was discovered at the Puerto Rican Film laboratory.