Fear and Desire (1953) 68m
The only reason this low-budget indie film is still being hunted down decades after its first appearance is because of its director, Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick had only directed a few short documentaries beforehand, but was ambitious enough to make a war movie for his feature debut. He should have switched to another genre. Ever the perfectionist, he later disowned the film, which he thought amateurish, and did his best to keep it out of circulation. As it stands, the difficulty in even viewing FEAR AND DESIRE, let alone owning a copy, pretty much achieves his aim of making it a putative work, leaving his second feature KILLER'S KISS as the earliest film -- and therefore the first Kubrick film that most film buffs see.
Fans of the director will have to play connect the dots if they want to showcase FEAR AND DESIRE as an archetypal Kubrick product. The fact is that if you didn't know he directed this film before you watched it, then you'd have a hard time guessing -- it plays mainly as a slightly odd, technically efficient B-feature. Working from a script written by first-time screenwriter Howard Sackler, and limited to a principal cast of four in a forest setting, it's hard for Kubrick to put his identifiable stamp on the finished film. Storywise, not a great deal happens: a commanding officer and three soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and decide to wait until darkness before attempting to raft down a river that will take them back home. Kubrick made war the theme of his later films PATHS OF GLORY (World War I), DR STRANGELOVE (Nuclear holocaust), and FULL METAL JACKET (Vietnam), as well as including battle scenes in SPARTACUS and BARRY LYNDON. Although it claims to be set in no time or place FEAR AND DESIRE could fill the missing World War II gap quite easily. The assumption is that the nature of war is so homogeneous that such details of when and where are unnecessary (it helps the budget, too), and that the events we are watching may as well be a projection, dream, or collective memory. It's probably the film's metaphorical riffs that Kubrick found most pretentious, although, as is the case with many low-budget efforts, the paucity of resources does work in favor of establishing a raw and primal mood. And while we're on Jung, how about the conflict of war being addressed as the duality of man, represented by two of the actors playing the double roles of their own enemies? Okay, I'm probably being as pretentious as Sackler & Kubrick -- however, it's still interesting that In FULL METAL JACKET Pvt. Joker wears a peace sign alongside the slogan "Born to Kill" on his helmet, which he explains as a symbol of the duality of man.
Without the means to stage big action sequences, the film-makers have their characters spend most of their screen time talking, not only to each other, but also to themselves (the lack of props and sets prompts Kubrick to focus on the faces of the men). The theatrical, existential dialogue spares us ruminations about war, but is nevertheless another likely reason for Kubrick's dissatisfaction with the picture. These characters talk like no-one else you've ever seen in a war movie, delivering lines like "We have nothing to lose but our future" and "Who else but me is buried under the chain of everything I ever did?". Despite all the discussion, nobody seems to be listening to each other, (one character waxes poetic to his dog, as if to prove the point), and it's not until the two enemy sides meet that we're even sure that they speak the same language. Lack of communication has always been a Kube trademark, so it's no surprise when the only two words to be exchanged between the two sides are bluntly ignored.
FEAR AND DESIRE is less a film than a diversion. It's not terribly good, but it's not a bad film either. It's different. As a snapshot in cinema history it exhibits some of the philosophy, detachment and observation that would become signatures of Kubrick's major work. It never rises above its limitations, and without a budget, big stars, special effects, or a major studio to hide behind, it leaves the film-makers exposed to the scrutiny of viewers. This is as vulnerable as Kubrick was ever going to get. No wonder he didn't want us to see it.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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