Fear and desire

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Movie
German title Fear and desire
Original title Fear and Desire
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1953
length 62 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Stanley Kubrick
script Stanley Kubrick
Howard Sackler
production Stanley Kubrick
music Gerald Fried
camera Stanley Kubrick
cut Stanley Kubrick
occupation

Fear and Desire (Original title: Fear and Desire ) is an American anti-war - drama directed by Stanley Kubrick from the year 1953 . It is Kubrick's first feature film .

action

In the film drama, which takes place in a fictional war, the place and time of the event are not discussed in detail. After a plane crash there are four soldiers - led by Lieutenant Corby - in a small wood. After a short time it turns out that they have got behind enemy lines. To get back to safe territory, they want to go down a river on a raft at night.

In the distance you can see a house with an enemy general landing on an airplane. Later, while building the raft, they discover a small house with a handful of enemy soldiers. You decide to kill her to get food. When there is an exchange of fire, they are afraid of being discovered and flee again into the forest. The next morning, a girl trips over the soldiers and the men decide to tie her to a tree. Sidney, who is supposed to look after the girl while the others check on the raft, tries to talk to him, but she doesn't understand his language. He tries to impress the girl and jokes, but she doesn't respond. He wants the girl to like him and when he fails to achieve this he tries to take her off. The girl escapes and Sidney shoots him in the back. Meanwhile, the three other soldiers go to the raft and finish building it. Now Corby sends Mac to Sidney to see if everything is going well. When he arrives there and confronts Sidney with questions, he takes refuge in the thicket.

During the night the other three soldiers sneak back to the raft and they can watch the general again in his house. The plane is still there too. Mac suggests sneaking into the house and killing the general. Corby thinks this is pure suicide, as there are certainly numerous guards to be found there. Fletcher just wants to take care of the raft as soon as possible. Corby also adds that the plane is only a two-seater and you can therefore rule out a quick escape with it. Mac feels like it's the last chance he can do something meaningful in his life. They decide to give it a try, and they sneak up on the house from different directions. But their plan doesn't work, Mac is badly wounded on the raft, and so Fletcher tries to shoot the general. But he only wounds him, then Corby shoots him. Corby and Fletcher flee by plane.

Mac drifts further down the river. He meets Sidney and the two drive on together. Corby and Fletcher are now waiting for Mac on the riverbank. But when the raft arrives, Mac is already dead.

production

Kubrick wrote of his concept for Fear and Desire : “Its structure: allegorical. His conception: poetic. The drama of 'man' lost in a hostile environment - robbed of material and spiritual foundations - and his path to an understanding of himself and the life around him. ” (Letter to his lender Joseph Burstyn of November 16, 1952; quoted in: Kagan, p. 9)

Kubrick made the film with seed capital of US $ 10,000, partly funded by relatives. The final cost was about $ 30,000. It only ran in a few art cinemas and became an artistic and commercial failure that did not recoup its production costs. Kubrick said: “The ideas we wanted to bring to life were good. But we didn't have the necessary experience to put them into film. By and large it was nothing more than the 35mm version of a film that a class of film students could have made in 16mm. ”(Walker, p. 17)

In later years, Kubrick was reluctant to be approached about Fear and Desire . He thought it was an amateur project, for example refused to allow the film to be included in a retrospective in New York in 1964 and wanted to buy out all existing copies. He almost succeeded in doing so, and so the film never appeared on video and can hardly be shown in cinemas today because of the lack of copies; however, there are now versions on DVD and Blu-Ray.

But Kubrick learned during the production: “Back then, before the film schools were set up, it was very important to experience that you could make a real film with very few amenities and extremely few staff ... That experience and the one I did made during the shooting of Killer's Kiss - this film was shot on an even simpler basis - freed me from any worry that such aspects had caused me so far. ”(Walker, p. 17f.)

The film is also known for the debut of Paul Mazursky , who later gained fame as a director .

TCM broadcast the film for the first time on television in the United States in December 2011. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on October 23rd in a restored high definition format. In March 2013 it was released on DVD in Germany.

literature

  • Ralf Michael Fischer: Space and time in the cinematic oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-7861-2598-3 .
  • Norman Kagan: The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New York 1972
  • Alexander Walker: Stanley Kubrick directs. London 1972
  • Horst Schäfer (Ed.): Materials on the films by Stanley Kubrick. Duisburg 1975

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