Posted 12:41 am Friday, December 16, 2011
Audience Given Rare Look At Stanley Kubrick's ‘Fear and Desire'
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this late breaking report.
Earlier this week Turner Classic Movies provided viewers with a rare opportunity, to watch Stanley Kubrick's feature film debut with the world television premiere of "Fear and Desire." Originally released in 1953, the film was for years thought to be lost, indeed even Kubrick himself went so far as to disown the film, citing it as an embarrassment, saying it was a film "written by a failed poet, crewed by a few friends, and a completely inept oddity, boring and pretentious." Kubrick apparently even attempted to buy back all available prints of it to ensure it would never be screened.
By and large the film seemed to disappear for several decades and one of the last known prints was limited to private viewings by individuals, according to wishes of Kubrick's estate. One of the last public showings was in 1991 when it played as part of a double bill with Kubrick's follow up film, "Killer's Kiss" at the Telluride Film Festival. However, thanks to the efforts of the George Eastman House Archive, this newly restored print gave thousands an opportunity to see a slice of film history.
Set during an unspecified war in an unidentified foreign country, the film centers around a quartet of soldiers after their plane crashes behind enemy lines. The plan is simple: Sgt. Mac (Frank Silvera), Lt. Corby (Kenneth Harp), Pvt. Fletch (Stephen Coit) and Pvt. Sidney (Paul Mazursky) will make their way to the nearby river, build a makeshift raft and under the cover of night float back to friendly territory. Things unravel quickly, however, when Pvt. Sidney - commissioned with watching over a woman who spotted them - has a mental breakdown and begins babbling on, repeating parts of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Meanwhile, Sgt. Mac becomes determined to kill an enemy general and his aide, putting the possibility of a clean escape in jeopardy.
In some ways I can understand why Kubrick would want to try and pretend this film never happened. The opening voiceover feels a bit pretentious and it's a fairly slight film all things considered. But it's not a bad film, either, even if it mostly serves at this point as a definitive point of origin for evolution of Kubrick's style, as well as the themes he would go on to examine in many of his films, especially his war films dealing with the futility of conflict and its effect on the men fighting.
That said, this specific case does raise interesting questions about film ownership and who really has the right to prevent a film from being seen. This is Kubrick's film for all intents and purposes. It was financed with money his father gave him and shot, edited and directed by him. He hated the film and wished it never to be screened. Should we as film lovers be beholden to those wishes, even after his death?
The same argument could even be applied to George Lucas and the original "Star Wars" films. Lucas has gone on record many times explaining how he considers those films to be incomplete works, hence his near-constant tinkering with them (even during their original release, he would go back and tweak certain parts so that many prints in theaters would often be different). If he had his druthers, we could possibly never see the original version of "Star Wars" ever again.
But just because a filmmaker is embarrassed by a film, does that give them the right to abandon it? From a purely artistic standpoint, I'd say yes. They are artists after all and simply because they make something doesn't mean that we as the public are entitled to have access to it. But at the same time, for an artist as important as Kubrick who had such a significant impact on world of cinema, I think it's essential to see films such as this which give us insight into his growth as a filmmaker, and what growth it was, going from this to "Paths of Glory" in just three films.
It's not an easy question to answer, to be certain. What are your thoughts on it? Send me a letter or an email or give me a call, I'd love to hear readers' thoughts on this subject.
Next week, I'll get back to the films of Werner Herzog with a review of "Nosferatu," followed by "Grizzly Man." Post-Herzog, I'll begin a series on French New Wave director Jean-Luc Goddard with reviews of "Breathless," "Vivre Sa Vie," "Band of Outsiders," "Alphaville" and "Pierrot Le Fou."
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Editor for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpaper.com.
