Learning on ScreenFear and Desire
… critics at the time variously described the film as symbolic, allegorical, avant garde, arty …
Critics at the time variously described the film as symbolic, allegorical, avant garde, arty, experimental, starkly realistic, poetic and philosophical. They attacked it for having too much dialogue and too little action. Others, such as James Agee and Mark Van Doren, praised it. Yet, when I saw it in New York last year, there were audible (and, dare I say it, heretical) bursts of laughter.
But Fear & Desire deserves to be watched as it provides early signposts of Kubrick’s authorial signature. Dealing with the dehumanising effects of war, it uses a device, to be replicated in his later films, of four key characters or stages (see also, for example, A Clockwork Orange (1971) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The fairy tale, dreamlike and allegorical structure is also used in Lolita (1962), The Shining (1980) and Eyes Wide Shut. And the notions of human breakdown and doubling – that the enemies we are facing are really our own dark doppelgangers – are both marked Kubrickian fingerprints.
Accompanying Fear and Desire are three of Kubrick’s early short films. These comprise the documentaries Day of the Fight (1951), Flying Padre (1951) and The Seafarers (1953). The first is possibly the most interesting of these, paving the way for Killer’s Kiss, which in drawing upon one of Kubrick’s favourite sports, also features a prize-fighter. There is also an exclusive video discussion of Fear and Desire by critic and Stanley Kubrick (Cahiers du cinéma, 2010) author Bill Krohn, as well as a thirty-two page booklet containing an essay on the feature and the early shorts by critic and James Naremore (author of On Kubrick (BFI, 2007)).
… this DVD is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Kubrick
Taken together, this DVD is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Kubrick, whether scholars, teachers, students or just general film fans. It completes the set of Kubrick films available to watch at home, or in the classroom, and allows us, in being able to view his entire corpus from beginning to end, to chart his development from amateur cameraman to arguably the premier American director of the post-war world.
Nathan Abrams
