Movie 666

Silent movie: Fear and Desire

Editor’s Note: This new section of Movie 666 features movies with an accompanying “conspiracy” - those films with overly strange production stories, murders on the set, or that for one reason or another have been hidden from public view. This quarter we start with Kubrick’s largely unknown first feature length film, Fear and Desire - a movie Kubrick refused to have screened after its initial release and is still largely inaccessible today.

We live a world with several types of movies. First, there are the movies that are made but should not be seen but are still seen anyway. We are talking about movies that consumers should reject on principle, but that we still pay full admission for. Movies starring John Travolta or Sylvester Stallone, to name a few. Movies based on television shows, to name some more. Most movies with numbers, to round out the list. Look at the weekend’s top ten box office hits and you must admit that at least seven of the items listed deserve flaming buckets of popcorn tossed at the cinema screen.

Then, there are the movies that are made and should be seen, but are not seen because audiences are instead seeing the movies that should not be seen - or, in the case of Green River, Utah, there just ain’t a movie theater worth its weight in salt scrapings within 100 miles.

These unseen-but-should-be-seen movies are sometimes from foreign lands and require the audience to read subtitles to understand the gibberish that people of the hinterlands are prone to speak. Other times, the actors aren’t really actors but everyday people from the street doing what they do everyday and that look pretty gnarly to boot. French movies have guys with big noses, for one thing. French chicks have big noses too, which are even worse. Sometimes, the men in these unseen movies sleep with other men, which freaks out a lot of people in Alabama. Case in point: Our Lady of the Assassins, a timely movie about the political crisis in Columbia that would have had America’s Christian Taliban reaching for sword and Bible if they actually knew such a film existed much less played in selected theaters across the Fatherland.

Finally, we have the movies that have been made and should be seen, but cannot be found. Theaters do not play these films. Video stores do not carry them. They fail to appear on late night cable, and film archives deny their existence.

Even Movie 666, despite our myriad connections to the world of film and high culture, cannot get a peek at these movies for the life of us.

Sometimes the reason is logical enough. We cannot see films that have exploded in flames because they were printed on volatile nitrate stock.

But even worse, sometimes the film exists in a building in a room in a vault in a box in a can that is guarded by a gestapo of film librarians and archivists.

Such is the case with Stanley Kubrick’s first child, Fear and Desire (1953), stowed in an archive cellar and denied light and companionship by cruel father Kubrick.

Fear and Desire does not exist on video, much less DVD. You cannot rent the film. It does not play on AMC late at night or pop up occasionally at the local art house. Film school classes on Stanley Kubrick omit the film from the screening list because they cannot secure a print. Kubrick wanted it this way. In fact, Kubrick wants it this way, because Old Man Kubrick is still alive. You asked for conspiracy - now you have it. Kubrick is frozen, just like the crew from 2001: A Space Odyssey, in suspended animation. He is waiting until digital technology has matured and he can return to complete his vision of AI: Artificial Intelligence. Kubrick doesn’t know that Steven Spielberg already took his production notes and finished the movie himself. Kubrick is going to be really pissed off when they thaw him out and he sees AI. Walt Disney is frozen too. And in the meantime, for all intents and purposes, Fear and Desire is banned.

Fear and Desire is about a four solidiers floating down a river on a raft through an abstract, war torn landscape. The men think aloud to themselves, contemplating war and existence. An encounter with a young woman brings together themes of sexuality and power. I think. I wouldn’t know, really, because I haven’t seen the film. It sounds cool. Maybe it is. Who would know? Most likely it sucks - Kubrick’s second film, Killer’s Kiss, is available on video but aside from an occasional photographic sparkle, does not foretell the masterpieces that would follow. Nonetheless, seeing how roughly half of Kubrick’s movies deal with war in some capacity, Fear and Desire would be a compelling addition to his thoughts on the subject, especially at such a young age. Of course, this may be why Kubrick does not want us to see the movie.

A single known print of Fear and Desire exists, locked away securely in the Eastman Kodak archive in Rochester, New York. Several years ago, the UCLA Film and Television Archive advertised its intent to borrow Fear and Desire from Eastman Kodak and screen the film at UCLA’s Melnitz Theater. Several days before the screening, however, the film was pulled from the schedule. Apparently Kubrick called Eastman and nixed the showing.

Whether Eastman cancelled out of good will to Kubrick, or Kubrick applied some legal leverage is unknown. All that can be said is that the filmmaker did not want this movie seen. Truly though, one must wonder - could the movie have been any worse than Eyes Wide Shut?

To be sure, Fear and Desire has been seen in recent years, but only behind closed doors. Some critics have infiltrated the high security ward at Eastman and viewed the film for scholarly reasons. You can read description and analysis of the movie in various books on Kubrick. One can also be sure that the archive wardens themselves (lucky bastards) run the film from time to time.

Whether the film should be seen raises ethical questions that are obvious enough. Should the movie be seen against the director’s wishes? At what point does the film stop belonging to Kubrick and start belonging to posterity? Even Barbie has rebelled against her maker and now lives a life separate from the will of the Mattel Corporation - so what about Kubrick’s early work?

And of course, there is the issue of actually creating demand by denying satisfaction. Fear and Desire as a whole may indeed be as lame as the folding bed sequence in Lolita, but keeping the movie from the public only increases its mystique.

For the time being, Kubrick fan and detractor alike can only wait for some disgruntled Kubrick descendant to unlock the cellar door. Or perhaps some insidious archivist will one day liberate a video print of the film and send it by anonymous express mail to Movie 666. No questions asked.

Related posts:

1. Stanley Kubrick and the Death of Cinema
2. The Actor Directs: Marlon Brando and One-Eyed Jacks
3. Day of the Dead Wastes No Time Wasting Zombies
4. Softcore Eurotrash Neutered in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
5. Defend Yourself Against Goblins, Witches, and Crazies

Tags:, conspiracy, Eastman Kodak archive, fear and desire, killers kiss, stanley kubrick, UCLA film and television archive, war movies

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