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In 1953 Kubrick raised 13,000 dollars from friends and relatives to fund the filming of what is today known as his first feature film, Fear and Desire. It is also his first war film, a subject which was to prevail over many of his later films. The plot revolves around four soldiers, stranded behind enemy lines and attempting to escape down a river. On this journey they spot a group of high-ranking enemy officers and choose to kill them. The only hitch is, when they actually come face to face with their victims, they are the four soldiers' very own doubles. (The parts are played by the same actors).
Filmed in the San Gabrielle Mountains near Los Angeles, Kubrick acted as director, producer, cinematographer, editor, sound man, wardrobe, hairdresser, prop man, unit chauffeur and administrator, along with a host of other jobs. Among the crew were two friends and his first wife, Toba Metz, who he married at the age of 18. Howard Sackler, an old high school friend, wrote the script, and the entire film was shot silently, with the rest of the sound, including all speech, recorded later on. This raised the cost of production up to 20,000 dollars, and although the film never repayed itself, he managed to pay back all the money over time. Fortunately for Kubrick, he got some advantage out of the relatively disappointing film when independent distributor, Joseph Burstyn, managed to book the movie on the arthouse circuit.
Fear and Desire is not available on home video or for theatrical distribution, the only Kubrick film not available on either of the two. The director himself likes it this way, describing the film as 'a bumbling amateur film exercise..boring and an inept oddity'. Such is his disgust for the film that he has prevented an errant print of the original movie being shown in New York, Los Angeles and Ohio. However, he was positive in saying that the film in fact lowered his at first complicated view of filmmaking, and this new lack of concern encouraged him somewhat to pursue filmmaking full-time.