Venice Film Festival Reconstructs How Stanley Kubrick’s First Film ‘Fear and Desire’ Screened on the Lido
variety.comNick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAs the Venice Film Festival prepares to celebrate its 90th anniversary, researchers have reconstructed how Stanley Kubrick’s first film, now known as “Fear and Desire,” came to screen on the Lido in 1952.The screening of the film, initially titled “Shape of Fear,” took place at the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido on Aug.
18, 1952, in a section called Festival of the Scientific Film and Art Documentary. Basically, Kubrick’s debut was invited for a special screening after not making the cut for competition due to “the length and character of the film,” as an exchange of letters between the 23-year-old Kubrick and then Venice chief Antonio Petrucci attests (see below).
The whole story has been reconstructed for the first time in the letters and documents preserved in the archives of the fest’s parent organization, the Venice Biennale, ahead of an international conference celebrating the 90th anniversary of the world’s oldest film festival, which will be held in Venice on July 9.“The exchange of letters with the director of the exhibition, Antonio Petrucci, reveals [Kubrick’s] remarkable personality and his awareness of his own talent as a director,” the Biennale said in a statement.
Kubrick at 23 was already a well-established photographer. The filmmaker’s debut, written by the future Pulitzer Prize-winning author Howard Sackler, is a fable on the senselessness of war that anticipates themes later developed by the director in “Paths of Glory” and “Full Metal Jacket.” “Fear and Desire” depicts an abstract, imaginary war between two deliberately unidentified nations.
Read more on variety.com