Kubrick-fest 01 - Fear and Desire & Killer's Kiss

Interesting you should say that about the sound, as I too was particularly impressed with the boxing sequences, to the extent of comparing to Raging Bull, save for the foley work which really ruined the mood. Though I didn’t find the sound jarring in the rest of the film for some reason. Also, re the Hays Code, I noted at the time a particularly amusing Hays Code cut-to-sunrise, featured in one of your screenshots.
A remarkable amount of development since Fear and Desire, though, particularly as you say in composition, and also use of lighting - Fear and Desire is pretty tonally flat, whereas this is all high contrast and long shadows.

Yeah, its interesting - if you take away the voice overs and the “waiting at the train station which leads to a happy ending” scenes included to make UA happy, you have a film where the female lead is very ambiguous and pretty much negotiating a life change for herself and everyone else loses.

Blank Check have started to do Kubrick and the episode on these two films has just been posted.

David Sims honestly did not seem excited to be doing Kubrick in that episode. Maybe it’s just the fact that they were two very early and immature films. But Kubrick was picked by their fans, so I’m wondering if there might be a bit of an enthusiasm gap in this series. Either way, I’m sure there will be a lot of good insights.