So, about this movie... This is the second time I have seen it and in viewing it the second time you see much farther then just the initial bomb threat people were so terrified of and possible catastrophic doomsday scenario that Dr. Strangelove film presents. Like the reading points out, "Dr. Strangelove uses nightmare comedy to satirize four dimensions of the Cold War consensus: anit-communist paranoia; the culture's inability to realize the enormity of nuclear war; various nuclear strategies; and the blind faith modern man places in technological progress". At the time I would agree there was cause for there to be insecurity and fear of possible bomb threats and attacks on the American people. However, I don't believe that the fear is directed in the right place which I believe is the underlying message displayed in this comedic horror. The real fear lies within the mind. The mind of men who are at high authority with access to powerful weaponry and become unstable in the process of there career. In this lies where the fear lies, what happens when powerful men lose there marbels? Atomic bombing and death occurs. Much like we saw in the film the General saw fit to take things into his own hands and enact Option "R" which shut down the base and turned off all radio control with hopes in bombing all parts of Russia with multiple air strikes. Just goes to show you how dangerous one man with authority can truly be. Which in truth also calls upon the idea of a dictatorship or absolute monarchy and why it is bad. One man can not have control of everything only because it will end in disaster as the movie provides.
Now the reading talks of Dr. Strangelove not speaking till the movies near ending and his largest lines coming directly at the end. Why do you think the director did this? Especially since the movie is named Dr. Strangelove. A few lines allows him the title of the film? And, when he does speak he comes up with scenarios like having all the world powerful men be hidden in a mine shaft and only the world's most beautiful women and have a scenario of 10 women for every 1 man. His character is disturbing and difficult to understand even after a second viewing.
A little side note, I find the suggestive names that Dr. Strangelove has completely and utterly hilarious and made the movie impecable. Like the man responsible for all the problems Jack D. Ripper. Much like Jack the Ripper the terrifying and notorious murderer.
I think in addition to Dr. Strangelove showing how one man's authority can be dangerous, it also shows how the prevalence of one opinion or one institution, specifically the military can be erroneous and dangerous. Both Ripper and the Air Force members he sends to drop the bomb have this kind of "go-in-and-out-guns-blazing-no-questions" attitude which hinders the attempts made to stop this doomsday scenario from happening. I think Kubrick was partly opposing this view as well as saying that maybe the American public needed to realize how this paranoid patriotism can be hazardous rather than helpful to them.
ReplyDeleteAt first when I thought about the answer to this question of Kubrick's intent, I came to the answer that maybe Kubrick wanted the audience to assume that this movie centered around this Strangelove character and wanted the audience throughout the entire movie to be waiting for this character's debut. I don't think this is the point, however I think the name itself holds the answer. The Dr's idea of having 10 women to 1 man certainly is a "strange" sort of "love, and in the reading Strangelove's idea is compared by Maland to "Turgidson's militarism" and"Muffley's tender-minded rationality". Perhaps their strategies are also and on the broader context of 50's Cold War rhetoric, America's praise and love of its own bomb, the fear of Communism and the Soviet Union's atomic attack and the obsession with what to do when the bomb hits are all examples of 'strange love'.
Both of you make very good points about Kubrick's film. From a film standpoint, having never seen it before, I thought the humor grew old quick and seemed to be almost a defense mechanism against nuclear war. It was as if to say people had to make jokes about the highly tense situation at hand in order to stop themselves from going crazy, while on the other hand the humor was making them sound insane. I do feel like Kubrick did a great job showing how the tension of nuclear war made the men in charge very indecisive. Neither one really wants to risk anything, but they also don't want their opponent to think they are weak won't strike. The idea of the giant "red button" comes to mind. The red sort of draws you in and you want to press it and see how much damage it will actually do, but you are afraid of the ramifications. The characters Kubrick used were somewhat stereotypical for a comedy about war. The soldiers were overly excited to just blow something up, the general (Ripper) wasn't really all there, and the President was this sort of bumbling fool. Overall I feel the film work as a whole to show this satirical version of the Cold War and maybe it game more insight to how people with the power were actually acting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jason's points on this movie. The humor within, grew stale to the point where I found it negligible, except as it being used as a masking device for the severity of the situation.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest humor I found in the movie was the obvious point it made about the nature of man. The entire movie was spent trying to deal with the effects of giving one person enough power to make all the final decisions. When it became clear to the people involved that the worst case had come true and there was no way of avoiding it, they begin to brainstorm possible survival strategies. This ultimately leads to Dr. Strangelove, a blatant former Nazi, uniting the Americans, and the Russians (both of the forces that destroyed the Nazi's) to follow his strategy, and giving him a lot of power, by simply promising them ten women to procreate with.
I found this statement about humans too be hilariously accurate. We are so quick to repeat mistakes, and overlook former alliances or enemies when something we desire is being offered to us, or threatened.
You all have a really nice handle on what's going on with the movie, and I like the discussion/play with names, esp Dr Strangelove, and the kind of political contortions he represents. You might connect back to the kind of solutions our own government was proposing with regard to surviving nuclear war in Atomic Cafe, and perhaps even compare that version of democracy with Dr Strangelove's supposedly satiric Nazism. Remember that this movie isn't supposed to be humorous as in comical. It's bitingly satirical, and critical of actual American policies and procedures with regard to nuclear war, in a way that you're all touching on, but would be nice to see explored in depth.
ReplyDeleteDr. Strangelove is a great representation of the nuclear race and war. Throughout the entire cold war people had anxieties about that fact that Russia was going to bomb us, and that if it came down to we would bomb them first. This movie brings out those anxieties pricelessly by having a man so crazy enough to almost start an entire nuclear war because of the fact that he was so brainwashed that he believed that Russia was actually about to do us harm that he himself powerfully proofed a private mission and almost succeed in taking Russia out without being stoped by anyone was beautifully done.
ReplyDelete