“Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
“Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is a movie that portrays the situation during the Cold War in comical fashion. The movie is about the United State’s attempt to recall the planes ordered by the paranoid General Ripper to attack the Soviet Union and essentially save the planet from destruction. Producer and director Stanley Kubrick, basing the movie on the novel Red Alert intended the movie to be a straightforward drama but was unable to without using crucial scenes of the story that seemed to give the movie a more comical view of the plot.
The first scene of the movie is the mid-air refueling of a fighter plan, where the refueling is depicted as a sort of sexual intercourse. The movie then shifts over to Burpleson Air Force base where General Jack D. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden, gives his planes flying over the USSR the order to attack.
When President Merkin J. Muffley, one of three characters played by Peter Sellers, finds out about this, he calls a meeting with his advisors in the War Room of the Pentagon to discuss possible solutions to the problem. General “Buck” Turgidson, played by George C. Scott, is called to attend this meeting and arrives late. Also attending the meeting is Dr. Strangelove, played by Peter Sellers, a German scientist with a robotic arm that insists on rising in Nazi salute.
At the meeting, the viewers find out...
Dr. Strangelove is a 1964 black comedy satire film about nuclear war between the USSR and the USA. It has received many awards including #26 on the American Film Institute’s top 100 movies list and a 99% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film begins with General Jack D. Ripper putting his base on high alert and ordering his bomber wing to preemptively drop nuclear bombs onto the Soviet Union. His second in command, Mandrake, tries to stop him after finding out the Pentagon ordered nothing and finds out that Ripper is insane in thinking the Soviets are trying to poison the American water supply. The Pentagon finds out and tries to stop it but they could not find the three digit code in time to stop the planes. General Turgidson recommends
Stanley Kubrick’s sexual parody, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, illustrates an unfathomed nuclear catastrophe. Released in the midst of the Cold War, this 1964 film satirizes the heightened tensions between America and Russia. Many sexual insinuations are implemented to ridicule the serious issue of a global nuclear holocaust, in an effort to countervail the terror that plagued America at that time. Organizing principles, such as Kubrick’s blunt political attitudes about the absurdity of war and the satirical genre, are echoed by the film style of his anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove.
Impact of the Film, Dr. Strangelove, on American Attitudes Towards the Atomic Bomb and Cold War
Review of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Lindley, Dan. "Lindley: Study Guide to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove." University of Notre Dame. 8 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. .
3. Similar to MAD, the doomsday device shown in Dr. Strangelove is a machine designed to detonate after any nuclear attack on the USSR. The doomsday device consists of "Cobalt Thorium G" followed by in each of the 50 buried bombs. It is quoted the aftermath would cause Earth to be "uninhabitable".
It is natural that the significance of events decays with the passage of time, such events remain alive in the history forever for reference of generations ahead. The episodes of events that may be termed as the most significant of the last century is the Cold War that happens to retain any relevancy in modern times. With the death of Soviet union and world turning from bipolar to unipolar shape, the incredible saga of cold war is over but its distressing memories are still alive in the minds of the people around the world as it happened to shape up the destiny of at least a couple of generations in every corner of the world. In particular, the cold war affected every aspect of American life for over 30 years. The foreign policy, political doctrines, economy, education and even the media felt the impact of cold war for a painful amount of time. In that way, the cold war shaped up the lives of entire American nation and they lived a life of uncertainty for more than a quarter century. Before coming back to the subject of impact of cold war on films, it is imperative to understand a brief history of cold war. The origins of the cold war dates back to decade of 1910’s when American felt the scare of communism for the first time. American Skepticism of communism, spearheaded by Soviet Union, as the potential threat to American sponsored ideology of democracy remained consistent for next 20 years and it even aggravated with the usurpation of Josef Stalin's ferocious regime. The apprehensive feelings attributed towards Soviet Union in the mindset of American leadership subsided for a while; rather they took a sharp reversal of policies, as the clouds of Nazi threat appeared on the skies of world politics. With the advent of 2nd world ...
Then there was another Italian explorer, he to commanded the English exploration and alter discovered the North American mainland. He was John Cabot.
Often times, the vast entirety of the world populous enjoy movies for their entertainment or insight value, as well as the variety of topics of which they offer. The Cold War, a popular theme among many films, perpetuated from 1945, following World War II, until 1991. As the historical tensions between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia, USSR, the two nations came to stand off, only to be interceded by the all too unfortunate and plausible concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. The era raises the question and sense of awareness for each country of the other’s strength, striking fear into those who lived to see it unfold. The American society, in an effort to raise public awareness of the threat that lay at its door step, turns to the entertainment industry for assistance in their dilemma. Between 1982 and 1991, during the rise of the burgeoning motion picture industry and the apex of the Cold War, several motion pictures make their debut where they depict Soviet Russia and its destructive and innovative potential. These films based within the time period, such as The Hunt for Red October, Red Dawn and War Games, are noteworthy examples of American propaganda during the later period of the Cold War and its distortion of what threats lie at the relative east in an effort to raise concern over the intercontinental standoff.
This movie follows the fictional Dr. Strangelove and the US president as they struggle to avoid all out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, along with also avoiding the dreaded Soviet Doomsday Device. The countdown begins when General Ripper, who is afraid that adding florid to US water supplies is a soviet plot, calls for a all out nuclear strike on the soviet union and he is the only man who can recall it. The main argument made in this film is how the largely absurd Red Scare after World War 2 looks when viewed in a comedic way. Not only does this film highlight the Red Scare but other “hot topics” of the time, including: Fluoridation of US waters, US use of Nazi Scientists and movies sexualization of the time.
“Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!” Most famously quoted from the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, this black and white satiric film produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick in 1964, is a prime example of Kenneth Waltz’s Realist theories in regards to International theory.
In Kurtz' camp, a site of primitive evil, they are greeted by a crazed, hyperactive, fast-talking, spaced-out free lance photo-journalist played by Dennis Hoper. The babbling combat photographer, garlanded by his camera equipment, hopes for their sake, that they haven't come to take away Colonel Kurtz. He describes the great awe all the natives have for their jungle lord: "Out here, we're all his children." The photojournalist appears to be a fanatical follower of Kurtz, worshipping the enigmatic, genius "poet-warrior" Kurtz as a personal god and expounding Kurtz's cause: "You don't talk to the Colonel, you listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense...I'm a little man. He's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of silent seas, I mean...He can be terrible. He can be mean. And he can be right. He's fighting a war. He's a great man." He offers first-hand advice from his own experience: "Play it cool, laid back...You don't judge the Colonel." Willard is impressed by Kurtz's power over the people.
...es the American and Soviet officials for the lack of tolerance for one another and how that led to unnecessary military tension. Additionally, he uses the story to criticize military-industry complex that led to the Nuclear Arms Race. However, this tale is not only applicable to the Cold War. The wall between the Yooks and Zooks parallels the racial divide that dominated the US. While a seemingly depressing book for children, Geisel ends the book on a hopeful note. As the Yooks and the Zooks are on the verge of destroying each other, the book ends with a blank page to follow. This blank page represents the unwritten future—that the problems of ignorance and unnecessary militarization could be changed. As a novel to the future generations, Geisel’s cliff hanger provides children the opportunity to create their own ending, both for the butter battle in in real life.
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
...ion allows the film to exist unto itself with its totality defined by distinctive (independent) subjectivity. Like in many of his other movies, Kubrick litters Full Metal Jacket with symbolism and metaphor, but these directorial techniques need not be examined to enjoy or understand the plot of the movie. Although the split nature of the film expounds upon both the ability of the viewer to concentrate and be distracted by representations (logic vs. overriding emotion), it is also an exhibit for the dualist nature of man, i.e., the final marching chant. The use of a Disney song in any respect implies an association to innocence and good-will; applying it as a closing scene in a sequence that is dominated by a tirade of destruction is a more obvious symbolic gesture on Kubrick’s part. Can man be both malicious & peaceful? Or is man both? Through making both explicit distinctions and connections between mercy and vengeance in the human condition as evidenced in Full Metal Jacket as the preparation for (1st half) and execution of technique (2nd half) when existing in a war-state, Kubrick illustrates the disjunctive corollary (1st half & 2nd half) that war is organized chaos.