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Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Review
Dr. Strangelove
originated from the midst of the cold war, portraying the post-WWII Red Scare phenomenon
in western countries in general and the United States in particular, in
which largely unaccounted paranoia of nuclear world war and exaggerated
political agendas were the central themes. The genius of Stanley
Kubrick's wildly comedic but fundamentally serious satire is that he
knew all too well that many contemporary viewers would see it mainly as
an explicit alarm-clock on the dangers of communism and the Soviet
Union, whereas today, the only educational reading will be the dangers
of scare tactics and rearmament.
Kubrick's subtlety and
courage lead the way for this riotously funny and thoroughly fascinating
picture. Its relevance has only increased over the years as an
important document of both film history and world history. Dr.
Strangelove is the frankest of films, but yet in the end feels to
have gotten away with something unruly and dangerous – a comment which
was so manifested that it might have seemed too hard to take in.
In retrospect, the
performances seem almost secondary, but it is the delicately composed
artistry of Peter Sellers and the perfectly over-the-top performance from
George C. Scott which gives the film such aggression and hilarious
ambiguity. The words and actions of these characters seem to make them
one-dimensional, but they are only so in the scope of the world
presented, which
is a delightful point to make. As Kubrick's puppeteers they alternate
between giving life to the effectively menacing nature of the plot while
seasoning the film with an absurdity which Kubrick claims reflects the
entire situation he portrays. When it comes to form, this is about as
perfect as the film medium gets.
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