Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” toes the line between satire and farce so elegantly that you can’t help but admire its audacity all the more for doing so. It all starts during the opening credits, when Kubrick shows us scenes of planes refueling set to a lovely piece of classical music. I’ll allow you to figure out the insinuation…
My first viewing of “Strangelove” is one of the most vivid experiences of my moviewatching life. It was in 1997, and my grandfather was down from Ohio. I’d rented the movie because I had never seen it before. One morning my grandfather and I watched the film. After it was over, I looked over at him and said, “How is that a comedy?” In the half dozen or so times I’ve seen the film since, Kubrick’s film has answered that question pretty well itself.
The film begins proper with Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) issuing an unauthorized nuclear strike against Russia. Visiting British Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) listens with disbelief as Ripper explains his rationale. It’s pretty outrageous stuff, with Ripper fondling his cigar while discussing the Russian’s contamination of our “precious bodily fluids.” (As you can see, Kubrick– who adapted the novel by Peter George with the author and Terry Southern –is having a great time comparing nuclear war with sex.) This news finds its way to Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), whose “special time” with his secretary is interrupted, and Turgidson must go to the war room (one of the most famous interiors in film history) and brief President Muffley (Sellers again) on this situation. Unfortunately, the news is bleak: only the General who ordered the attack under this particular “safeguard” knows the 3-letter code that is necessary to reach the planes for recall and General Ripper is well, a little off his rocker. We also follow the events aboard one of the planes that received the message to attack, as Major Kong (Slim Pickens) prepares his men (including James Earl Jones in his first film) for this mission with a series of patriotic speeches that would be inspiring if the film wasn’t so darn silly.
From his adaptation of “Lolita” in 1962 through to his final film “Eyes Wide Shut” in 1999, Kubrick allowed his subversive wit to come through in many ways as he told stories of vision and the emotional self-destruction of his characters. But even “Strangelove” stands apart as singularly droll. A lot of that has to do with the subject: mutually-assured nuclear destruction. Few filmmakers would consider joking about such an idea, which is why it probably took a pessimist (and perfectionist) like Kubrick to see the subject with clarity and appropriate absurdity. He takes things right to the edge of rationality so much that by the time Major Kong is riding that bomb down to its target we can see just how ridiculous the idea of nuclear war (much less the idea of deterrents beyond just not dropping the bomb) is. After “Strangelove,” why would anyone even want to contemplate nuclear war?
The film is rich with comic performances. The one that stands out the more one watches the film is George C. Scott as Turgidson in his first great performance of a passionate (and sometimes off-the-wall) military man (the second is his Oscar-winning turn as Gen. Patton in the 1970 epic). While his Patton was a dramatic powerhouse, Turgidson is a comic tour de force not just in delivery but facial expression. It’s a dangerous combination, and while it’s hard to believe Kubrick (whose films have typically been muted in their performance style) would allow such a turn, it’s easy to see why as we watch the film. Among the other main players, Sterling Hayden plays Ripper straight and with the seriousness of a dramatic villain, even when he’s saying the craziest stuff. Slim Pickens as Major Kong is another story entirely. Legend has it that Kubrick, who brought the character actor in after Peter Sellers (who also plays the German scientific eccentric Dr. Strangelove) wasn’t sure about the accent, didn’t tell Pickens the film was a comedy. Whether that’s true or not is mere speculation at this point, but whatever Kubrick told Pickens resulted in one of the truly iconic and hilarious supporting performances in modern movies.
Still, the actor that brings the film to the level of genius is Sellers, who turns in three completely different tones of performance for Kubrick, with whom he also worked on “Lolita.” His Mandrake is a dry stiff-upper-lip Brit who is all fluster, first when Ripper locks him in an office and asks that he feed his firearm, and then later when, after Ripper has shot himself, he is found by an officer who has the oddest advice for Mandrake when he has to get through to the President. As Muffley, Sellers has all the Presidential authority of a buffoon when their “safeguards” fail and he has to talk to the premier of Russia. (Who can forget Muffley on the end of this call, “Dimitri, this is not the time to be hysterical!”?) And then there’s his Strangelove, whose German accent and bizarre manner (that hand is a riot) is one of the quirkiest (and scariest) evil geniuses in film history, especially when he’s discussing the possibilities of mine shelter as the first bombs fall on Armageddon. It’s a perfect coda to a cinematic atom bomb of humor and horror from one of the great masters of the medium. And really, how can you not love that title?
Some more thoughts on “Dr. Strangelove,” written for an assignment for a class on Language of Movies and TV taken in Summer 2014:
Always known for his exacting perfectionism, Stanley Kubrick’s films embody the notion of mise-en-scene, and how everything in front of the camera adds to the look and feel of the film. “Barry Lyndon” is probably the most exemplary Kubrick film in this area, but his 1964 satire, “Dr. Strangelove,” is well worth discussion. With so many areas to choose from, I’ve nonetheless decided to focus on the production design and set design, which is something Kubrick always used to extraordinary effect in his films.
The War Room in “Strangelove” is one of Kubrick’s most famous set designs, if not his most famous. The massive round table around which the officers and President sit, and the circular light fixture above it, is one of those images which feels both not-quite-real for it’s sheer size, yet completely plausible, at the same time. In that way, it is completely original, so much so that if anyone were to try and do something comparable in another film (or in real life), I’m willing to bet that it would simply be seen as a pale imitation to “Strangelove.” Coupled with the “big boards” that George C. Scott’s General Turgidson is so concerned about the Russian ambassador seeing, “Strangelove’s” War Room is how we imagine what a war room would look like (and maybe should look like), rather than what we see in images like the one below. As he did with so many productions (“2001,” most especially), Kubrick spoiled us rotten when it came to what the movies can deliver vs. what real life is capable of.
In other areas of the production, Kubrick went for exacting realism over exaggeration. This was the case in the other major sets in the film- Gen. Ripper’s office, and the bomber interior. As you can see in the images below, Kubrick and his set designers opted for a more believable, and true to real life, look for the film. I feel this was done because some of the film’s most serious moments take place in these locations. In the War Room, the chilling absurdity and dark humor of the story are front and center, and it’s there where Peter Sellers and George C. Scott are at their most wickedly funny; in that respect, the War Room had to be an exaggerated version for the comedy to land. In Ripper’s office, however, we see a more serious side to Sellers, and his Lt. Mandrake is trying to reason with the “off-the-deep-end” Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden. The character of Jack D. Ripper may have a name that is a pun, but his certainty of the Russian threat is a serious reflection of the Cold War paranoia Kubrick was tapping into with the film. What’s he’s saying is very funny at times, but it’s delivered with the seriousness and gravitas of a real-life general addressing his troops before going to battle, which is what makes Mandrake’s efforts to rationalize with him, and get the recall code from him, feel all the more futile.
Similarly, the interior of the bomber is believably rendered in the set design, lending the scenes within it the necessary authenticity to make people question just how plausible the film’s doomsday scenario is. In these scenes, pilots are sent the orders which will have a profound impact not only on their lives, but all of humanity, and even though Slim Pickins’s Major Kong is one of the funniest characters in the film (and is responsible for one of the most famous shots in film history, when he rides that nuclear bomb), it’s the sincerity with which he plays the character that lends these moments their weight in patriotic gold. We understand, through the looks of the characters, what is at stake for all of them, and while that comes, first and foremost, from the performances, the environment they inhabit, and it’s realism, is important if the audience is going to take what they have to do seriously.
I know I got to talking about another aspect of mise-en-scene at times when it came to performance, but with Kubrick, it’s difficult to separate one aspect from another in terms of importance in the discussion of what shapes the mood of the film. That said, I hope I’ve illustrated, to a certain extent, how above all else, the production design and sets are among the most essential parts to the success of one of Stanley Kubrick’s most famous, and greatest, films.
