Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb stands as one of the all time great films about war because it is so much different from any other film on the subject. It has much more in common with the work of the Marx Brothers than it does with Saving Private Ryan or The Dirty Dozen. The black humor of the film is exactly why it was considered controversial upon release, and how it manages to be so sincere and honest on the subject of nuclear war.
The film is very funny because when you think about it, the very notion of war is absurd. Not to discredit the courage of those who have gone to defend their countries, the film focuses on the business of war, the administrative end, where politicians will send men to die for the sake of their own egos. In fact the notion of the bomb as phallic symbol is made literal with the iconic image of the film: Major Kong riding a nuclear bomb down to Earth while whirling a cowboy hat over his head.
The movie has an important statement to make, yet it never comes across as preachy. It's a sincerely, honestly funny film. The jokes are amusing on a base level of simply being good humor, but they also draw attention to the stupidity of nuclear war.
Interestingly, when Kubrick dealt with similar material some years later with Full Metal Jacket, the humor wasn't quite so overt. It would seem that, by the mid eighties, Kubrick had realized that you don't need to add Marx Brothers style jokes to make war funny, that the absurdity of armed conflict is ridiculous enough with or without any overt humor. Still, Full Metal Jacket stands as an incredibly funny movie, even if it feels much darker in tone (yet ironically, isn't quite as dark in terms of story content).
At the heart of the film would be Peter Sellers in multiple roles. These days, one star in multiple roles is usually a sign of a bad comedy, where the producers thought that a weak script could be saved with enough money to just hire one star and put him in a dozen different sizes of fat suit. Sellers was simply a master of creating characters and was allowed to create several for the film.
The centerpiece of these would have to be Doctor Strangelove himself. Strangelove is portrayed as a former Nazi, whose limp right hand will sometimes snap into a Nazi salute. It is through Strangelove that the link between nuclear armament and sexual dysfunction is made most clear and direct. When the bombs start to fall, his sexual thrill is made nearly tangible.
George C. Scott turns in an incredible performance as General Buck Turgidson. The character is much wilder, more manic than anything Scott has done. He's usually seen as this master of gruff understatement, saying more with a growly whisper than most actors say with a big speech. Kubrick actually had to trick him into going so over the top by promising that these would be "practice takes" where he could take the scene farther than it needed to go to get the kinks out! Similarly, Slim Pickens was tricked into playing it straight as Major Kong by being told it was a dramatic war film.
If you've not seen it yet, Dr. Strangelove is one of the all time great films on the subject of war, and definitely one of those to see some time in your life. It is the only statement that anyone needs to make on the silliness of war. - 40730
The film is very funny because when you think about it, the very notion of war is absurd. Not to discredit the courage of those who have gone to defend their countries, the film focuses on the business of war, the administrative end, where politicians will send men to die for the sake of their own egos. In fact the notion of the bomb as phallic symbol is made literal with the iconic image of the film: Major Kong riding a nuclear bomb down to Earth while whirling a cowboy hat over his head.
The movie has an important statement to make, yet it never comes across as preachy. It's a sincerely, honestly funny film. The jokes are amusing on a base level of simply being good humor, but they also draw attention to the stupidity of nuclear war.
Interestingly, when Kubrick dealt with similar material some years later with Full Metal Jacket, the humor wasn't quite so overt. It would seem that, by the mid eighties, Kubrick had realized that you don't need to add Marx Brothers style jokes to make war funny, that the absurdity of armed conflict is ridiculous enough with or without any overt humor. Still, Full Metal Jacket stands as an incredibly funny movie, even if it feels much darker in tone (yet ironically, isn't quite as dark in terms of story content).
At the heart of the film would be Peter Sellers in multiple roles. These days, one star in multiple roles is usually a sign of a bad comedy, where the producers thought that a weak script could be saved with enough money to just hire one star and put him in a dozen different sizes of fat suit. Sellers was simply a master of creating characters and was allowed to create several for the film.
The centerpiece of these would have to be Doctor Strangelove himself. Strangelove is portrayed as a former Nazi, whose limp right hand will sometimes snap into a Nazi salute. It is through Strangelove that the link between nuclear armament and sexual dysfunction is made most clear and direct. When the bombs start to fall, his sexual thrill is made nearly tangible.
George C. Scott turns in an incredible performance as General Buck Turgidson. The character is much wilder, more manic than anything Scott has done. He's usually seen as this master of gruff understatement, saying more with a growly whisper than most actors say with a big speech. Kubrick actually had to trick him into going so over the top by promising that these would be "practice takes" where he could take the scene farther than it needed to go to get the kinks out! Similarly, Slim Pickens was tricked into playing it straight as Major Kong by being told it was a dramatic war film.
If you've not seen it yet, Dr. Strangelove is one of the all time great films on the subject of war, and definitely one of those to see some time in your life. It is the only statement that anyone needs to make on the silliness of war. - 40730
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