My first collaboration piece, written with B.P Flanagan, thanks to Park Circus and Picturehouse. This was formally published ion Picturehouse's website.
With the release of Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove' back in cinemas, we write about the film, the climate at the time of release and about Matt Wells' short film centered around the now iconic film.
Whether you're a fan of the film, never seen it or debating a second watch, have a read
HERE.
This month we see the return of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove back on the big screen. For fans of the auteur’s work, known for his extensive research on the subject matter of his films, there are several scenes and characters that will most likely immediately come to mind at the mention of
that name.
Peter Sellar’s triple character threat, upstanding British officer, Colonel Mandrake who fails to bring rogue Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper to his senses, blank faced President Muffley who tries to bring order to a situation falling out of his control and Dr Strangelove himself, the wheelchair bound ex-Nazi scientist and nuclear war expert, all bring a certain gravitas to the narrative but Sellars manages to squeeze in bizarre comedic moments to an otherwise dramatic and tense film.
The most iconic image, after the war room of course with the ‘big board’, is of the airman riding the bomb as it falls and eventually explodes. This image has been parodied and referenced in films from blockbusters to independent to animated stories about the future congress. As the airman, falling to his certain death, represents the very title of the film. He’s stopped worrying about the bomb and has come to love it and the destruction it will cause. This is Kubrick’s way of telling us, this is what will happen so just accept it. As relevant as it was back when the film was released as it is now, Kubrick still wants us to stop worrying and enjoy the film.
It’s the end of the world as we know it - fifty five years after the controversial release of Stanley Kubrick’s Black Comedy Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the film has lost none of its ability to shock and chill you, and nor has its resemblance to reality faded. For fans of the auteur’s work, known for his extensive research on the subject matter of his films, there are several scenes and characters that will most likely immediately come to mind at the mention of that name.
Kubrick and Terry Southern took the Peter George book Red Alert, a paranoid novel about nuclear armageddon, and skewered it, leaning heavily on irony in their screenplay. Combined with an iconic Peter Sellars performance, the maestro taking on three roles; British toff Colonel Mandrake is like a failed David Niven character, while President Muffley is played so straight that he’s almost dead behind the eyes. And then there’s Dr Strangelove, the wheelchair bound, ex-Nazi scientist who favours ‘mutually assured destruction’ all bring a certain gravitas to the narrative but Sellars manages to squeeze in bizarre comedic moments to an otherwise dramatic and tense film.
Kubrick’s exacting style - he came from a photographer’s background - allowed him to fill Strangelove with gorgeous black and white images that recall the stock footage that Matt Wells uses in his short film Stanley Kubrick Considers the Bomb, which plays before Dr Strangelove. ‘The stuff I used was mostly Civil Defence material, nominally aimed at telling the public what to do in the event of a nuclear strike… in reality, much of the guidance being offered would have no real safety value.’
This illusion of safety covers up a terrible, and painfully funny, failure to communicate. The constant miscommunication that goes on in Strangelove is probably what leads to the end of the world. And between invasive technology, an unflinching military industrial complex, and the sweep of populism, it’s hard not to see Strangelove’s pertinence to our anxious global state. Considers the Bomb focuses on this threatened state, and Kubrick’s growing interest in it, ‘The impression you get is that he understood the logic behind nuclear policy and followed it through to a logical but extreme conclusion in his movie... we know from documents declassified in the 90s that he was right about certain important parts of the US nuclear policy that hadn’t been made public.’
That chilling, supremacist defence by Jack D. Ripper of ‘Our precious bodily fluids’ has another echo in time, to the sitting president’s rousing notions of nationalistic excellence. Whether or not we’re still the realm of the 'accidental H Bomb' is up to you, but Dr Strangelove will still leave you mad, paranoid, and desperate to recapture all the jokes you missed the last time around.
Speaking of the material distributed to reassure people that their government was prepared for nuclear war, Matt Wells is reminded of the meaning behind Kubrick’s full film title, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb. We have this amazing capacity for self-destruction. And in nuclear policy our attempts to mitigate that have often just made it seem all the more likely. To my mind that’s the heart of the movie, and I know it was a big part of Kubrick’s interest in the subject.
Self destruction feel inevitable in the film and couldn’t be better summarised than in one of the most iconic images in the film, the airman riding the bomb as it falls and eventually explodes. This image has been parodied and referenced in films from blockbusters to independent to animated stories about the future congress. As the airman, falling to his certain death, represents the very title of the film. He’s stopped worrying about the bomb and has come to love it and the destruction it will cause. This is Kubrick’s way of telling us, this is what will happen so just accept it. As relevant as it was back when the film was released as it is now, Kubrick still wants us to stop worrying and enjoy the film.
