Dr.Strangelove

Kubrick’s film, Dr. Strangelove immediately reminded me of a demented version of the thrilling James Bond series. I grew up watching all the old 007 flicks so certain characters, ideas, and scenery all seemed somewhat familiar to me. The first thing that struck me as familiar was the over sexualized, female secretary appears in both Kubrick’s film and all of the Bond Movies. Secondly, the war room seemed almost identical to a room (used for similar events) in the 007 film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” Thirdly, Kubrick even admitted to basing the name “Dr. Strangelove” loosely off of the film “Dr. No.” Even Dr. Strangelove himself, seemed to embody common villains that have been portrayed in numerous spy movies.

The film seemed to play off the majority of people’s consciousness. Taking an instance that would cause terror and remorse, and then replacing those emotions with a dark humorous air. This keeps the audience on their toes, never knowing what would happen next, and keeps them intrigued as to the message of the film. Kubrick took serious scenarios and relaying messages such as; if you can’t stop something from happening you might as well have some fun with it. Kubrick sent this message in an eerie but at the same time comical approach. He set up quotes such as “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room.” This quote seems to make light of the traumatic war that was on their hands. When the General explains the situation to President Muffley, the president exclaims, “You’re talking about mass murder General, not war!” General Tergidson fires back with, “Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the break.” This is also showing the (almost, but not so comical) disregard that General Teridson has for human life. Another comparison about the war room was calling the round table that all the officials sat at, ‘a poker table.’ This also makes war feel like a game, rather than the perilous infliction that it really is.

Stillman tries to understand the inspirations and thought processes of Kubrick but comes to a perplexing roadblock. Kubrick is not very thorough in his explanation of his own film, he says he leaves a lot of its interpretation up to the readers. He explains this himself by telling Stillman "If I told you it wouldn't be ambiguous - and if you didn't discover it for yourself, it wouldn't mean anything anyway." To this day people are still unsure as to the motive behind Kubrick’s film, but it is nevertheless continuously studied and enjoyed some thirty years later.