If there is one element that has made ‘Dr. Strangelove’ so
memorable, that’s it – character. The real fun behind ‘Dr. Strangelove’ was the
repertoire of memorable characters, the funny way they behaved, and the
tongue-in-cheek quotes they have delivered. It was all these funny antics that
have led to a lasting impression on the audience. Of course, this also serves
as a testament to Kubrick’s dark sense of humor, and the wonderful performance
from the cast.
What is in a name?
Well, a lot, especially when you want to be funny about
that. All the characters in the film not only has got funny names, these names
indeed reflect very much what sort of personalities these people are. To start
with, the stunning Peter Sellers have starred in 3 roles in the film, all with
very different personalities, thus testifying his ability to portray diverse characters.
The fact that he has improvised most of his quotes only added on to his
brilliant performance.
Sellers’ 3 roles are Mandrake, General Jack Ripper’s
executive officer; US
President Muffley; and Dr. Strangelove, a German scientific consultant to the
Pentagon. To me, ‘Mandrake’ suggests a matter-of-fact sort of person; Muffley
suggests muffling speeches, and Strangelove is likely a surname modified from a
very non-English one. What do these names suggest to you?
Sterling Hayden, who has already appeared in ‘The Killing’,
is General Jack D. Ripper. It obviously suggests the serial killer ‘Jack the
Ripper’, and indeed General Ripper was just as maniacal and mentally disturbed
as the serial killer. A nice ‘Kubrickian’ shot of General Ripper was the low
angle shot, when he was philosophizing the potential conspiracy of water
poisoning from the Russians. This low-angle motif would appear again in many of
Kubrick’s later maniac characters, from Alex
De Large in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ to Jack Torrance in ‘The Shining’.
George C. Scott starred as General Buck Turgidson, a general
more serious on love affairs than the military ones. Certainly, the word
‘turgid’ does not require further explanations, right?
Slim Pickens played the role of Major T. J. King Kong. If
you know his ultimate demise, you can’t stop feeling sorry about this
cowboy-type character – he was just as tragic as the giant ape, in some way.
These were all tongue-in-cheek names, and Kubrick did not
stop here. What he has done was to instill very funny aspects to all these
characters, and when we laugh at what these characters have done, we cannot
stop feeling disturbed by the fact that Kubrick’s film is satirizing the real
world.
Kubrick, like many of the wise men throughout the centuries,
was deeply skeptical of all political activities. In ‘Dr. Strangelove’, he has
shown us the true faces of all these big brasses who are supposed, at least in
their wording, to serve us; yet in the real sense, to rule us. Kubrick has
shown us that, even for these powerful men who are supposed to embrace big
ideas and lead the world to a better end, their behaviors are just as childish
and farcical as some unruly blokes on the street. These characters seem to be
more concerned with their power, and, in the case of Turgidson, his women, than
anything else. Thus, the audience should be highly skeptical whether these men
can contribute in some way to end the disaster and lead the world to a brighter
future. And, should it be surprising that the big brasses being portrayed in
‘Dr. Strangelove’ have bore rather uncanny resemblances to the top political
figures in the real world? It should not be too surprising because this is the
ingenuity of Kubrick, after all.
Dr. Strangelove, most evidently, is about the Cold War
paranoia. This is best illustrated by Jack D. Ripper, who has developed an
unjustified paranoid delusion about the conspiracy theory of water poisoning
from USSR .
Standing from a distant era, if you want to have a taste about the Cold War
paranoia, an easily accessible pick will be Steven Spielberg’s ‘Bridges of
Spies’. The underlying reason why such a paranoia would become commonplace is
due to (in some way, a deliberate) lack of communication around the world. The
communication motif is also a Kubrickian motif, when I will elaborate more in
later passages. Yet, another contributing factor to the towering paranoia is
that of propaganda. It was well-established, and indeed critiqued in many 1950s
films, that the 1950s / early 1960s was an age of conformity. The common people
were encouraged not to ask or challenge too much about policies, and to conform
to what they have received from the government. In a sense, the government
‘painted’ the impression of what they wanted to show to the common people about
the ‘Red’, and with the combined action of the witch hunt-like accusations from
various self-proclaimed patriotic sectors, the paranoia about the Red, and
worse still, about each other grew throughout the decade.
Another paranoia, for which Kubrick has nicely illustrated in
a darkly comedic way, is the possibility of an all-out nuclear war. A theory related to this issue is known as the
‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD). I am not a military expert or a game theorist,
therefore I feel that I am not in the position to analyze this theory in
detail. Yet, I can provide some observations.
The idea of MAD is that when 2 opposing sides are having a
stand-off, both sides are deterred from the nuclear war because no matter who
will win out at the end of the day, the nuclear disaster that results will kill
off both side. However, if one side has already drawn the first blood, the
other side can retaliate – and that will lead to the even more disturbing
situation of the ‘Doomsday Machine’. The activation of the Doomsday Machine is
equated with the end of world, which will surely wipe out all lives on Earth.
What has disturbed Kubrick even more was how the powerful politicians
were going to approach these military strategies. First, there is the case of
pressing the wrong button at the wrong time, as the situation of Jack D. Ripper
has already shown. Furthermore, it is the often cold and rationalistic views of
the politicians that make them unsettling. In ‘Dr. Strangelove’, the various
characters in the War Room have accepted the fact of MAD and Doomsday
activation, and they seemed to be more than willing to sacrifice a number –
talking about millions – of people to rebuild the common people’s life in the
mineshaft. Rather than minimizing the destruction and casualties which were caused
by their sloppy attitudes, they have decided to accept that there would be body
counts and instead shifted their focuses to the underground reconstructions
that they felt were ‘constructive’. Certainly, these political figures were
more concerned with how they would be portrayed in future history books, as
‘patriotic hero’ and ‘Nuclear machismo’ rather than ‘pacifying coward’. This
issue has also been addressed in a previous Kubrick film, ‘Paths of Glory’, and
to a lesser extent, in Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Full Metal Jacket’.
A sense of fatalism is also apparent in ‘Dr. Strangelove’.
Though all the men in the film were trying hard to set things right – or at
least pretending to, as in the case of Turgidson – most things were beyond their
control. President Muffley, for example, was an underdog who did not have
enough charisma to lead his men to solve the problem. Major Kong, who has tried
really hard to complete the mission, accidently fell off with the missile and
led to the activation of the Doomsday Machine.
Speaking of the most Kubrickian character, it must the title
character Dr. Strangelove. What is more ironic is that this peculiar character
is not even in the novel the film is based on. Dr. Strangelove certainly could
not control himself – because in medical terms – he was likely to be suffering
from agonistic apraxia, and he could not co-ordinate the two hemispheres of his
brains. As a result, he could not control his limbs properly and has to be
retired to a wheelchair. However, he was seen as a cold and calculating
scientist, and he proposed, in an unsentimental way, the plans to rebuild
humanity from a nuclear holocaust. To me, his uncontrollable behaviors
represent a conflict in ideology. He was literally torn apart by the various
contradicting political forces he was involved in. Though he was working in USA
One further motif in the film is the lack, or failure, of
communication. In the film, the messages could not be passed effectively, or at
the appropriate time. Some people, like Ripper, deliberately shut out the
dialogues to prevent others from interfering. President Muffley, while on the
phone with the Russian prime minister, did not have the gumption to pass the
request out right. The Russian ambassador announced about the Doomsday Machine,
and explained why he didn’t tell the US earlier - because the Russian
Prime Minister loved surprises. Mandrake was on the verge of not getting the
phone call to the President, and he had to break a vending machine to have
coins for the payphone. Major Kong lost contact with the US government,
and in a sense led to his demise and the Doomsday because of that. People
failed to connect with each other, or they did not want to connect – the spirit
of the Cold War – and the effects would harm just everyone. The failure of
communication is also a theme prevalent in Kubrick’s late film, ‘The Shining’.
After all, humanity is all about communication.
Meeting at the World's End
The ending was disturbing, yet Kubrick has been able to
illustrate it in a darkly comedic way. The end of world was coming, and it was
the time when the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove miraculously stood up and
proclaimed his respect for the Führer. With the footage of numerous nuclear
bomb tests, the misanthropic images were accompanied by the light-hearted song ‘We’ll
meet again’. This contrasting feel of music and image will find its presence
again in films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Full Metal
Jacket’.
By transforming a supposedly thrilling and disturbing war
film into a satirical one, Kubrick’s cautionary tale about power and excess is
the one that will imprint in the audience’s mind. And of course, if the end of
world is not coming soon, I am sure we’ll meet again!
(2/2)
by Ed Law
9/7/2016
Film Analysis - 67
