Dr. Strangelove -- What Makes This Movie Great? (Episode 101)
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Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb -- this is Stanley Kubrick's now-classic satire of Cold-War era nuclear-arms races between countries, specifically the United States and the Soviet Union.
What is this movie about, and is it still relevant? This video reviews and analyzes the movie, trying to show its relevance, since of course nuclear weapons are still around and many countries now have them.
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You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!
yes!
@@LearningaboutMovies I'm glad you liked that, and if not so many young people are not watching, it is a shame, as it has so many quotable lines in it! That and the idea of a doomsday weapon the Soviets keep secret because...it's a secret?! I can see why the president was irritated, LOL. Just a fun film to watch over and over, to the point my two teens are into it now.
He'll see the big board!!!
@@williamcurry4606 dw i’m in my early 20s and I love Kubrick’s films and watching analysis videos on them, always trying to learn! I hope you believe the younger generation can make a difference ❤️
I will definitely watch it this weekend thanks 👍
"Peace Is Our Profession" was the real, actual motto of SAC (Stratgic Air Command). It was created by SAC's first commander, General Curtin LeMay.
I was going to point that out. You said it perfectly. Former SAC Boom Operator here.
Of course the better motto is "Peace through Strength" Roosevelt and Reagan implicitly understood that.
Well. 10 months after you made this video…it’s definitely relevant again.
ok, disagree that this movie was simply mocking or had no ideas to solve it. Its like the ultimate hactivist product. Like hactivists which try to break into computer systems to show those system owners that it is possible and to force them to fix it, this movie really stuck it to the military industrial complex saying that they needed to fix their systems as well - and really hammered the point home that we only get one chance at this, that one 'single slip-up' is enough to doom us all.
As a result, the government in the US (and probably other governments) really took it to heart. They changed their codes for launch from 000000, instituted tight controls on who could fire them (lower level echelon commanders), instituted dual key and triple key systems, etc. etc. etc We may have survived intact because of this movie, full stop. So Kubrick really did a big public service here by making it.
good point, thank you.
Just watched this yesterday. As a gen z film watcher this is my 2nd favorite Kubrick behind Eyes Wide Shut.
excellent, thank you.
Kubrick's inescapable point is there is no way out of the arms race. He's obviously telling us that we are doomed. That is why the movie, even though a satire, is still terrifying today. Man has never failed to wage war with the latest and greatest weapons. The phrase "only one life to give for my country," is the fatal one in all human history.
Probably my all-time favorite film.
excellent!
Yes same here
Peter Sellers a great comedian - he had a really good grasp of the absurd. Sterling Hayden is a favourite actor - so good and a good man who saw through Hollywood - 'The Killing'.
yes!
@@LearningaboutMovies The film supposedly had the effect of the USA and Russians initiating even stronger failsafe mechanisms than those already in place.
This movie and Fail Safe should be a double feature to show the thoughts of people in the 50s and 60s. Both movies are about the same thing but take very different approaches. Both came out the year I was born and I never really understood the attitudes from the time, these really put it into perspective.
Love this movie. I wish more modern/younger audiences were aware of it. The story may seem dated or irrelevant now, but the themes are timeless.
While Paths of Glory is probably my favorite Kubrick movie, Dr Strangelove is definitely a close 2nd. (I will admit that 2001 is probably his best movie, it’s just not my favorite).
I agree.
Everyone forgets Barry Lyndon.
Imo a clockwork orange is his best but he really only makes good movies everything he puts out I’m a fan of
@@NoahSpurrier it’s a great movie. I saw it twice in a week and while long, was very goid
Nothing, and I mean no movie ever, in the history of movies, is as good as Dr Strangelove... None... Full Metal Jacket is a good second place...
This is one of my favorite movies. It's amazing to think that this came out at the height of the Cold War and really highlighted how absurd it all was.
and still is. all that Russia-fear in the US recently was psy-ops stupidity.
@@LearningaboutMovies dont even get me started on all the "RussiaGate" nonsense from the Trump administration. At this point, it borders on conspiracy theory that people believe to be true despite the findings of the Mueller Report.
@@mrrrl795 Don't forget the dodgy MI5 involvement from us in the UK.
@@alanwatson4249 and that shady company from Ukraine. Ever wonder why the us gives a rats rear end about Ukraine? It’s where all the corrupt us officials do their dirty work.
This is in the conversation when I think of my favorite movies of all time, and it's definitely one of my top three comedies of all time. Another great pick, thank you for the review. My wife is a millennial with very little history background, and she loves this movie
Also, it's my favorite Kubrick movie. I think the Shining and Full Metal Jacket are stronger visually, but this is the far better movie
you're welcome.
Yeah, this is one of Kubrick’s weakest looking films. But still a masterpiece
What is funny about it? I just watched it and I chuckled maybe once.
@@jizzfreeficus it’s satire. if you can’t grasp what it is they’re making fun of, then you’re going to miss out on what is ‘funny’. it’s not the usual slapstick comedy with obvious jokes
I watch it twice a year on CD and watched it in the cinema 60 years ago as it made me feel "safe," and not be in so much "fear" of nuclear war because of the satirical nature of the topic by Kubrick. The film made people "lighten up" about atomic war and "the bomb!"
I was born in 1986 and it's one of my favorite movies
"This is it, boys? Nuc'lr combat toe to to with the rooskies!!"
Thanks for reviewing, I love this film (and yes, I was born in the '60's). I do think it is Kubrick's masterpiece if nothing else other than Peter Sellers amazing performances. It has a lot going for it - great use of satire, well written, good pacing, excellent acting, beautifully shot (although still in that cold Kubrick way) and unfortunately still relevant. I've watched this film over and over again and never tire of it.
you're welcome.
With the "Cold War"/nuclear war annihilation, as a back drop theme for my childhood ( my father worked at Rocketdyne, in Neosho, Mo. where they built and test fired the Atlas rocket engines for ICBM's ) , "Dr. Strangelove" movie fascinated me. Growing up in the 1950's & 60's at school, Boy Scouts, TV, movies, Mad magazines, etc. all had reminders we lived under a nuclear war nightmare that at anytime could become a harsh reality that would make Nagasaki & Hiroshima look like a sneak preview of the main event. Today that harsh reality is even more present and possible. May God have mercy on us and our children. ( I posted this at another "Strangelove" commentary video )
thank you.
Slim Pickens character Major Kong comes across as a hayseed, but he is a very good pilot and knows his way around a B52.
Yes. It`s a masterpiece! It should be seen today by every person. To see the insanity we live in today. Peace on earth!
This movie is on my 10 best movies list of all time. Sellers is a genius.
To me, Barry Lyndon is his masterpiece.
The Shining
The fact that there is NO positive "feel good" way out of the MAD is THE strength of this movie - When Kubrick first started work on the screenplay, his original intention was to "play it straight" But he quickly realised that the MAD policy that supposedly existed between the US and the Soviets was complete lunacy and could only be played as a black humour satirical farce - All it needed was one loose screw and that loose screw portayed so brilliantly by Sterling Hayden was the Jack D Ripper character, who was in turn based on a real life **** general, Curtis Lemay - Lemay at one point seriously wanted to nuke 200 Russian Cities !! -
Even on the Manhatten Project the scientists and military were not certain that there would not be a 100% certainty that exploding their bomb could cause a chain reaction that would in all probability blow up the world - They were only 80% sure that it wouldn't, leaving a 20% possibility that it could - But they went ahead with it anyway !! - So who is nuts ?? - Jack D Ripper, Curtis Lemay or the Manhatten Project crazies ?? - That is why this film is both hilarious and terrifying and brilliant - Because it COULD still happen...
One of my favorite movies of all time
I grew up at Offutt AFB lol. Dad was a 28 year USAF Chief Master Sgt. I love the movie. I thought of it when I went to Nuclear Warfare School.
Before I saw this film, I knew about the War Room line (one of the best lines in cinema history) I knew Dr. Strangelove was a former nazi and I knew about the infamous riding the bomb yahoo yahoo scene. The film was a bit different than I expected but I could still 'read' the film the way I had intended, and that it is a showcase of the madness that consumes the men whi have to make the decision of setting of these nuclear weapons and how these mass destructions will break the sanity of any human. We can't handle the act of killing that many people in just a push of the button.
There is no way to change or reform when you are hardwired into the military industrial complex, which is which by it remains in place decades after this. Kubrick was correct. If there was a way out Spielberg would have remade Dr Strangelove.
A masterpiece from a maker of several masterpieces.
thank you.
I watched this movie yesterday for the second time and it was even better than the first. Easily my favorite Kubrick for sure.
This movie is even more relevant now than then...
I think you miss the point when you say that there needs to be an alternative to the realist or cynical inevitable conclusion of the film. That is the whole point. The movie is in equal measure a comedy and a tragedy. And if your recall the classical definition of a tragedy, that regardless of the actions of its participants the story will end in sadness, this is a case in point. Regardless of the best intentions of everyone (including Gen. Ripper) a nuclear annihilation is inevitable. Since this is realistic, the movie's insistence on the inevitable end without providing an alternative is what makes it poignant and true to our world.
I get that. And yet, no artist has come along with great solutions to present horrors. That is what I am wanting, and yes, I do wish more of Kubrick. He wasn't the person for that, which is fine.
The lack of concrete endings in Kubrick films is the whole point. It’s postmodern. There is no answer, there is no absolute truth. This is where we’re heading and there is no way to solve it. I think that’s his point
'Peace Is Our Profession' was the motto of SAC(Strategic Air Command).
I am absolutely flabbergasted, NOBODY noticed the FIRST on screen appearance of James Earl Jones??? My god, how could you miss that voice???
The movie is a Kubric master work! I love it!
Great review
thank you.
Another fantastic review. Thanks. The way in which the rationality (and morality) of human behaviour is distorted by their place in irrational structures, is exactly right, I think. The lack of a clear solution doesn’t bother me. Perhaps the only way out of a game you cannot win, is to stop playing? Still very relevant if a US President can ask ‘what’s the point having all these weapons if we never use them?’
thank you. yes, if they are still around, the likelihood is that they will be used.
Kubrick and the set designer Ken Adams had to show the US government where they got the interior designs of the B-52 because it was classified. It was some good guessing apparently.
not his masterwork, but one of the best films ever :) so basically Kubrick is one of the GOATS
We must not allow a mineshaft gap!!.🤩🤩
Not even a gap gap!
One of the best movies ever made in my opinion. Sheer brilliance in black comedy.
By not providing the solution you think it lacks, the film success to make you think.
by looking ongoing situation of the russia and ukarine this movie totally relevant now
I watched this as a sophomore and definitely something still to worry about, they just don’t speak about it openly
There are many cold conflicts between countries that are armed. We're all hoping that rationality and the desire to be rich/free via trade will stave off the use of nukes. But, yes, it is a silent looming threat.
Good vid, except I so very strongly disagree with your opinion of a "happy ending". This movie is a warning, and that type of typical Hollywood ending would have wasted the significant opportunity to hit us over the head with the danger we all really do face. It clobbers the viewer into realizing this really can happen, and the hope is that this masterpiece can accomplish that.
thank you
It’s crucial that people realize that it’s a comedy before going in. Some seem to be unsure whether they should be laughing or not, at least at the first half of the film.
8:06 of course it doesn't offer an "alternative, moral corrective." the whole point of its black satire is to suggest the possibility that there may well be no "alternative," no better answer, no path by which the characters can bring about a happy ending. the possibility that there is no escape from disaster, isn't one you normally see in movies, sure... but it's not an unknown situation in real life, is it
Already covered this in the comments many times.
@@LearningaboutMovies oh, so i'm not the first to have corrected you on this point then, great. i hope you are suitably contrite. have a nice day.
Recently just saw “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix… I immediately thought of this movie.
B-52 crews, then, and still today, do not have the luxury of being able to ruminate over whether they should drop the "big one" or not. They are trained to react, when directed, to bomb their targets. (A former B-52 pilot.)
interesting to use the word "luxury" when we are talking about planetary apocalypse.
@@LearningaboutMovies Being able to reflect on whether you should or should not drop a thermal nucler bomb that will likely kill millions of people IS a "luxury". A "luxury" that B-52 crews have neither the inclination or time to indulge in.
George C Scott walked so that Tim Robinson can run
Read Daniel Ellsberg’s “Doomsday Machine-Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” . He says it was more like a documentary.
yes, we know the movie depicts the imaginings of war-gamer planners, who thought they were being defensive and thoroughly preparatory. But when their imagined world is given to ordinary people, ala this movie, it does look insane. You could say that is one strong purpose of this movie, and a good one.
Always suggest this one to the movie reviewers on CZcams. “We” got one couple to do A Clockwork Orange, so I am guessing Dr Strangelove will soon follow!
thanks. perhaps I will tackle Clockwork Orange one day.
Dr. Strangelove is the spiritual successor to Oppenheimer ^
I read that many of the characters the movie portrayed where contemporary politicians serving office at the time it was released.
yeah, Curtis LeMay is the George C Scott character. He's worth looking up and reading about.
Thanks for the video. This is my favorite Kubrick movie even though I still give the nod to 2001 as his best overall. The madness of war.. personally I'm ok with no solution since the objective of the movie seems to be calling out the insanity of human nature (now with the power to destroy itself). For a more serious, less satirical (& perhaps cynical) look at the same subject, Fail Safe is highly recommended. Also General Buck Turgidson is one of favorite alltime performances, even if Kubrick coerced George C Scott into it at times. Fun to compare his range here with say Patton
yes, try Fail Safe. Thank you!
Gonna get my head chopped off here, but 2001: didn’t hold up amazingly well. I’d say it was good at best.
This goes so well with Fallout lol
you wont believe me but ive watched this movie with my 7 year old brother and he loved it!( i explained the notion on movie)
I haven’t watched this film, but I am a big fan of Peter Sellers. Wish he hadn’t been taken from us so soon. Died 14 years before I was born, so much wasted potential.
yes..it's getting more relevant today
it's true, and I really hate that it is true. Can't believe what I read yesterday regarding American political pundits floating the idea of "limited nuclear war."
I recall watching this movie when it came out in 1964, and have watched it again recently. Perhaps the lapse of time and the different social milieu from today made me remember the film as being better than it actually was. The context of the cold war, the anti-bomb protest movements and the Vietnam conflict- wrapped up in the military-industrial complex- provided a strong focus for the film’s clever satire, taken up by later directors of films such as Catch-22. The eponymous Dr Strangelove’s comical mimicking of Nazi-recruited NASA scientists and his promise of selective post-nuclear survival would now be described as a “great reset”- and as a figure- his contemporary counterpart might be found by anti-globalists in the form of the Teutonic Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum. Tapping into the theme provided by cold war spy genres - notably Ian Fleming’s Dr No- Kubrick’s film provided a sober and relevant reminder of the dangers of miscalculations and folly that could unleash nuclear war. But it also provided a simpler though no less deadly scenario for international conflict in what was then a bipolar world dominated by USA and Russia, without the complexity and subversion of contemporary cyberwar ( including social media manipulation and identity politics aggression) and international terrorism. What continues to appeal are the film's stylistic qualities: the closeups of the characters, the unhurried ironic monologues and the general absence of intrusive deafening incidental music that dominates many movies today. However, it is very much infused with the 1960s zeitgeist, and by today's standards, the film seems to me to be disingenuous and puerile in places due to its sexual allusions to phallic objects ( the aerial refuelling in the opening credits); and its sexist references to Colonel Turgidson’s scantily-clad mistress whose token likeness reappears in the bomber crew’s Playboy centerfold. In this satire, when you add Dr Strangelove’s assurance of harems of 10 women to every man, the perverse consequences of nuclear war do not seem so bad after all, at least for the surviving studs. But in 2021, times have obviously changed and the film raises an implicit question: would this satire with its gender roles and underlying themes of sexuality be permissible today in view of constraints of political correctness and feminism? I doubt it. But it was never intended to be updated as part of a serial franchise like the Bond films which in later iterations saw the new boss, M, cast as a female figure who on one occasion reproached Bond ( played by Pierce Brosnan, I recall) as a sexist cold war relic. Ouch. Time to grow up- or so the Bond producers would have us believe.
thank you. It's not as permissible, though certain people could get away with it.
As an international relations student, i can say that this is one of the lighter, more cynical way, to learn about international relations. At least on subjects about cold war era politics
Unfortunately still relevent, perhaps will be relevant till the end. And I love this movie, an absolute masterpiece.
Our bodily fluids are pleased by this movie
It should be best movie of all time. I think Citizen Kane is behind Strangelove.
"It doesn't show a way out." Not so. Watching the long scenes in the B52 bomber, I kept thinking, "If one person in the crew had, en route, sabotaged the mission to bomb the Soviet targets, one person could have prevented the catastrophe." Those like-able, decent young men obediently pushing buttons and flipping switches...one of them could have deliberately flipped the wrong switch or deliberately failed to push a button. At core, the movie is about unthinking obedience. As C. P. Snow said, "When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion."
thank you.
@@LearningaboutMovies Among the interviews in the documentary, "Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove", James Earl Jones has this to say about his character, the bombardier, Lt. Lothar Zogg: "When I read the script, Zogg was the only one to question the possibility that this is a security test, that we were not supposed to bomb Russia. (“Major Kong, is it possible that this is some kind of loyalty test? You know, give the ‘go-code’ and then recall to see who would actually go?”) There was quite an exchange between the bombardier and the captain, the crew, about that, and for some reason Kubrick decided not to have that happen. And one day I got to the set and realized that scene was being cut. I was very disappointed because I thought, well, that’s what made my character stand out."
(I am puzzled because this exchange between Zogg and Kong does occur in the movie, at least in the DVD that I watched the other day. Hm.)
In any case, Zogg does stand out as the only member of the bomber crew who, momentarily, suspends his unthinking obedience, raising the audience's hope that Zogg will refuse to carry out his orders, or will at least sabotage the mission. If only.
i saw it ysterday
what a mooviee dude haha
yeeeee aaaaaah!!! the bomb scene is so good haha
love from spain
After Putin gave the N-threat, this movie becomes more relevant than ever.
yes, and very unfortunate that this is among the most relevant movies. surely Kubrick would wish that that weren't the case.
I think we should care about this movie now more than ever.
This movie is relevant as ever. You have all sides practically begging the US to fight in this war.
I don’t think Kubrick is offering a solution because there is no solution to nuclear proliferation. Like what alternative is he gonna offer? I think any notion that nuclear powers would ever give up their weapons would be childish, hence why Kubrick didn’t explore a solution.
I like this movie
Have you seen 'Catch 22'? A brilliantly funny movie about the military industrial complex.
Have not seen the movie, though have read the book a couple of times. Do they set the movie in WW2?
Dr Strangelove is still the best movie ever made. I disagree with the host's only criticism of juvenality. This was a statement of the truth of Mans status in the cosmic order. Nothing Kubrick did was by accident, everything was intentional. And further than that, Kubrick has been proven correct with the passage of time. What has changed since the films release to the wurld? We are held ransom to the same forces of oppression from the same people who are the oppressors. The films statement of poisoning the water is correct. The water is poisoned today, along with the food, the Sky, even the sky has been poisoned by Chemtrails daily for 15 yrs now, & Spiritually Juvenal Man, ignores these truths as though the Titanic is going to be safe because its a large vessel. Kubrick used Satire & ridicule of the oppressors themselves as the only weapon to be used in urging the sleeping populace to realize the truth & cease to man the machines of destruction provided by those offering bread & water instead of complete cosmic expansion.
as a description of reality, the film is superb. As a prescription of reality, which all films are to some degree, it does not offer a way out or hope. that is my point in the video.
Peter sellers was brilliant in this.
RIP.
Allegedly Kubrick had planned to make a straight drama about nuclear war, but quickly realised just how silly the whole thing was. A couple of the things you highlight as comedic devices were 100% true to post war US military - The slogan of Strategic Air Command *was* "Peace is Our Profession", war planners *did* coin and casually thrown around the term "megadeaths".
I believe it. that book that Buck Turgeson holds is real (iirc) or based on a real book, which I remember discussing in a college class on nuclear deterrence.
I'd say it's pretty damn relevant now wouldn't you
yes
The China Syndrome (‘79) could pair up well for an anthropogenic existential risk double feature.
yes!
This is one of the strangest films I've ever watched. I can't understand, if it's supposed to be taken seriously, if it's a comedy, science fiction or something else entirely. I watched it a number of times, and still feel like I'm missing something.
It's hard to understand the context of the time, but since I was 7 years old at the time, and my father was a B-52 pilot, I can totally relate. We lived on one of those SAC bases with a fallout shelter in the front yard and could see the bomb bunkers (igloos) from our house. The same year this movie came out 1964, there was a presidential election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, who was a reserve Air Force General and had been a bomber pilot. The prevailing wisdom was that the US needed Goldwater because of his experience with the nuclear Air Force, the USSR, and the cold war. Things were really heating up after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. However, Johnson ran a single TV commercial that probably won the election for him. The commercial showed a little girl picking daisies and counting down as she picked the petals off a daisy. We she counted zero, the commercial showed the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. This was November 1964, after the movie was in the headlines, so the message was not lost on the public, because Goldwater had publicly stated that not only was nuclear war survivable, but it was also winnable (20 mil vs. 150 mil dead). Johnson won, but then went all in on Vietnam and kept up the cold war he had claimed he wanted to end. It was scary times.
@@mateostaplez7497 I was born in the USSR, so I wouldn't have known such things. Russia, when designing a response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuke demonstration, didn't want to hit any populated areas. 6 months apart, they first put Gagarin into orbit aboard a Soyuz capsule - a round thing that looks like a fusion bomb detonation chamber (not accidentally). And then on land, they set of Tzar Bomba - the largest nuke at the time, to send a message, that they could drop it anywhere they wanted. If they did the same tests in reverse, even the space launch could've been considered a potential nuclear attack. How's one to know if there's a dog in that thing, a man or a weapon of mass destruction? Fear was the idea, but no one wanted an actual war.
It’s a satire of the military industrial complex using the nuclear arms race at the height of the Cold War as a vehicle to show the insanity of that time in history and act as a warning to future generations. Terry Southern left his sense of humor on the script and Kubrick being Kubrick crafted the story his way through brillant black comedy. Every time I watch this film I learn something new about the structure Kubrick was weaving through the plot. The Sterling Hayden -PeterSellers dialogue is hilarious but is actually presenting a view of the madness of society and the military’s stranglehold on the truth. Nobody makes movies like Kubrick.
I feel like the only one who didn't see the comedy in this. Things felt odd, but that's about it. Maybe that's why I didn't really get much out of it. I often enjoy dark and dry humor, but nothing jumped out at me as trying to be humorous, just as critiquing human nature.
it is a subtle sense of humor that, perhaps, even a majority of people may not get. The old rule, I think, is that 25% of people do not even understand any humor at all (no joke!).
Have you ever reviewed the 1963 movie Ladybug Ladybug. It is a frightening cold war film with a shocking final shot.
no, though thanks for the recommendation.
In reality, the ending of this movie was put off for about 60 years.
george c scott is amazing here
Just watched it. Be funny. Kind of surprised how little dr strange was in it though 😂
not much!
@@LearningaboutMovies its really cool to see ur channel blow up. i remember when it was at 900 subs. so keep it up
that's encouraging. thank you for being around for so long!
@@LearningaboutMovies for sure
My favourite movie of all time. Sadly more relevant than ever it seems. :/
Watch Peter Bull. The Soviet Ambassador. He resists the urge to laugh at Sellers manic Dr Strangelove. A an old friend of Sellers. He just keeps a straight face.
excellent, thank you.
@@LearningaboutMovies Thanks. Graham Stark. PS best mate. Woken midnight. New Ferrari. GS in Pink Panther films. Met him charity auction. Gent. BW.
Yes this movie is about the Cold war, nuclear arsenals of the two countries and their leaders involved. But it is also and I think centrally. Stanley Kubrick's view on the Nazis. Stanley Kubrick was endlessly fascinated by the Nazis this group of diabolically evil totalitarian madmen. His portrayal of Dr Stangelove as this madman sums up Kubricks view of the Nazis that managed to take over a leading and high achieving western nation, Germany. Yes this movie is about the cold war. But the title of the movie suggests that this movie is also about Nazi Germany and the madmen that ruled it like Dr Strangelove. A great movie. Hilarious performance by Peter Sellers portraying the Nazi.
not to mention what is suggested by the fact that he and many other nazis are high-ranking members of the us gov/military (operation paperclip). he's the most knowledgable person in the war room; when questions arise about computers, advanced weapons, strategy, etc. strangelove is the one brought to the stage to explain things and offer solutions. it's a nod to the fact that the "madmen" of nazi germany and their ideas didn't disappear but rather assimilated seamlessly into the united states.
The alternative is to accept the doomsday device and plan to come out first to reclaim control. "Animals can be raised and slaughtered". This is the king of black comedies in my opinion
or you could agree to get rid of them.
@@LearningaboutMovies Then the question is who do you trust? Putin? Biden? the Chinese dictator? the Indian PM? and now countries like Iran that want their own nuclear weapons?
Curtis LeMay
"Some men just want to watch the world burn"
Why should Kubrick have offered a solution to which there is no solution to? The (male) mechanisms satirised in this brilliant movie ar as old as mankind itself...
no solution? as cynical as it gets.
Well, impotence is one of the major themes in this movie after all.
Mine Furer I can walk!
Hated this movie the first time I saw it, I remember finding it spectacularly unfunny. Definitely need to rewatch it again though, pretty sure I’ll enjoy it more on a second viewing
try again when older (assuming you are young), and after you've worked in a bureaucracy or two.
This film will be relavent until humans are extinct.
We hope not, both on the relevance and the extinction fronts.
HOLLYWOOD always snubbed PETER SELLERS ...He deserved the OSCAR for Best Actor!!
at some point he did. almost never does a comic actor get one, for reasons which remain unclear to me.
Mein Fuhrer I Can Walk! 😂😂😂
miracle!
Great analysis. Great movie. However, my view is opposite to yours, in terms of what makes this movie great. Nuclear war is not the most important focus. Human folly is. Government stupidity is. Military is. I also appreciate Kubrick's FMJ. Same theme, same folly.
thank you.
Why should Kubrick give us an answer ?
Truth beats modern cynicism.
You can't fight here. This is the comments section!!!
definitely never said by anybody in a CZcams comments section!
Well, this is really hard...let's see a great script acted by great actors directed by a great Director...hmmmmm give me a second it'll come to me.
one eternal question is, what does anybody mean by "great"? Because future readers will be curious about those standards, especially since they are likely to change.
@@LearningaboutMovies Of course you go straight to the intellectual, mature, reasoned response...that doesn't work on You Tube. You have to fall back on visceral, nonsensical replies such as "Why should I care what future generations think of a particular film ?", regardless of its merits. Future generations will have no correlation to the themes and messages of a film because they have other "pressing issues" in their lives. Harold Bloom, America's pre-eminent literary critic said that we have to be choosey about what we read because there is so much to read and so little time to read it all. I suspect the same applies to film...so future generations will not be as interested in the genre of "Nuclear Apocalypse" as we were in the 60's and 70's and hence the film is less relatable to them. As a By the Way...I really enjoy your analysis.
I dont understandt why they named this movie Doctor Strangelove
I think that the film shows that there isn’t a way to put the nuclear Genie back in the bottle now that it was let free at the Trinity test in 1945. A notion which seems supported by the fact that we are still living under the threat of global annihilation today, even though it has, for now, significantly receded from our attention.. In the film, even when facing only the possibility of a small core of humans possibly surviving only by living deep underground in mine shafts for 100 years, the film cynically shows those responsible for the coming death of billions in the first place already planning for an identical arms race, when the earth might support surface life again after 100 years. They’ve learned nothing.
The only alternative action would be for all nuclear nations to dismantle every nuclear weapon in their possession. Which would require a level of species psychological maturity and wisdom which we still no where near approach. Maybe in a 1,000 years, if we haven’t committed species suicide before then, maybe. I rather suspect, unfortunately, that distrust, and the desire to control others are written in to our tribal evolutionary based DNA. So, unless some reliable, technological based solution to obsolete nuclear weapons is found, I can’t image what that might be, I suspect that humans will be living under the threat of nuclear self-annihilation for many millennia. Over such a very long period, it’s hard not to see someone, somewhere, either by intent or by accident, launching a nuclear attack on someone else. Which, then, might easily escalate to involve larger nuclear powers. Kubrick couldn’t offer a viable positive ending because, what one is there? Humor has to instead suffice.
Your point about the film not showing us a 'way out' of the inhumanity of our technological and bureaucratic society is a good one. Thinking about Kubrick's filmography in general, I think you're right that he lacks any sense of true transcendence (even 2001's ending is immanent, it's still in the universe). This brings up the question though: Is this a lack of his art itself, or just a lack in the philosophy which undergirds his art? Can you really separate the two? Is it possible to be a truly great artist if you have a basically nihilistic philosophy or, if you do, will you always 'lose out' to artists who also have formal talent but with a transcendent vision? Not sure.
thank you. I have wrestled with the question of whether Kubrick is just describing the times/zeitgeist, and whether he should be prescribing (i.e., telling us how to think about the description, plus showing the way out). I think I'd be happier if we had not only Kubrick but someone else with as much or more stature who we could say is doing the prescribing well. I think Terrence Malick has done that, and nearly all of his movies are responses to something in Kubrick. The problem with Malick is that he's a modernist, notoriously difficult and not for a popular audience, as his box office shows. Whereas Kubrick has proven to be a director for the great artists, the critics, and the average person.
@@LearningaboutMovies I agree with you on all fronts. I think Kubrick is more of an observer of the problems of modernity whereas Malick has increasingly come at these problems with a philosophical and religious thesis to remedy them--though I don't think he is ever too heavy handed. Malick is my favorite director, but it is true he is an acquired taste. I'm hoping that as film language develops, and as Malick's influence is more and more felt (as it already has been, as the short video "Not Directed by Terrence Malick" has shown well) he will become more mainstream and people will increasingly recognize him for the towering artist he is. Bach wasn't seen as a great artist in his time, and Mozart was by no means the most popular composer of his day--so there is hope!
yes on Malick! I'll get to him shortly on this channel, maybe by December/January. He is my favorite too, or at least in my top five. I have had a few people take right to him. To me he does have a shot to last for centuries.