Dr. Strangelove was in my opinion one of the funniest films i have seen come out of that era hands down. Just to start off, I would just like to say that the character of Dr. Strangelove and how the actor played him was hilarious. All of the small subtle gestures that were made by the actor just seemed to capitalize on the comedy. I would have to say that the part where he cant help but Nazi salute to the president, and then fight with his hand just made me laugh so hard and made me think that this movie was ridiculous.
Going along with what I said before, the characters of the film were really interesting. each one seemed to hold very interesting qualities that just seemed to bring out other weird qualities that were found in the other characters. Now I haven't seen a lot of Stanley Kubrick's films but what he did to the characters in this film made it hilarious to watch. the thing that I found very interesting in the character development would have to be how masculine many of the characters were, compared to how feminine the president was throughout the movie. The way that the advisers gave helpful information to the president was like they were throwing there weight around while yelling at him. On top of that the President seemed to just stand by and take the abuse, and even at times when the advisers were fighting each other the president wouldn't like to engage in the confrontation. Now in my opinion I couldn't help but think of a marriage in this day of age when I saw the president interact with his board. Maybe its just me but by the way the president acted, I could see him in a sun dress.
Stanley Kubrick's visuals in this film are what I would have to call amazing. Aside from all of the humor that would be used in the film, the Cinematography would have to be one of the most eye catching parts of the film. What I found to be most interesting would have to be a lot of the camera work, the editing/ composting techniques used at the time, and the overall shot selection. I thought it was really great how interesting the inside of a B- 52 could actually be. For instance when the bomb hatch wouldn't open, a lot of the camera work involved super fast zooms onto some of the toggles and switches, which seemed to just amp up the situation that was happening.
Along with this we talked in class about how Kubrick seemed to use a good amount of WWII footage to give off the feeling of being a standard war movie at the time. however we come to realize at the end that this is defiantly not the case, seeing the main crisis was not averted and the end of the would eventually came. Overall my absolute favorite effect would have to be when the cowboy pilot is riding the nuclear warhead down onto the Russian base,ultimately I thought that it was a great shot with the background moving perfectly with the for ground character. Oh yeah and on top of that I thought that it was great that this scene was reenacted in the film Armageddon when one of the scientists is rideing the nuke out of the space shuttle...hilarious.
The article actually brought a lot of the tone used in the film into a better perspective for me. what I mean by this is for the most part I could not for the life of me figure out why the people in the war room acted like the crisis was not that big of a deal even though basically everyone on the face of the earth will die. Now when I saw this I was like what the F*** because are they really just gunna lay back and have this happen? On the contrary the article explained that this wasn't that uncommon. One section of the article explains that for a chunk of time the New York Times published articles of subjects such as How To Live With Your Radiation Fallout, or even 92 out of 100 Can Be Saved. I just thought that it was kinda ridiculous to think that we could live with something like this happening so we shouldn't really so anything about it. What a Crazy state of mind right?
Overall this film was amazingly hilarious to watch, and just fun I highly recommend it
See y'all next time
I agree that this movie is really, really funny. The camera work also works really well with the film to even add another level of hilarity. In the war room when the president was on the phone with the the russian premiere the way it was shot was really funny. There is a really long shot that only shows the president and one other general. Once you get used to that and something funny on the phone happens he pulls out to show that there are forty or fifty people there listening for the end of the world from their ridiculous phone conversation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the camera work in this film was really cool. It almost felt as if we were in the B-52 with them and it was extremely convincing. This movie was awesome but a little difficult to write about because I've been so used to abstract "art" films which I enjoyed but it's nice to have a little plot for once.
ReplyDeleteJust as a little side note regarding the war room cinematography, I think one of the funniest things about that scene is the fact that we notice dr. strangelove sitting there throughout the entire film. It's so subtle and I didn't catch it until the second time I watched it but I love how Kubrick's attention to detail brings us into the film and allows us to learn and see more each time we re-watch his films.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I also agree that this film is absolutely hilarious. This is the type of humor that I really enjoy. Kubrick plays with the eccentricities and absurdities of human behavior and I think that these are the types of things people laugh at the most. When we recognize the satire and realize that the joke we're laughing at is really ourselves.
I also really loved the president in this film. I agree with you that he was portrayed as being so apprehensive and weak. It was almost hard to watch. And at times when he was talking to the Dimetri on the phone he sounded not only like a parental figure but a girlfriend as well.
I giggled about picturing the president in a sundress. That was Peter Sellers. Dr. Strangelove was Peter Sellers too, as was Mandrake and one or two other characters. He was pretty famous.
ReplyDeleteI like how you use the reading here, to answer your question about how people could have ever been so blase, or even enthusiastic, about the prospect of nuclear war, and how that really wasn't that far from the truth.