Preview

Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: A Textual and Contextual Analysis

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3753 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: A Textual and Contextual Analysis
Dr. Strangelove: Or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. – A textual and contextual analysis
In 1964 with the Cold War at its peak, the Vietnam War about to get underway and the Cuban Missile Crisis still prominent in the minds of its audience ‘Dr. Strangelove: Or how I Learned to Stop worrying and Love the bomb’, was exposed to the world during perhaps, one of the most fragile and tense political climates of all time. Kubrick’s utterly ironic black comedy that plays on the possibility of nuclear obliteration was based loosely on the celebrated 1958 novel, ‘Red Alert’ by Peter George but differed in the fact that the film was highly satirical. That Kubrick even so boldly dared to make a film that openly mocked the situation between the Soviets and the United States seems absurd. However, Dr. Strangelove is fundamentally an anti war film that plays on the ridiculousness of a nuclear threat by presenting scornful depictions of sexuality and gender principles as well as poking fun at the political hierarchy and the communication between the two sides.
In this essay I hope to undergo a thorough textual and contextual examination of Dr. Strangelove, with specific focus on gender and sexual representation within the inner (within the film text) and outer (cultural, social factors etc.) viewpoints. As the issues addressed in Dr. Strangelove are somewhat less timely in today’s world, I felt that it was necessary to include a synopsis of the film from which a scene can be set.
Estranged General, Jack D Ripper, commander of the Burpelson air force base becomes increasingly paranoid (towards the point of insanity) that the Soviets have contaminated the US water supply infecting the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people. Ripper manages to bypass normal authentication, launching a globally threatening nuclear attack on the Soviet Union behind the backs of his superiors that include General Buck Turgidson and President Merkin Muffley. General Ripper



Bibliography: Green, Carol. Linden-Ward, Blanche. American women in the 1960s: Changing the future. (Twayne Pub, 1993) Falsetto, Mario Image. JPEG file. Still from film. ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. 1964. Image. JPEG file. Still from film. ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. 1964. Image. JPEG file. Still from film. ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. 1964. Image. JPEG file. Still from film. ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. 1964. Image. JPEG file. Still from film. ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. 1964. [ 1 ]. Stanley Kubrick, in The Guardian, British Newspaper, June 5, 1963 [ 2 ]

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This film has a unique cinematography because it is set so far in the future. The way the director uses subtle special effects makes the audience feel like that could actually happen and not a cheesy made up idea. The effects in The Minority Report are much sharper and believable than the effects seen in Dr. Strangelove. In Dr. Strangelove, it is quite easy to tell that the bomb carrier is not flying above a bunch of trees and rivers but in fact is hanging in front a green screen of some sort. However, in The Minority Report, it is much more believable to think that John Anderton is watching a hologram of his son in his apartment. We also see a difference in the coloring and lighting of the two films. Dr. Strangelove is a black and white film, which makes the use of lighting more difficult because you have to guess what areas will come out darker than others in such a limited scale of color. When John Anderton is sitting in the dark watching films of his…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dr. StrangeLove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1964. "Dr. StrangeLove" is a Cold War suspense comedy that depicts the extreme tensions felt by the American government and public regarding the potential for nuclear war. Roger Ebert, a critic wrote that this "cold war satire…opened with the force of a bucketful of cold water, right in the face". In his review Ebert's contemplates the use and effectiveness of satire in Kubrick's film.…

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr. Strangelove

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Cited: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1963. Columbia Pictures, 2004. DVD…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Circumstances- This cartoon was created in 1943, in America as a type of propaganda for the war.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Understanding the Big Bug Movies of the 1950s." William M. Tsitsui states how Americans viewed the movie Them! “The oldest and most esteemed critical approach to movies like Them! is that they are all about nuclear fear, the widespread anxiety about the threat of atomic annihilation”( Tsutsui pg.240). I agree the movie them had obvious symbolism of nuclear fear. From the atomic testing in New Mexico to the mutation of ants to giants. Not only did the fear from the images of the deaths in Japan affected Americans peace of mind the communist testing of nuclear weapons heightened their fear. In her article "The Nuclear Monsters That Terrorized the 1950s." Katy Waldman states Americans unease due to the USSR nuclear testing “images of carnage in Japan mingled with unease about a growing communist presence in the east, especially when the USSR exploded its own atomic bomb”. The American populace not only had to worry about their own nuclear testing but of the USSR’s growing power in nuclear…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The 1967 film, The Graduate, staring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft contains a plethora of human idiosyncrasies that would be of the utmost interest to the psychoanalytic minds of both Freud and Lacan. For this reading, I will focus on the theories of both Freud and Lacan in accordance with textual evidence to prove that Benjamin Braddock never achieves happiness in the end of the film, but has only just prolonged his quest to fight a miserable human existence.…

    • 1670 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr Strangelove Analysis

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The film Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and Love the Bomb begins at Burpelson Air Force Base, in the middle of he Cold War. General Jack D. Ripper played by Sterling Hayden sends out a “go” code to an entire force of bombers. His commands are for them to drop their atomic payloads onto scores of quarries within the Soviet Union. General Buck Turgidson played by George C. Scott is called to consult with the nation's military leaders and executive, as soon as the news of this disastrous onset bid reaches the U.S. War Room. Tugidson is a humorous war hawk and is totally caught up in the Red Scare. He believes if the U.S. just let the illegitimate onsets take place it will give them supremacy in a Third World War. President…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    [ 14 ]. Jack Hirschman, ‘Film Reviews’, Film Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1, (1963) p. 43.…

    • 2152 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Nutty Professor was released in 1963. It was directed by and also starred Jerry Lewis. It was based on the novel Dr Jeckell and Mr Hyde written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The basic narrative is of Professor Kelp, bored with being seen as weak and uptight takes a potion to give himself muscles but turns into ‘Buddy Love', a swinger with a sharp dress sense but no tact.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    I Am Legend Film Analysis

    • 1233 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There is another scene in the film: when Dr. Neville is saved by Anna (Alice Braga) and is told that there is a safe zone in which all the normal…

    • 1233 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mike Tyson Biography

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages

    It is what Jack Nicholson said following an incident involving vats containing toxic waste, which brought about his transformation from day jobber to Gotham’s most wanted career criminal. Buster, thirty-three and retired from boxing for the last four years, could refer to quotes from any movie the moment its name got mentioned. Films were now a significant part in his life. As the days drifted by, a huge Mitsubishi cathode ray tube television played host to the films he screened as he imagined sharing the big screen with Hollywood’s elite.…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Following the soviets first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1949 with Joe-1 (Khrushchev, 1989) the production of all types of bomb related films increased significantly. The possibility of nuclear war became an increasingly controversial issue when expressed in film and television. Throughout the period of 1950 to 1963 the films became increasingly complex. Nevertheless, this period remained overwhelmingly positive. Films expressed confidence in humanity’s ability to overcome the temptation to use nuclear weapons. During such uneasy times, ideology expressed in these films was not so much towards a liberal or conservative enlightenment but to explore the sociology and personal angst (Boyer,1988). Jerome F. Shapiro (2002, p.91, 141-147) states that six films stand out as seminal in the development of the atom bomb subcategory of cinema: Rocketship X-M(Neumann,1950), Unknown World(Morse,1951), The Story Of Mankind(Allen,1957),…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Back to Representation

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The movie begins with Marty meeting with Dr. Brown at a mall because Doc needed to show him a new invention he had created. Marty meets with him at the mall, which is where Doc tells him that he has stolen plutonium from the Libyans, which was supposed to be used to make a bomb. He uses that plutonium for a time machine he created. The Libyans find Dr. Brown and shoot him. Marty jumps into the time machine and goes back to 1955 without realizing it. He then goes out to find Dr. Brown, the creator of the time machine. Doc is in shock to hear what Marty says about the future, but after showing him footage taken prior to the attack, Dr. Brown believes him. It is then that he asks Marty “What on Earth is this thing I'm wearing? (Back to the Future).” Marty then tells him he is wearing a radiation suit, and Dr. Brown says “Radiation suit? Of course. 'Cause of all the fallout from the atomic wars (Future).” He is referring to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The movie is taking place ten years later, but Doc assumes that the atomic bombs that dropped in 1945, continued throughout the next thirty years. He assumed that the droppings led to a nuclear world war and everyone needed to wear radiation suits to survive.…

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the book “Nuclear war film” the Media critic Jack Shaheen presents a view of 32 feature films, documentaries, and educational short films consisting of representative choices of the new kinds, which are produced by Americans, French, British, and Japanese filmmakers. He also discussed some well known films such as on the beach, Mon Amour and Hiroshima. All of these films will help me support my claim. Having many examples from different kind will help me convince the readers of my paper. Moreover, different kinds will support different parts of the claim.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 1964 movie "__________ or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", is loosely based on Peter George's thriller novel Red Alert. It is a political satire black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the USSR and the USA. Fill in the blank or name the common name used for this movie.…

    • 1789 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays