Dr Strangelove

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/


Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)


Not Rated
1 hr 35 mins
Comedies
Perhaps Kubrick's most perfectly realised film, simply because his cynical vision of the progress of technology and human stupidity is wedded with comedy, in this case Terry Southern's sparkling script in which the world comes to an end thanks to a mad US general's paranoia about women and commies. Sellers' three roles are something of an indulgent showcase, though as the tight-lipped RAF officer and the US president he gives excellent performances. Better, however, are Scott as the gung-ho military man frustrated by political soft-pedalling, and - especially - Hayden as the beleaguered lunatic who presses the button. Kubrick wanted to have the antics end up with a custard-pie finale, but thank heavens he didn't; the result is scary, hilarious, and nightmarishly beautiful, far more effective in its portrait of insanity and call for disarmament than any number of worthy anti-nuke documentaries.


As a child of the Cold War era -- you know, one of those kids who actually went through all the "duck and cover" and "don't look at the blast" training exercises and got to tour a fall-out shelter on a school field trip at the age of 7 or 8 -- I've only recently been able to find Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) funny. It's been described as a nightmare comedy, and it's certainly nightmarish, but it took about 40 years of distance to make it much of a comedy for me. But it is one -- and an amazingly subversive one that resonates over the years, even while some of the particulars have changed. (In 1964, it was practically a given that many of our top scientists -- and Russia's top scientists -- were not only German, but quite possibly ex-Nazis, making the title character with his wayward sieg-heiling arm a logical comedic extension of reality.)
The film presents a scenario (with a disclaimer that it couldn't happen, which no one quite believed when it came out) in which a nut-case general (Sterling Hayden) starts World War III, and makes it impossible for the U.S. to call it off, resulting in a kind of comedy of errors. The president (Peter Sellers in one of his three roles) tries to palm off the impending attack to the Soviet Premier as a regrettable faux pas -- despite the fact that retribution for a nuclear strike is the only possible response from the Russians. What makes the film so compelling -- beyond the comedic performances, the canny symbolism equating war with sex, and the rich black-and-white photography -- is that it's unafraid to take its scenario right on into the abyss.
It's as startling today as it was then. Catch it now before it becomes too relevant to be funny again.

Codec: Xvid

Size: 825MB

Runtime: 01:34:46

Resolution: 608x432

Bitrate: 1020 kb/

FPS: 23.976

Audio: English. No subs

192 kb/s (96/ch, stereo) CBR


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Codec: Xvid

Size: 825MB

Runtime: 01:34:46

Resolution: 608x432

Bitrate: 1020 kb/

FPS: 23.976

Audio: English. No subs

192 kb/s (96/ch, stereo) CBR