Summary
When a US General in the 1960s suffers a nervous breakdown, he orders an all out nuclear strike on Russia and the entire United States Military must try to stop him from starting World War III and the Apocalypse.
On Humor
This is one of my all time favorite comedies and I’m a bit of a comedy snob. I think the vast majority of comedies today are a waste of time. I’m not saying my sense of humor is better than other people’s, just different. I have spent a good deal of time pinpointing EXACTLY what it is I find funny and delving more into that than trying to enjoy movies that I realize just aren’t for people with my sense of humor.
As a result, I have a few informal principles of humor which I tend to believe in and find truly laugh-out-loud funny. One of them, is used to the extreme in "Dr. Strangelove” and was better explained by the great Roger Ebert than could ever be expounded by me.
"Dr. Strangelove's" humor is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But a man who doesn't know he's wearing a funny hat ... ah, now you've got something.
- Roger Ebert
This principle enacted is one of the true delights of the comedy in this film.
The ‘“Bomb” (see what I did there?)
This movie is a megaton nuclear warhead of comedy with three pieces making up the main elements of this cacophony of ludicrosity.
The first piece is Peter Sellers (“The Pink Panther Strikes Again”). One of the greatest comedians to ever live, many in the United States may have forgotten him with a tragic amount of expedience due to a few factors. He’s British so Americans tend to think of him as somehow outside of mainstream comedy history if the even think of him. He passed away in 1980 and thus was never in any pop-culture movies in the way that we think of them today. In addition, comedy tends to age poorly so many assume old comedies aren’t worth watching.
This is tragic because none of those ideas really stick when you try to label Peter Sellers with them. He may have been British but he is not merely a ‘British Comedy’ phenomenon. His talent as a comedian is so rare that he is frequently referred to as “The Greatest Comedian of All Time.” Keep your EGOT. As for pop-culture, how about “The Pink Panther” series/franchise which he headed up? How about influencing Eddie Murphy and his performance as the Klump Family in “The Nutty Professor.” Oh yeah, and when Stanley Kubrick, a man often credited as the Greatest American Film Maker of All Time, wanted to make a satire he tapped Sellers for the task. That’s got to say something.
As for comedy not aging well, it is one of Seller’s greatest qualities, and Kubrick’s for that matter, that he seems timeless. His humor , while at times requiring knowledge of some context, is remarkably sharp and poignant even today, maybe even more so today.
The next element of the comedy in "Dr. Strangelove" is George C. Scott’s (“Patton”) performance as General Turgidson, an advisor to the President throughout the crisis. This performance is the best in the film and that is saying a lot considering the presence of Peter Sellers in the movie.
Scott’s wildly gesticulating performance is a symbol of every human reaction to a crisis when your only solutions to a problem are violent ones. In the end you find yourself cheering for how effectively you cause your own demise. Scott’s ability to play both the panicked hysteria and the confidence of the military is one of the greatest examples of satire I have ever seen.
The last element which sets this film apart is the script. In so many comedies today the funny is in how dumb the humor is or a character is acting. We are laughing at people doing what we would never do because we have too much sense. In this film, the humor is all directed at the audience. It isn’t the general or the president that is funny in “Dr. Strangelove.” It’s our generals and president that are funny.
The ability of this film, sixty years later, to still be relevant is a testament to how well Kubrick understood the true problems as the heart of human conflict. He doesn’t bother to have a character do something we would never do. He has them do everything we do but points his finger at it and says, “see how silly and stupid you are being.”
Verdict
Kubrick’s ability to take something as deadly serious as war and make it into comedy is genius. His ability to make that comedy one of the greatest philosophical explorations of military conflict is what makes him transcendent.
He forces us to laugh at ourselves and then ask why we are laughing.
Review Written By: