Dr. Strangelove (1964) Movie Review

***Reader-Submitted Review***

By: Hossein Aghababa
(Tehran)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Written by:
Stanley Kubrick (screenplay)
Terry Southern (screenplay)
Peter George (screenplay & book "Red Alert")
Starring:
Peter Sellers - Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake / President Merkin Muffley / Dr. Strangelove
George C. Scott - Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson
Sterling Hayden - Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper
Keenan Wynn - Col. 'Bat' Guano
Slim Pickens - Maj. 'King' Kong
Peter Bull - Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky
James Earl Jones - Lt. Lothar Zogg
Tracy Reed - Miss Scott
Jack Creley - Mr. Staines
Frank Berry - Lt. Dietrich
Robert O'Neil - Adm. Randolph
Glenn Beck - Lt. Kivel

Dr. Strangelove: Has Cold War Really Ended?

The movie is a black comedy on Cold War tensions between United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In this movie, there is a general named Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) who intends to deploy a nuclear attack on USSR because he believes the fluoridation of American water supply is plotted by Russians. He is the only person having access to the code for recalling the bombers. He is going to do this job without informing the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Buck Turgidson (George Scott), and President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers). The entire movie is thrilled by the possible occurrence of an explosion in the world as a result of simple mistake. Stanley Kubrick has made a movie which looks comic at first but the fact is something else. Kubrick is noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism, his reluctance to talk about his films, and his reclusiveness. Kubrick's films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail. The movie "Dr. Strangelove" is an unforgettable Kubrick's masterpiece. He depicted the stress of leaders with scrutiny. The name "Strangelove" is also another point attracting the attention.


The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World – primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies. Although the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

After the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, the USSR and the US saw each other as profound enemies of their basic ways of life. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US financed the recovery of Western Europe and forged NATO, a military alliance using containment of communism as a main strategy (Truman Doctrine). Some countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-Aligned Movement.

The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate a more rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union refused to allow participation by Eastern Bloc members. Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with mixed results. Moscow supported the pro-communist revolt in Cuba, led by Fidel Castro, and in 1962 sent in nuclear missiles. That was intolerable to the Americans, who forced their removal in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as full-scale nuclear war threatened.


The Cold War featured cycles of relative calm and of high tension. The most tense involved the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and the Able Archer 83 NATO exercises in November 1983. Both sides sought détente to relieve political tensions and deter direct military attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reconstruction", "reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", ca. 1985). The Cold War ended after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power. The Cold War and its events have had a significant impact on the world today, and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially films and novels about spies 1.

Now the question is whether the cold war has ended after the collapse of Soviet Union. As the matter of fact, it seems that there are still tensions among major powers of the world. Russia and China from one side and US and its allies from the other have still seismic relations. Although this shaky atmosphere is not militarily threatened, at least yet, however the current economic slump may turn into a dangerous competition whose aftermath is not clear.

1 Wikipedia