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Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Essay

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Review of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Stanley Kubrick is infamous for his witty films that satire governmental and societal actions though history. In this film, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Kubrick is once again directing a film that is a biting, sardonic comedy that pokes fun at the nuclear fears of the 1950s. The screenplay for the movie was written by Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern, and was based on the novel Red Alert written by Peter George. In this film, which is classified as a black comedy/fantasy, technology runs amok and takes over society and mankind. The irony of the situation, however, became apparent when shortly after …show more content…

Another such loaded name is Jack D. Ripper, which is the name of the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command's Commanding Officer. The name is symbolic of an infamous English serial killer. By placing this name with a senior commander in the US Military, Kubrick is attempting to show the bloodlust that he perceived the US Military's higher levels to have during that time towards the USSR. Yet another suggestive name is the name of another General in the US Military. This symbolism is slightly more subtle, because "buck" signifies a male animal, and turgid is a word meaning swollen. This name shows Kubrick's suggestion that the US Military had an inflated sense of self-worth during this era. These names serve to both show the director's opinions of individuals and systems of the time period, but also makes the connection in the viewer's mind from the male obsession with sex to the male obsession with war.

The next vehicle Kubrick uses to convey his thoughts on the matter is distortion of history. This is not, however, a vulgar distortion of history intended to misinform the viewer. Instead it is a purposeful distortion of history through which Kubrick can present a hypothetical situation in order to get a point across. In factual history, nothing of the sort ever happened as it is portrayed in the movie. In fact, Columbia

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