Strange to think how the fear of life ending in a series of thermonuclear blasts was not only massively widespread at one point in time, but also kind of legitimate. While the threat of being killed in some act of apocalyptic violence is not necessarily lower today, the culture of terror that once surrounded it has vanished. In an era where not having a wifi signal can be a source of major distress, trying to imagine knowing that you and everyone you know could be vaporized in a flash at any time, on any day, is a bit overwhelming.

Naturally, such pervasive emotions seeped into the time period’s culture, with the Cold War appearing in books and films both as an unavoidable acknowledgment and as a coping mechanism. While the media surrounding the Cold War and its promises of nuclear annihilation was often deadly serious, we are fortunate (as were people of the time) that it was also, occasionally, deadly comedic.

Enter Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Released in 1964, just a couple years after the “peak” fear of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film takes on what were then topical issues like Mutually Assured Destruction, jingoism, and brinksmanship, and twists them about until their absurdities are revealed in full. What Joseph Heller was able to do to World War II in Catch-22, writer/director Stanley Kubrick is able to do to the Cold War here.

However, Kubrick shies away from the grandiose themes and characters he would use in his next film, 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. While it was humanity being put to the test by the universe in 2001, Strangelove instead pits humanity against humans. The film kicks off with the insane Colonel Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) ordering a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union upon “discovering” a “plot” by the Soviets to poison US water supplies using fluoride. What follows is a series of bungles, leading, ultimately, to a group of eccentric men attempting to stop the end of the world from within a secret war room. Among them are pushover President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), jingoist General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), and former Nazi nuclear war expert Dr. Strangelove (also Peter Sellers), who can barely contain his excitement at the events unfolding.

Dr. Strangelove screens as part of the MFA’s series, The Films of Stanley Kubrick.

Dr. Strangelove of: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1964
dir. Stanley Kubrick
95 min

Part of series: The Films of Stanley Kubrick