Hollywood History: Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove is a landmark film for a variety of reasons. Most obviously, it cemented the career of its now-famous iconoclastic director Stanley Kubrick. The success of Strangelove paved the way for what may very well be the most expensive art film ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dr. Strangelove also surely bears a good deal of credit for opening Hollywood movie studios the idea of black comedies that would be made in the years following; movies such as Lord Love a Duck, M*A*SH and Network, for instance.

The true significance of Dr. Strangelove, however, may be its place in the political history of America. Prior to this film no movie major American movie had ever dared to suggest some of the dangerous geopolitical truths that Dr. Strangelove does; at least not by treating it in such a serious style. The key to the success of the humor of Dr. Strangelove lies in its documentary, deadpan style. Unlike just about every other comedy ever made before, none of the characters knew they were in a comedy. That is to say, no character in Dr. Strangelove-regardless of how outrageous the dialogue or situation-is attempting to be funny. Every line of dialogue is spoken with the complete earnestness of a dramatic motion picture. In fact, it may not be too far-fetched to suggest that if an audience who had never heard of the film before were to view it in ignorance of its comedic intention, it's quite possible a substantial part of them would take it as a serious drama. Clearly this a film that has had a major influence on the Coen brothers who have made a string of comedies where the characters aren't aware they are in a comedy.

This dramatic irony approach is probably the only way Dr. Strangelove could have been successful. Only through the natural distancing that comedy provides could it have been possible to make a film at the height of the Cold War that essentially posits the notion that neither America nor the Soviet Union could make a claim to the high moral ground as long as both were building atomic bombs. It is singularly beyond belief that a movie made in 1964 could present a Soviet Premier who-barely, of course-seems more intelligent and capable than the American President. Only in a comedy could the undermining of traditional Hollywood ideology have taken place. In fact, it is absolutely impossible to even imagine Dr. Strangelove being made a mere ten to fifteen years before due to the communist witch hunt and the cowardly actions of people like Elia "Rat Bastard" Kazan.

Equally important to the lasting legacy of Dr. Strangelove is that it questions the entire concept of technological advancement. Despite treatments in various monster movies that suggest that man should not play God, few serious films had ever paused to consider the consequences of developing advancements in technology before man had developed intellectually enough to use them wisely. The post-war years had witnessed a boom in technological advancements, from the atomic bomb to television, and it was just a natural assumption that all these advancements were going to be good for humanity. Even the bomb was seen not as a weapon of attack but as a weapon of defense. Deep within the American psyche, however, lay the fear that all it would take would be for one man to get his hands on the button and would go kablooie.

In the early 60s that fear was situated on the man perceived as the craziest in the world: Nikita Khrushchev. Stanely Kubrick's film revealed the frightening reality that not all crazy men were situated half a world away in Russia. Even more distressing must have been Dr. Strangelove's revelation that it wouldn't necessarily take a crazy man in charge of the country to wreak devastation. For the first time a non-horror film from Hollywood presented in all its ugly reality the fact that a nuclear nightmare probably wouldn't arrive in the form of giant ants or spiders, but rather in the form of a respected citizen with easy access to the technology that was intended to make us safer from that very threat.

Dr. Strangelove is a significant film in Hollywood history because it challenged the accepted notions that America was always right and moral and-very importantly-competent and that our communist enemies were the exact opposite.