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Rating: "War is too important a matter to be left to the generals."
This phrase, attributed to General Jack D. Ripper (for the record and for translation purposes: Jack the Ripper), could easily replace "Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" as the subtitle of "Dr. Strangelove." We are indeed in the presence of the most merciless and acute satire on propaganda and the attack and defense systems of the Cold War, but above all, on the people who sat in the "war room." In fact, the question often asked during that period was: "What happens if an American or Russian general goes insane and, for no reason, unleashes a rain of hydrogen bombs on the enemy?!?"
Kubrick's answer: life on Earth ends because on the other side, another fool has set up a defense system called the "Doomsday Device" that activates automatically and there's no way to stop it. In short, stupidity, like violence, knows no limits nor remedy; violence is written in man's DNA, violence begets more violence, etc... I cannot remember who said that Stanley Kubrick's "poetics" can be summarized in a sequence from "2001: A Space Odyssey"; the famous one where the ape finds a bone on the ground and the first use it thinks to make with it is to smash the skull of a neighboring cave-dweller...
Anyway... In Kubrick's films, there are the most terrifying faces I've ever seen in my life... Remember that of Alex the Droog during the sessions of the "Ludovico" treatment, with the lid locks and electrodes on the head? Or that of Mr. Grady, axe in hand, chasing his wife through the corridors of the Overlook Hotel ("Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, etc...")? And what about the terrifying face of "Private Pyle"? In my opinion, Kubrick repeated scenes to the point of exhaustion precisely to exasperate the actors and make them adopt a maniacal grin... Take General Ripper, who, amidst the swirls of cigar smoke, explains he became impotent due to a communist conspiracy, guilty of contaminating the drinking water. His expression is both lucid and terrifying. Ripper drank the water and voilà, his body no longer responds as it should. And to save his "vital fluids", what better way than to launch a full-scale attack? Wonderful, however, is the expression of Lieutenant Lionel Mandrake (a great, great Peter Sellers), who, in the face of all this, embodying common sense, tries to bring his general back to his senses.
The entire film is told in tones of the grotesque. Grotesque is the ending, where we see the deadly mushroom cloud rising to the notes of a suave melody ("We'll meet again" by Vera Lynn). The same melody accompanies the flight of the B52 bombers at the beginning, reminiscent of the spaceships dancing to the waltzes of Strauss in "2001: A Space Odyssey". Grotesque is also President Merkin Muffley's phone call (a second wonderful Peter Sellers who also plays Dr. Strangelove himself) to Russian President Kissov. The Russian president is completely drunk, and while his nation is under attack, his only concern is whether the American is happy to hear from him. Muffley reassures him: "Of course I'm happy... What do you mean it makes you happier... I assure you I'm happy just as much as it makes you happy...".
In short, an extraordinary sequence of exuberance, surrealism, paradoxes, and stupidity. And, since we talked about stupidity and since this is still a music review site, I conclude by quoting Frank Zappa, who once said: "Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because of its abundance, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that: I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."
And watch out for your vital fluids...
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