Bourbon and pure rainwater

Rating: 10/10 (19 January 2003)

Dr. Strangelove is my favourite Kubrick movie. It still has something of that detachment found in his other movies. However it manages to connect with the audience in a way that the others don't. It's not just the humour, the film rattles along with a narratively-linked sketch-like structure. Each scene is memorable, of the perfect length and has perfect timing. It shares this quality with films like Pulp Fiction and Withnail & I, perhaps even with material like The Goon Show. Note that all of these films have more than their fair share of quotable moments.
This is the story of the Air Force Base commander who 'exceeds his authority' and sends off his bombers to bomb the Ruskies, the President who tries to get them back and the mysterious scientific advisor, Dr. Strangelove who has some interesting ideas. The humour is a subtle shade of pitch black, finding it's comedy in the spectre of nuclear war at the height of the Cold War.
The acting is superb all round, Peter Sellers takes on three roles and plays them marvellously. Even better is the support given from Slim Pickens, George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden. Kubrick uses some excellent lighting and camerawork, most notable in wonderful War Room scenes. Some of the shots are wonderfully composed, between shoulders and across the War Room table, General Jack D. Ripper outlining his theories while we look up from below. The scenes of the attack on the Air Force base are the forerunners of films like Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan with their shaky, handheld camerawork as if we're invading with the troops.
Some have argued that the film has aged along with the Cold War. It is certainly a savage critique on war and the confrontational politics and posturing of two barely concealed enemies. I think these themes are just as relevant today as they were at the beginning of the 1960s. Just for a moment imagine as the camera looks up at the dramatically lit face of General George W. Bush as he chews on a pretzel and says the following 'I can no longer sit back and allow terrorist infiltration, terrorist indoctrination, terrorist subversion and the international terrorist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious...bodily fluids.' It has a certain, awful sense of familiarity doesn't it?
If you're serious about watching film, this is one that you cannot afford to miss. A classic.