Strangelove, what a name for a movie so peculiar. 'Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb', is Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece. Yes, this is what a masterpiece is. Not Pollock's spray of colors on a wide huge canvas or Picasso's 'modernistic' sketches of himself and women he loved. Kubrick re-established the power of destructive events to trigger truth, how people fall and rise. Symbolism at its best, from the ex-Nazi Doctor Strangelove to Captain Jack who launched doomsday. Funny way of treating life and death. There are very few movies that make me laugh, and silly humor just repulses me. Movies like Scary Movie are bulls crap, I cannot fathom the success it has been making all these years. Humor is not running around naked and making a joke out of yourself by having sex with busty women, humor is not people getting drunk and committing nonsense, even if it is, its the lowest form of it. Humor, I believe lies with the clowns. Shakespeare's clowns who mumbled words and juggled ideologies like second-hand jokes, how Marlowe's Wagner is understood to be as important as Faustus himself. Humor at its best, tickles you with its cleverness and lays you back with a punch.
And this is what the deal is with 'Dr. Strangelove', its foolish and satirical, and its amazing how the final scene with the world burning into ashes makes you smile and laugh. Vera Lynn's iconic number 'We'll Meet Again' is the best choice for a cinematic genius like this. Kubrick has presented his outlook on politics and war with such colors that it's impossible to ignore the layers. An eccentric suicidal officer triggering the end of civilization, an over enthusiastic indulgent commander keen on waging a war, a President who is a pussy, a Russian Ambassador who despite all the chaos decides to spy and then Strangelove, whose one hand seems to be still in control of his Nazi duties. The struggle between Strangelove's right hand and the the enritre body is quiet a spectacle, where his mind tries to provide a solace for human kind post nuclear war, his right hand covered by a black leather glove tries to kill him. I don't think I will be able to grasp all of it just by one watch, but what I did understand was the timidity of human mind in front of its own foolishness. Drunk Russian president is rather reluctant about taking any decisions and expects to be talked 'nicely' to. A struggle goes on between idea of achieving immortality and greatness, and trivial means of survival. The pilots on the bomber are so determined to follow their orders by an insane captain that one of them launches a bomb while siting on it. I always thought and believed that humans were so malleable and gullible. They'd believe everything that is said if promised with glory. This struggle is not a modern phenomena, it has been prevalent from the times of Greek epics and Indian warriors. Somehow mankind has always been fascinated with the idea of sacrifice, they fight for glory and attain immortality through sacrifice. Though I cannot criticize or contradict that, at least it is way better than killing yourself over a boy/girl.
It is fascinating how over the course of five decades priorities have shifted for people. Take the example of London Olympics Opening Ceremony, how amusing. Given the death match industries are playing with environment, I seriously doubt the credibility of glorifying Industrial Revolution and that too with Mordor like towers and poor people laboring, for the first time I thought of our Commonwealth Opening Ceremony to be superior. Voldemort and Black Plague? Really? It isn't some kindergarten orientation, where fictional character tell stories to make little kids understand history. But anyways, I managed to ignore this lack of culture, only till a bunch of punk-dressed jazzy kids started tweeting each other and dancing on electro music, they might have asked David Guetta to perform as well. Whatever happened to Danny Boyle.
Anyways, I am always left with a question whenever I watch such movies, that focus on greater events. Whatever happened to common masses? The people who will be bombed and burnt alive during those blasts, the people that Bane kills and Batman tries to save over and over again (though I wished they all died but still), the people Kevin kills so effortlessly in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'?
How insignificant are these lives? People and the World is moved and governed by a bunch of neurotic eccentrics. Only the insane can drive the masses for long. Example, from Adolf Hitler to Gandhi, two of the messiest masterminds that are a household name.
I guess we need someone now who is beautifully bonkers!
;)
And this is what the deal is with 'Dr. Strangelove', its foolish and satirical, and its amazing how the final scene with the world burning into ashes makes you smile and laugh. Vera Lynn's iconic number 'We'll Meet Again' is the best choice for a cinematic genius like this. Kubrick has presented his outlook on politics and war with such colors that it's impossible to ignore the layers. An eccentric suicidal officer triggering the end of civilization, an over enthusiastic indulgent commander keen on waging a war, a President who is a pussy, a Russian Ambassador who despite all the chaos decides to spy and then Strangelove, whose one hand seems to be still in control of his Nazi duties. The struggle between Strangelove's right hand and the the enritre body is quiet a spectacle, where his mind tries to provide a solace for human kind post nuclear war, his right hand covered by a black leather glove tries to kill him. I don't think I will be able to grasp all of it just by one watch, but what I did understand was the timidity of human mind in front of its own foolishness. Drunk Russian president is rather reluctant about taking any decisions and expects to be talked 'nicely' to. A struggle goes on between idea of achieving immortality and greatness, and trivial means of survival. The pilots on the bomber are so determined to follow their orders by an insane captain that one of them launches a bomb while siting on it. I always thought and believed that humans were so malleable and gullible. They'd believe everything that is said if promised with glory. This struggle is not a modern phenomena, it has been prevalent from the times of Greek epics and Indian warriors. Somehow mankind has always been fascinated with the idea of sacrifice, they fight for glory and attain immortality through sacrifice. Though I cannot criticize or contradict that, at least it is way better than killing yourself over a boy/girl.
It is fascinating how over the course of five decades priorities have shifted for people. Take the example of London Olympics Opening Ceremony, how amusing. Given the death match industries are playing with environment, I seriously doubt the credibility of glorifying Industrial Revolution and that too with Mordor like towers and poor people laboring, for the first time I thought of our Commonwealth Opening Ceremony to be superior. Voldemort and Black Plague? Really? It isn't some kindergarten orientation, where fictional character tell stories to make little kids understand history. But anyways, I managed to ignore this lack of culture, only till a bunch of punk-dressed jazzy kids started tweeting each other and dancing on electro music, they might have asked David Guetta to perform as well. Whatever happened to Danny Boyle.
Anyways, I am always left with a question whenever I watch such movies, that focus on greater events. Whatever happened to common masses? The people who will be bombed and burnt alive during those blasts, the people that Bane kills and Batman tries to save over and over again (though I wished they all died but still), the people Kevin kills so effortlessly in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'?
How insignificant are these lives? People and the World is moved and governed by a bunch of neurotic eccentrics. Only the insane can drive the masses for long. Example, from Adolf Hitler to Gandhi, two of the messiest masterminds that are a household name.
I guess we need someone now who is beautifully bonkers!
;)
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