Dr.Strangelove (1964)

I have heard that Stanley Kubrick insisted that the cloth of the table in the War Room should be green even though it is a black and white film. Just to show even more that the politicians and generals look like they were playing poker with each other. It is stories like this make you like that man even more.

The main thing I will write about in this entry is the use of phallic symbols; we talked about some of them in class. The opening scene with the refueling of the airplane is one good example. The second one is about Gen. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) when he smokes his big cigar. This made me think of Gen. Turgidson (George C. Scott). He does not smoke a big cigar like Gen. Ripper, instead he is constantly chewing bubblegum. Naremore mentions that this makes him look like a giant child, I agree about this but my initial thought when I saw this is that he is trying to quit smoking. He has lost his phallic symbol. Which may explain why he is shrugging away like “a little boy” when the president tell him to be quiet. When we are first introduced to Gen. Turgidson he is with his girlfriend that is also his secretary. She may be the one that has told him to quit and she even calls him up during the meeting in the war room just to make sure she is not just another girl. Gen.Turgidson even at some point thinks they should maybe continue with Gen. Ripper’s plan and he also speaks gladly about the B-52’s pilot’s ability to continue to their target even if the plane is damaged. Perhaps if he was allowed to continue smoke he may even be a supporter of Gen.Ripper or the one that had started the thing himself.

Finally I just want to show what I found when I was looking through some of Stanley Kubrick pictures from Look Magazine.

“I am inspired by everything I seen” is a famous quote from Stanley Kubrick and perhaps he was taking inspiration from this photo for the look of Dr.Strangelove.