Same. I was lucky to see it on film once, and the theater projected it without masking, so you could see one of its most brilliant touches, that it has two aspect ratios (1.66:1 and 1.33:1) [0] depending on the scene, which enhances the "rewsreel" effect, as if unrelated stock footage were spliced together. i believe the only home video version that faithfully reproduces this is the criterion dvd, done so at kubrick's explicit demand.
The cinematography overall is brilliant, which is a hallmark of his movies of course, the most famous examples maybe being 2001, and Barry Lyndon, in which he used astrophotographical lenses to capture scenes lit only by candlelight.
Gil Taylor, Strangelove's DP, was a wartime aerial photographer for the RAF, and went on to shoot Star Wars. [1] Just so many fascinating levels of unique brilliance went into the creation of that film.
According to his biopic he was originally slated to play Major Kong as well, but struggled to make the character work. Which is just as well since Slim Pickens is of the great highlights in the film
I haven't checked, but I think the gaps between his movie releases roughly doubled with each release.
There are some scenes in these movies that scream "Kubrick". There always seems to be a perspective shot in which the camera is pointing down the centre of some tunnel or corridor. In Paths of Glory it's a trench; in 2001, it's the aisle of the shuttle. It's usually some grand corridor.
Sterling Hayden, who plays General Ripper, kind of steals the show for me in Dr. Strangelove.
There are other top notch performances but I’ve always loved his scenes with Sellers as the RAF officer trying to reason with his madness.
The film is my favorite and George C. Scott deserves a ton of credit too. Slim Pickens is incredible as well. If there’s one character that is a bit over-the-top for me it’s Dr. Strangelove himself. It’s a close call but I wonder if the film could still work without some of the mein furher, involuntarily nazi salute stuff.
> I wonder if the film could still work without some of the mein furher, involuntarily nazi salute stuff.
That part is funnier if you recognize that the main real life person that Dr Strangelove was a spoof of was Wernher von Braun. (For more insight into the joke, listen to Tom Lehrer's song about Wernher von Braun.)
Yes, but based on the Kubrick quote in that section of the Wikipedia article, von Braun was the main one; and von Braun is the obvious one for the "mein Fuhrer", etc., of Strangelove to be a spoof of.
