|
James Clive Matthews is the author of two books of film criticism, a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and blog editor for the BBC's Pocket Films site. Here he picks five classic war films every home should have. Click to view Top 5 Greatest War Films.
|
Best Cold War Film (Dr Strangelove - 1964) |
|
 Dr Strangelove was a real milestone in an era dominated by a policy with as apt an acronym as MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. The film offers a broad parody of the sheer insanity of a global nuclear standoff; it looked at the greatest Cold War fear and laughed at it. And Peter Sellers fans get him in three roles. |
| |
A decade and a half into the Cold War, the tense confrontation between the Free World and the USSR came to the brink of turning into all-out nuclear Armageddon with the two weeks of terror that was the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Across the world, the terrible realisation that everyone and everything could be wiped out in an instant began to dawn. Where the Cold War may have already brought about fears of spies and sabotage, now its true potential had become clear – and the world was united in its terror.
|
| |
 But then, just over a year later in January 1964, a film arrived that gave a way out of the constant, creeping dread of an atomic holocaust: unrelenting ridicule.
Watching Dr Strangelove (or, to give it its full title, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) again in the post-Cold War world, the humour is still there, the madness still just as strong, Peter Sellers still as entertaining in his three separate roles as the President, mad scientist and nervous British officer, but it has become all but impossible to appreciate just how powerful an attack on a sacred cow this film was on its first release. To make a joke about something as current and terrifying as a nuclear attack was a brave thing indeed in the post-Missile Crisis climate, and a truly welcome breath of fresh air.
The real clincher for Dr Strangelove’s daring was that, nine months after it hit American cinemas, another film based on exactly the same premise – in fact, on the same book – was released. Fail-Safe is just as timely an account of the paranoia of the Cold War, and a great film in its own right. But it played up to the fears of the time and heightened them, showing the public the potential for destruction that lies just a computer glitch away in all its horrific glory.
|
| |
By daring to break away from the prevailing climate of fear, to point at the atomic bomb and laugh, Dr Strangelove showed another way to get through the Cold War – not in a state of terror, but of resigned good humour. Because the promise of the title, the secret of “how to stop worrying and love the bomb” is simple – if it’s going to happen there’s nothing you can do about it anyway, and considering how mad our political overlords must be, blowing us up would be doing us all a favour – if only to put us out of our misery.
|
| |
 Of course, there’s also a strong case for Dr Strangelove’s nihilistic message still being relevant today. Yes, these days it may be random terrorist attacks rather than nuclear annihilation, but are the regular claims of vast terrorist conspiracies we have to put up with today really all that different from General Jack D. Ripper’s theories that the communists are trying to “sap and impurify all our precious bodily fluids”? Is our current political leadership really that different from the psychopaths and imbeciles of the Presidential war room? |
| |
To buy this product try one of the following retailers. They are competitively priced and reliable:
Amazon.co.uk - UK arm of the world’s largest film store
Amazon.com - US arm of the world’s largest film store
For currency converter click here |
|
Other great reviews in Culture:
|
|
RELATED PAGES
USEFUL LINKS
|
Could this