Dr. Strangelove - Strange and In Love with Destruction, Influences Included

Dr. Strangelove, being the title character of Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb, is charismatic, ruthless, possibly a Nazi and just downright bizarre. Would you be comfortable with your dentist having a mechanical arm, wearing dark sunglasses, and shouting "SEIG HEIL!" at the wrong moment at the wrong time? I would be yanking myself out of the dentist's chair and checking out with the receptionist knowing none the wiser. Dr. Strangelove is a nuclear physicist whose creation background and character portrayal is inspired by several key historical figures.

According to this site, the German version of Strangelove is "merkwuerdigichliebe," which translates to "cherished fate." The name is significant because given to Dr. Strangelove's demented character, the idea of the whole world going up in nuclear flames would sound immensely appealing. The site also analyzed that director Stanley Kubrick would have chosen historical figures involved in nuclear weaponry and nuclear deterrence to help influence Dr. Strangelove's creation.

The first would be Henry Kissinger; he was born in Germany, his accent is in synth with Strangelove's and Kissenger's psychology appears to be linked up with a serial killer. Kissenger wrote about nuclear war in terms of nuclear deterrance and a limited nuclear war. It is an irony that a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize would be convicted of war crimes against humanity.

The second person to possibly influence Strangelove's creation is Werner Von Braun, a rocket scientist who worked for the Nazi Party in Germany until the end of World War II. Although Von Braun, according to the same site, was not too concerned with human morals and ethics, he was taken in by the U.S. government to help develop rockets despite the crimes against humanity he may have partaken in while in the Nazi Party. Can a man be easily pardoned becauses he pioneered rocketry for space exploration? Maybe he escaped the death penalty by engineering the surrender of himself other rocket scienitsts.

The third person up Dr. Strangelove's creation alley would have to be Edward Teller. This Hungarian scientist is infamous to helping to revoke J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance to Los Alamos base, the same base where the first atomic bomb was developed. Teller was a pro-nuclear weapons enthusiast and helped develop the more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The last person to be analyzed would be Herman Kahn. His development for nuclear weapons were more linguistic than most. An example of his linguistic skills would be saying that "only" two million were killed by nuclear weapons. Kahn worked with the RAND corporation, a corporation that was the creation of the Air Force. Kahn's corporate

background is similiar to Dr. Strangelove's partnership with the BLAND corporation.

Looking at these four men related to nuclear warfare and nuclear weapons production, I would have to say these men would be the "Four Scientists of the Apocalypse." You have the strategist, the technologist, the manipulator, and the double-speaker. They were lauded for achievements such as space exploration and diplomacy but they are loathed for supporting genocidal regimes and engineering weapons of mass destruction.

So, what about Dr. Strangelove's mechanical arm? The character's arm may be inspired by Dr. C. A. Rotwang, the mad scientist featured in Fritz Lang's Metropolis who wrecked havoc for everyone in sight. Many critics have made comparisons between Rotwang and Dr. Strangelove, but Kubrick has denied any similiarities. Both are mad scientists, though Rotwang is the guy responsible for the "mad scientist character." Dr. Strangelove can be called a "mad scientist" but he appears to be more of a crook skilled in manipulation, nuclear theory and weirdness.

Dr. Strangelove is a highly memorable character from Kubrick's excellent dark comedy. He is cold, calculating, and is bad news to anyone's war room.

- Kristopher