Research Paper on "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964"

Research Paper 10 pages (3234 words) Sources: 4

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Bergson and Kubrick: How I Learned to Laugh at Dr. Strangelove

an Analysis of Bergson's Laughter

As Bergson suggests, the comic and the human are inextricably linked: "the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human" (Bergson 3). Hidden in the self-awareness of humans is the kernel of comedy: we are able to laugh and be laughed at. Comedy brings us, so to speak, back down to earth -- lest we drift off into the ethereal atmosphere of our intelligence and lose all sense of ourselves, our very real (and physical) human nature. The fact that so much of humor in films is physical (and effectively so) bears testimony to what I have just stated: humor reminds us not only of who we are but also of what we are. We are not wholly spiritual or intellectual creatures: we are a strange union of spirit (intelligence) and body -- neither angels nor beasts but somewhere in between.

Bergson also suggests that to laugh, one must maintain an air of something like holy indifference -- a profound "lack of feeling" (Bergson 4) as he calls it, which allows one to view the drama of life as a spectator, whose soul is "thoroughly calm and unruffled" (Bergson 4). It is this sublime serenity that accounts for his ability to laugh, to find humor in all things human. His spirit is cleansed. He is in no need of a cathartic (tragic) effect in order to purify his emotions: they are already pure -- thus, he can laugh at himself and at his fellow man. Dr. Strangelove is a comedy (black, so they say) which examines modern man's struggle to attain purity ("purity of essence" is Jack D. Ripper's obsession) as well as his struggle to control both his fate and that of the world around him.

Finally, Bergson states that comedy is social. Laughter is contagious. And it has a "social signification" (Bergson 8). In this sense, Bergson approaches laughter from a functionalist theory or perspective. What is the function of laughter? What purpose does it serve? How does it operate? What are the necessary prerequisites? He analyzes each of these questions (and many others) in order to arrive at an understanding of how "laughter is a 'social gesture,' a function with a specific utility in society" (Laine). We might say, like Laine, that the purpose of comedy is to "serve society by pointing out our antisocial tendencies and inviting us to laugh at them, thus encouraging us to correct them" (Laine). Comedy reminds us not to be too idealistic: Don Quixote and Sancho are "runners after the ideal who stumble over realities, child-like dreamers for whom life delights to lie in wait" (Bergson 14). Life, then, is the principle. Comedy is the pure soul's light-hearted engagement with life. Serious and disturbing issues like death can in fact be dealt with in a comedic, light-hearted way when the soul is calm and indifferent. The question is: what calms the soul? What gives the soul an ability to laugh even in the face of grim death? (and Dr. Strangelove certainly does ask us to laugh in just such a face). Is it a knowledge of life after death? (Dr. Strangelove does end with a love ballad -- Vera Lynn singing "We'll meet again," perhaps suggesting the possibility of life after death, the possibility of Strangelove's madcap regeneration of the human race in his underground harem, or the possibility that Vera Lynn was all wrong -- that humanity is doomed and that Kubrick is getting in one final joke as the world obliterates itself; this latter possibility may be what gives the film it's "black comedy" label -- it is dark humor, macabre humor, gallows humor).

Bergson's theory of laughter must ultimately confront the serious questions, for, as he states, comedy by taking nothing seriously takes everything seriously. And yet, seriousness is not the issue. In comedy, a scene is funny "whether serious or trifling" (Bergson 145). The reason is that comedy does not attempt to rouse the emotions -- not in the way that tragedy does. Tragedy causes us to look inward, to separate ourselves from society for a moment in order to cleanse, to purify our spirits. Comedy causes us to look outward, to gather together in society. Comedy returns us to earth and readies us for transcendence again: it calls us back to ourselves only so that we may look around and see that we are not automatons. "As soon as we forget the serious object of a solemnity or a ceremony, those taking part in it give us the impression of puppets in motion…complete automatism…" (Bergson 45-6). Comedy laughs at the mechanical, at the disruption of the mechanical, at the restoration of the humanness of our lives; it destroys pomposity, disturbs rationality, throws off sanctimony, and makes us seem worse than we are. As Aristotle states in his Poetics, comedy is "an imitation of characters of a lower type, not, however in the full sense of the word bad" (Aristotle). Tragedy portrays as us better than we are (the tragic hero is, by definition, better and greater than the average man); comedy portrays us as worse than we are (the comic hero is defective, wanting in some sense). As Bergson insists, "Unsociability in the performer and insensibility in the spectator…are the two essential conditions" of comedy -- the third is automatism, "the involuntary gesture or the unconscious remark…by which the person unwittingly betrays himself" (Bergson 145-6).

Bergson would say that gallows humor, ala Dr. Strangelove, contains each of these three conditions: its characters are oddly separated from one another (Jack D. Ripper -- the man at the heart of the film's conflict -- is perhaps the most isolated man in the world, and at one point he isolates himself from his only companion, Mandrake, in order to take his life in the bathroom); its audience is insensible (and yet sensible, or else it does not get the joke) to the death and destruction that awaits the world once Major Kong rides the bomb to its target; and the comedy stems from the utter disruption of the war machine -- the "perfect," mechanistic system of war politics that suddenly goes completely haywire and sends everyone running for cover. The sort of gallows humor that Dr. Strangelove projects is "typical of the nations which are oppressed by their invaders" and provides a kind of moral support to those who wish to challenge their oppressors (Obrdlik 709).

Why Dr. Strangelove is Funny

The title itself announces the film's function: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It is going to present in terms of ironic juxtaposition, in terms of charactonym ("Strangelove" suggests the strangle love harem that will "solve" the threat of immanent destruction), and tongue-in-cheek satire. The film also claims to be an instructional: it will show the viewer how the subject learned something -- namely, how he learned to throw off his cares and happily embrace a weapon of mass destruction.

Kubrick set out to write a serious film -- but as he began working on the plot he saw how the premise was simply so absurd that it could not be taken seriously, at least not directly. Therefore, he began pushing its absurdity to its logical end and by doing so found he could approach the seriousness of the subject much more easily. By using satire, gallows humor, slapstick and a stark visual style, Kubrick could appeal to a Cold War culture in the grip of nuclear hysteria and sexual/social revolution.

Dr. Strangelove deftly blends slapstick and political/social satire. George C. Scott's Gen. Turgidson (his very name is suggestive of the swollen, egoistic members of the State, occupying the bloated table under the "big board") bumbles his way around the War Room, chomping on his gum like a horse, tumbling across the floor in his militaristic zeal, and tussling with the Soviet observer. He is a long lost member of the Three Stooges. In fact, the film might just as well be staring Larry, Curly and Moe. Between Scott and Sellers (who plays Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, Strangelove, and President Merkin Muffley -- whose name "merkin" is a term that means "pubic wig"), buffoonery is not lacking.

The uses of laughter in this film are social and political; they are gentle and acerbic; they are meant to both bite and amuse. Scott's Turgidson is so humorous with his facial expressions and acrobatics (recovering gracefully from a tumble without missing a beat in his dialogue and impersonating a B-52 as it embarks on a mission that will spark world destruction) that one can easily appreciate the film for Scott's antics alone. But Scott is not the only actor in the film. Sterling Hayden plays the unhinged Brigadier General Ripper, whose obsession with Purity ("I don't avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence") is delivered with point-blank seriousness (which fulfills… READ MORE

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