Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

“My favorite movie ever made, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Now, here’s the interesting thing about Strangelove. You never want your actors to know they’re working on a comedy. In fact, you never want anyone to know you’re making a comedy. If the wardrobe person knows you’re making a comedy, the wardrobe will be too loud. If the composer knows you’re making a comedy, there’ll be slide whistles. No one, especially the actors, should ever know you’re working on a comedy. And the genius of Kubrick in this movie is that no one, except occasionally for George C. Scott, who almost ruins the movie, no one knows they’re making a comedy. Anyway, my single favorite movie ever made.”

“Dr. Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick, okay? The first time I heard about Stanley Kubrick, I want to tell you, people, was a movie called Spartacus. Can you believe that Stanley Kubrick came in four weeks before shooting that movie and he shot that movie? And he didn't want any credit for it, and it was one of the most amazing movies. But this movie right here, Peter Sellers, wow, George C. Scott, what, you know, James Earl Jones. I mean, all these guys when they were they were young, they were coming into their prime. But this is a great movie. Gave me something to think about.”

“Here's another film by my friend Stanley Kubrick, who I worked with on Full Metal Jacket. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley said that he told me that he wanted to make a movie that was a serious movie about the doomsday machine and about nuclear proliferation and nuclear warfare and the terrifying aspects of it. But the more he did research, the more he realized how stupid the entire thing was, and that you couldn't make a serious movie about this because the absurdity of human behavior and in human the industrial military complex was it was so ridiculous that the only way that you could really make a good movie about the nuclear war and nuclear bombs was to make a comedy.”

“There's never been a movie like this, Dr. Strangelove. I play this game: if there was a day and all your favorite filmmakers were opening a movie on that day, which filmmaker's movie would you see first? That tells you something, right? For me, it's this guy.”

“Dr. Strangelove. I saw this film first run when I was a young teenager, 1964. I was 16 years old. My parents took me to it in downtown Chicago, which was very odd for them, they rarely took me to a film, let alone would go to a film downtown, but I guess it was a big hit at the time or something, I don’t know. And I just loved it. I mean, I thought Peter Sellers was so great. Everybody was great. Sterling Hayden. At the very end, when… I mean, is that the darkest ending of any comedy I ever saw. And Kubrick, who’s the master of music, I think, among other things, in his films, puts in this great Vera Lynn song, this really beautiful song. She sings “We’ll Meet Again.” It’s playing with these beautifully edited shots of atomic bombs going off in just the right way. It was very powerful to me, that counterpoint of that music and those bombs. The lights came up and I looked around, nobody got up in their seats, this packed audience, mostly middle-aged couples, and I’m looking, like, “How come they’re not getting up?” And they were just stunned. They didn’t know what to make of the film. There’s my personal story about it, anyway.”

“One of the main, though last, selection: Dr. Strangelove is just such a brilliant film. It’s just fabulous. And it makes me laugh and smile every time. You know, I visit these films from the early ’60s, this one stayed with me better than any of the rest, I think. I just love it.”