Film
Richard Avedon Film Series: Program 6
Thursday, Aug 13, 2009
7 p.m.
Additional Info
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick, 1964, 93 min., 35mm
Image: Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (still), 1964. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Photofest
SFMOMA thanks Alex Cherian, San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive film archivist, for his assistance and support of this program.
Released two months after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Kubrick’s classic cold war satire paints the United States’ political and military establishment as a chain of command gone mad. With indelible performances by George C. Scott and Peter Sellers (in three roles), Dr. Strangelove‘s power brokers seethe with sexual fears, calculate “acceptable losses” in the tens of millions, fall down drunk, involuntarily offer Nazi salutes, and imagine the adventure of a post-nuclear-war America to come. Based on Peter George’s serious thriller Red Alert, Dr. Strangelove was nominated for four Oscars (though it didn’t win any).