Dr. Strangelove Message Board
Ezekiel Steiner posts a message on 10/23/2006 3:03:36 PM
Theme: we and the powers that be pursue society's rules (in this case it's political, military and technological rules and premises) so single-mindedly that we will wind up destroying the world. Like Slim Pickens (col. King Kong), we get so enmeshed in what we're doing, in the way we've been taught to look at things, that we forget the consequences. Ezekiel Steiner
Soylent Yellow posts on 11/4/2005 10:29:20 PM
My favorite part is the famous "flouride tirade"
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes, Jack?
General Jack D. Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, I can't say I have.
General Jack D. Ripper: Vodka, that's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, I-I believe that's what they drink, Jack,yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Oh, eh, yes. I, hmm, can't quite see what you're getting at, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, uh, Good Lord!
General Jack D. Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes. (He begins to chuckle nervously)
General Jack D. Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes. (More laughter)
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, no I don't know what it is, no.
General Jack D. Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most
monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I-- no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Ezekiel Zeke Steiner posts a message on 11/4/2005 8:27:14 PM
The theme of physical and symbolic entrapment occurs in most of Kubrick's films. In Dr. Stangelove there are three defining spaces. In the enormous War Room, the most powerful men in America are helpless; they have the space but can't use it. They are mocked by it. The men crushed into the B-52 have no space at all, although outside is all the space they could ever need. They are also restricted by their blind devotion to duty, as much as by the narrow fuselage. General Ripper's office, like his paranoid mind, is closed and literally being attached from outside. He retreats into an even smaller space, the bathroom, to shoot himself. Given his imprisoning madness and its consequences, he has nowhere else to go.
Zeke Steiner posts on 1/23/2005 4:15:56 PM
Kubrick, Sellers and Scott! Who could ask for more?
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