Oliver Yendell

Dr Strangelove is a political comedic war film about an air force general going rogue and commanding a fleet of B-52s to bomb Russia.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Dr Strangelove is one of his lesser-known films, most likely due to its comedic nature but despite that, it is still a visually stunning film. Shot in black and white, using no colour, allows for a more stylistic approach to the cinematography. An example of this is high contrast shots of the war room where the circle table is well-lit, but the background and surrounding area are fully black. This is only possible with shooting in monochrome, as it has a much lower dynamic range than an RGB frame.

The main character of Dr Strangelove, on whom the film is based, has a surprisingly little amount of screen time. He only features in 3 or 4 scenes, while the other characters have much more.

Very little is known about the character of Dr Strangelove. In some ways, this creates a cloud of confusion about who he actually is. In my case, I was really confused about why there was little to no info about him, and I felt that it confused some of the storylines.

Overall, Dr Strangelove is a great film with a satisfying and stylistic approach to both the cinematography and the production design