Shot by Shot Analysis: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Length: 7 seconds

Description: Fade in after the credits sequence. The shot descends towards what is apparently an airport. The camera slowly zooms in, moving somewhat diagonally towards the left edge of the frame. The bottom of the frame is filled with a tall building which has several lights on in the windows, and what appears to be a hangar. The runway runs off into deep space on the left half of the frame.

Graphic Composition: The frame begins in blackness, then fades into a nighttime shot which is only lit enough to highlight the large details of the runway and surrounding structures. The runway constitutes the primary object in the composition. Except for a few scattered light sources, the upper right half of the frame is completely black, contrasting the left half.

Shot Scale: Extreme long shot which moves in closer but is still an extreme long shot.

Camera Angle: High, possibly a crane, but appears to be positioned on top of a building or other structure, tilted downwards.

Camera Placement: High; stationary except for the zoom in.

Optical Movement: Slow zoom in towards the airfield.

Lighting: Low key natural and available light, emphasizing the night

Depth of field: Infinite deep focus; everything clearly visible.

Sound: Sound of airplane engines; diegetic, on screen, synchronous, slightly loud dynamic.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 2

Length: 5 seconds

Description: A radar tower spins, making one complete revolution.

Graphic Composition: The radar fills the lower half of the frame. Behind it is a clear sky with scattered clouds and buildings barely visible on the horizon. The composition sharply contrasts that of the previous shot; it is now daylight, as opposed to night. It is also composed horizontally with its focus on the radar as opposed to Shot 1 which is composed vertically with emphasis on the runway.

Shot Scale: Extreme long shot, but due to the size of the photographed object, it appears as a medium long shot.

Camera Angle: Slightly low angle, tilted upwards.

Camera Placement: Medium height; stationary.

Optical Movement: None.

Lighting: High key natural front lighting.

Depth of Field: Infinite deep focus; everything visible.

Sound: Sound bridge from Shot 1--continued roar of engines at slightly loud dynamic; diegetic, off screen, presumably synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 3

Length: 3 seconds

Description: A large air force bomber sits on the runway. Several buildings are in the background as well as other small planes and vehicles.

Graphic Composition: The bomber in the foreground is the thrust of the composition and creates a slight graphic match with the radar in the previous shot. It is brightly lit and stands out sharply from the rest of the high contrast composition.

Shot Scale: Extreme long shot.

Camera Angle: High angle crane shot.

Camera Placement: High placement; stationary.

Optical Movement: None

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Low key rear lighting emanates from large lights in the back of the frame creating sharp contrasts within the shot.

Sound: Sound bridge continues from Shot 2, the rumble of engines; diegetic, off screen, synchronous, slightly loud dynamic.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 4

Length: 6 seconds

Description: A bomber taking flight leaves the runway, taking off from the bottom left corner of the frame and flying diagonally across to the upper right corner.

Graphic Composition: The plane travels across the frame until it makes up the entire top half of the composition. The flying plane continues the horizontal pattern of composition from the last two shots.

Shot Scale: Extreme long shot which zooms into a medium long shot of the plane.

Camera Angle: Begins straight on, then tilts upwards to keep the rising plane in frame.

Camera Placement: Medium height; pans left to right, following the plane across the frame.

Optical Movement: Zooms in on the plane as it begins to cross the cameraÕs position.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Natural high key top or front lighting.

Sound: Continued sound bridge from Shot 3 which gets slightly louder. Halfway though the duration of the shot, the sound of the plane taking off is added, increasing the dynamics. All sounds are diegetic, on screen and synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 5

Length: 15 seconds

Description: A man (Group Captain Mandrake) steps out from behind a large sheet of printouts in a room full of tape recorders, computers and three other people at work. He looks right and walks across the frame to the right, through a set of swinging doors. A sign overhead reads "Peace is Our Profession." He walks over to a desk and a man hands him a phone. Mandrake sits down at the chair and begins speaking.

Graphic Composition: Office scene is a departure from the previous scenes of airplanes and other machines, and is based on vertical composition as opposed to horizontal. Shot contrast is high and the dark-clothed military officers stand out sharply from the mostly white, washed out background.

Shot Scale: Plan American, zoom into about a medium shot, and then back.

Camera Angle: Straight on.

Camera Placement: Begins on Mandrake and pans right as he moves across the room, keeping him in frame.

Optical Movement: Slight zoom in on Mandrake as he walks through the doors, then zooms back out, ending at the original focal length when he sits.

Lighting: Front high key and top lighting.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Sound: Two off screen buzzes attract Mandrake's attention and prompt him to walk to the next room. Sound of his foot steps as he walks. The man who hands him the phone announces that it is General Ripper, and Mandrake states his name into the phone. All sounds are of a normal dynamic, diegetic, synchronous and (with the above noted exception) on screen.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 6

Length: 5 seconds

Description: A man, General Ripper, sits at a desk in a dark office talking on the phone.

Graphic Composition: Use of a wide angle lens makes the room seem enormous and Ripper somewhat ominous as he looms in the back of the frame. The room is very dark in contrast to the previous, well lit shot, and a single light hangs down over the desk casting its light on Gen. Ripper. There are five pictures on the wall and other scattered furniture.

Shot Scale: Long shot, wide angle lens.

Camera Angle: Straight on.

Camera Placement: Medium height, stationary.

Optical Movement: None.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Low key top lighting on ripper with a hard, less luminescent side fill to expose the rest of the frame.

Sound: Ripper speaks into the phone at a normal dynamic, and Mandrake is also heard, but his voice is slightly distorted and at a softer dynamic to imply that the viewer is hearing the sound through phone. All sounds are diegetic, synchronous and on screen.

Edit: Straight cut.

At this point, twenty shots follow which compose a shot/reverse shot conversation between Group Capt. Mandrake and Gen. Ripper. In this sequence, generally every other shot is the same shot of Mandrake: a medium shot from the front and he is sitting at the desk talking on the phone. The other shots show Ripper's office, but he is photographed from a different angle each time the camera cuts back to him. He is generally shot alternating between medium shots from the side and front with a few close-ups of his face. The sequence ends with a repetition of Shot 6 with Ripper hanging up the phone, getting up and closing the blinds on his windows.

Shot 7

Length: 7 seconds

Description: Six bombers in flight and holding a steady pattern flying across from right to left.

Graphic Composition: The color of the sky in the background fades from bottom to top in a light to dark wash, the light section of the frame created by the cloud cover which the planes fly above. Four of the planes fly in gray area in between in the middle of the frame, while one flies near the top of the frame, its exhaust standing out sharply from the dark background. The only part of the sixth plane which is visible is one engine in the lower right hand corner.

Shot Scale: Extreme long shot.

Camera Angle: Straight on.

Camera Placement: High placement relative to the ground, but relative to other planes, it is at a medium height and appears to be on board the sixth plane. There is little visible movement, but the camera obviously moves right to left inside the sixth plane, keeping the other planes in frame.

Optical Movement: None.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth; all planes of movement appear to be in focus, but it is difficult to tell due to the distance of the furthest bomber.

Lighting: Hard low key front lighting from the sun which partially reflects off the cloud cover, creating a bottom lighting effect.

Sound: Diegetic on screen roar of engines at a slightly loud dynamic. Non-diegetic off screen narration at a normal dynamic. The dynamics of the engine noise lowers when the narration enters. All sounds are presumably synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 8

Length: 3 seconds

Description: One plane flies across the sky, pointing towards the right.

Graphic Composition: This cut is graphically mismatched from the planes before, which were flying left. The background of the composition is a washed out white at the top of the frame which fades into a darker tone at the bottom which is graphically reverse of the last shot. The light strikes the wings in a way that they seem to almost disappear into the background while the hull is sharply defined and cast in shadows. Scattered clouds are visible under the plane and the peaks of a few mountains are visible in deep space.

Shot Scale: Medium long shot; the composition contains a balance between the bomber and its surroundings.

Camera Angle: Slightly high, tilted.

Camera Placement: Placed on another plane to allow the bomber to be photographed. Medium height, relative to the bomber. The camera moves from left to right with the plane it is placed on and keeps the photographed bomber in frame.

Optical Movement: None.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Hard low key top lighting, casting dark shadows on the hull while washing out the wings and clouds.

Sound: Sound bridge from previous shot; continued diegetic on screen sound of engines at a lowered dynamic, continued non-diegetic off screen narration at a normal dynamic. All sounds synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 9

Length: 4 seconds

Description: A bomber flies towards the camera over mountains.

Composition: The bomber's wings span the entire horizontal width of the 1.33:1 frame. There is a large mountain visible in the background, underneath the plane. Except for this mountain, most of the ground is in shadows. Although it occupies the foreground of the frame, the bomber seems to almost get lost in the composition. This plane and the plane in the next shot could possibly be matted special effects due to the mismatched lighting on the plane and background, and the overall look of the compositions.

Shot Scale: Long shot

Camera Angle: High angle, tilted downwards.

Camera Placement: High, moves backwards keeping the bomber in frame.

Optical Movement: None.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Hard low key lighting, from the side on the mountains but from the front on the plane.

Sound: Sound bridge from previous shot; continued diegetic on screen sound of engines at a lowered dynamic, continued non-diegetic off screen narration at a normal dynamic. All sounds synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Shot 10

Length: 5 seconds

Description: A bomber flies right to left over desolate, rocky terrain.

Graphic Composition: Not much background detail; the ground appears fairly washed out and the horizon is barely visible. The bomber flies just above the middle of the frame.

Shot Scale: In the long shot to medium long shot range.

Camera Angle: Slightly high, tilted.

Camera Placement: Medium height relative to the plane. Moves left with the plane, keeping it in frame.

Optical Movement: None.

Depth of Field: Infinite depth, everything in focus.

Lighting: Low key side lighting, hard on the plane but a little softer on the background.

Sound: Sound bridge from previous shot; continued diegetic on screen sound of engines at a lowered dynamic, continued non-diegetic off screen narration at a normal dynamic. All sounds synchronous.

Edit: Straight cut.

Released in 1964 during the height of the Cold War, Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb stands out as the funniest film ever made about global nuclear destruction. Kubrick, who's past credits included The Killing, Paths of Glory and Spartacus, turned Peter George's taught suspense novel Red Alert into an absurd comedy of errors where by through a series of accidents, the United States and the Soviet Union manage to destroy civilization as we know it.

The plot unfolds as Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) launches a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviets under "Plan R," a situation where only he has the code to stop the attack. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), along with Gen. "Buck" Turgidson and the mysterious Dr. Strangelove (also Sellers), work frantically in the War Room to find away to stop this attack, which will set off the Soviet's secret "Doomsday Machine," and end all life on earth. Meanwhile, Group Captain Mandrake (Sellers again) tries to stop Ripper and find out the call back code, while the Air Force bomber Leper Colony, piloted by Major T. J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens), races through Soviet air space to deploy it's payload.

The first ten shots of Dr. Strangelove are essential in the process of setting up the events which will occur in the rest of the film. Kubrick starts by showing us four shots which contain sights and sounds which would normally be found in and around an Air Force base. Panes take off and land, work is done in hangars, nothing is made to seem out of the ordinary.

In contrast to much of the rest of the film, these shots are cut fairly quickly. Not much screen time is given for the viewer to stop and analyze their composition or details. It is more important that these shots give the viewer a total sense of location. Rather than functioning as individual shots, they work together as a unit to help establish one of the film's three main locations.

The next shot takes the audience inside Burpelson Air Force Base. In this and the following shots, Kubrick introduces us to two of the film's biggest players, Mandrake and Ripper, and through the way the shots are composed, we become somewhat aware of each character's function within the plot.

We first see Group Captain Lionel Mandrake in Shot 5. Mandrake is portrayed as a fairly unthreatening yes-man. Kubrick photographs Mandrake in a well lit office which appears almost stark white on the black and white film stock. In the next shot, we are introduced to Gen. Ripper. The first time we see Ripper, he is alone in a dark office, smoking a cigar. A single light hangs down over his desk illuminating him and casting an aura of mystery and almost. As opposed to Mandrake's soft British accent, Ripper speaks in a harsh growl over the phone. While Mandrake is continually photographed from the same angle, shot scale and position, shots of Ripper cut back and forth between several positions, including a closeup of his face, a shot Kubrick often uses to portray a character's ominous presence, such as in A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. The stark, hard lighting also emphasizes the mystery and danger of Ripper's actions (this lighting motif also carries over to shots of the War Room), which is contrasted by the high key lighting used in the shots of Mandrake in the world which is outside Ripper's.

In this shot/reverse shot sequence, key pieces of the plot are put into action. Ripper orders that the base be sealed off, and that Mandrake transmit "Plan R" to the wing, which is holding at the fail safe point. We are also introduced to Ripper's paranoia when he asks Mandrake several times if Mandrake recognizes his voice. In these shots, Kubrick does two things: introduces two main characters and their setting, and starts the chain of events which will decide the outcome of the film.

The next scene begins with several individual shots of B-52 bombers in flight. Non diegetic narration informs us that to protect against nuclear attack, these planes are always in flight and prepared to drop the hydrogen bomb. Kubrick photographs these bombers from various positions and angles. For the most part, cuts between the different shots are graphically mismatched; in Shot 7, the planes are flying right to left, in Shot 8, left to right. These mismatches give the viewer the feeling that he is seeing many different planes in many different places, not simply one squadron of planes flying to a specific location, and that the U. S. is ready to drop the bomb anywhere at anytime.

This series of bombers serves as a segue between the previous scene at Burpleson and the next scene where we will be introduced to the crew of the Leper Colony. It serves the function of not only providing something visual on screen during the narration, but preparing the viewer to be taken inside a plane, and the plane will serve as the second of three primary locations for the film.

In these opening shots, Kubrick sets up what is to come in the rest of the film. Although it will still take a little longer for all sets and characters to be introduced (we have yet, at this point, to see the third major location, the War Room, or to meet Gen. Turgidson, Major Kong, President Muffley or Dr. Strangelove), these first shots establish much of the story and motifs which are to come. Along with these shots, the credit sequence also helps to establish important motifs for the film.

The credits stand apart from the rest of the film, serving no real function to the film's narrative. The credit sequence's primary function is to inform the viewer of the film's title and personnel. As opposed to standard block letters which are used in the credits of many films, the titles are written in a font intended to look as if they have been handwritten, and different words are of variable size. In the background behind the graphics are shots of a bomber being refueled by another plane. Taken literally, this prepares the viewer to see a film which is about the military, and specifically, about airplanes.

On a symbolic level, the credit sequence takes on a much different connotation. The refueling process makes the bombers appear to be copulating in mid air. The first shot of the credits sequence is a protruding long, phalliclooking fueling tube which is then inserted into the bomber. Kubrick cuts back and forth between a shot showing the insertion of the tube straight on and one of both planes, connected by the tube. In the latter shot, the camera bobs up and down along with the non-diegetic, romantic background music. The music ends with woodwinds winding down to a close, and as this is heard, the bomber blissfully slides away from the refueling plane as the credit sequence ends.

The sexual imagery in this sequence sets up an entire motif of sexual gags and innuendoes which will run through the entire course of the film. Gen. Ripper states that he is attacking the Soviets due to a Communist plot, which he learned of after the "act of physical love," to fluoridate our water and "pollute our precious bodily fluids." Major Kong rides a phallic hydrogen bomb into oblivion, hooting and hollering all the way. The crippled Dr. Strangelove finally becomes fully erect at the thought of nuclear destruction and a mine-shaft populated at a ratio of ten females to every male. The title itself, Strangelove, describes the "strange love" the characters (and implicitly, all officers and politicians) have with weapons and war. And finally, in contrast to the credit sequence, the film ends with a montage of atomic explosions which seems a dark representation of multiple orgasms.

In its opening shots, Kubrick begins to set the stage for Dr. Strangelove. As it is a relatively short film (about 90 minutes), it is important that these first shots convey as much meaning as possible, and Kubrick has done just that. Of the three locations which comprise the setting of the film, we have already become aquatinted with two of them, and Kubrick deliberately holds the War Room scenes until later in the film. These opening shots are crucial to the rest of the picture, not only for establishing setting, but for providing important motivations of Ripper and Mandrake. With these shots established, the rest of Dr. Strangelove is ready to unfold. ÿ