Shaeron Santosa -Strangelove for the telephone by AA School

STRANGELOVE FOR THE TELEPHONE Shaeron Santosa Tutor: Doreen Bernath AA HTS4

Cold War/ Cuban Missile Crisis/ Detente Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is a dark satirical comedy set within the context of the Cold War and the ongoing arms race and space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Kubrick unravels a crisis that threatens to trigger a Third World War when a US base commander orders for all 34 airborne B-52 bombers stationed 2 hours from the perimeters of Russia to attack the enemy. Each plane is armed with a nuclear bomb load of 50 megatons that would certainly destroy and annihilate the enemy. The situation takes an unexpected turn following a phone call from US President Muffley to Russian Premier Dimitri, when it is made known that such an attack will trigger the setting off of a Soviet ultimate weapon - the Doomsday Machine. The machine will create a “doomsday shroud - a lethal cloud of radioactivity which will encircle the earth for ninety-three years!”. An automatic retaliatory device designed for mutual destruction (and by ‘mutual’ it annihilates not only the two superpowers, but the entire world), the film emulates the very trait of the Cold War and its era of malfunction and miscommunication, which ultimately foces the superpowers to share state sectrets and collaborate to stop the Doomsday Machine.

Soviet Union on Speed Dial

fig 1.

fig 2.

The film mirrors the Cold War climate of suspicion and paranoia, but also the egocentric masculinity of having power over the bomb and the ease of which it can be set off. In the decades following the finale of World War II that catapulated the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 is considered to be the closest standoff between the superpowers that could have led to a full-fledged nuclear warfare. The crisis was triggered due to a perceived imbalance of strategic missiles by the Soviet Union who was falling behind in the arms race. Soviet deployment of long-range InterContinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in Cuba was a strategic move to level the playing field and achieve a balance of power. The 13-day standoff saw the escalation of the crisis into a naval blockade, an increased airborne presence over Cuba, and the prepartion of retaliatory nuclear measures in case of a Soviet attack.

The realities of the Cuban Missile Crisis is very much an inspiration to Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. Ambassador de Sadeski explanation for the construction of the Soviet Doomsday Machine:

fig 1.

There are those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. And at the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we’d been spending on defense in a single year. But the deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap. reverberates the concern over the arms race and missile gap and the need for an economically viable retaliatory measure. The hotline between Moscow and Washington which was established following the Cuban Missile Crisis to create a quick, precise and direct communication between the superpowers is also an imperative motif in the film, with the telephone becoming the platform for exchange and collaboration between the superpowers.

Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Nagasaki, Japan, rose over 18km above the hypocentre. Source: Photographs of Allied and Axis Personalities and Activities, compiled 1942 - 1945 from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Director of National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC) David Parker shows photographic evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, United Nations, 25 October 1952. Source:https://www.atomicheritage.org/ history/nuclear-close-calls-cuban-missile-crisis

fig 2. The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) during a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room. The ExComm is the primary advisory to President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Source: https://www.archives.gov/publications/ prologue/2012/fall/cuban-missiles.html Original Source: Kennedy Library, ST-A26-1-62

Strangelove and the Telephone The telephone (derived from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, “far” and φωνή, phōnē, “voice”, together meaning “distant voice”) and telegraph (from Ancient Greek: τῆλε, têle, “at a distance” and γράφειν, gráphein, “to write”), are critical tropes to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The passing on and exhchange of information is shared through the telephone, where conversations connect characters domestically (the orders made from the base commander to attack the Soviets, the introduction of the crisis to a war general, the transmission of the cracked 3-letter code prefix to stop the bombers) and later internationally between Muffley and Dimitri.

While the telephone is a repeated motif, the telegraph that functions through the fictional radio device of a CRM-114 Discriminator, is only shown twice in the entire film. The first is the initial flight scene when the crew receives an encrypted code of ‘F - G - D - 1 - 3 -5’ that translates to ‘Wing attack Plan R’ in the big book of Aircrafts Communications Code, and a second time when the Discriminator is destroyed by a Russian missile. While the former symbolizes the beginning of the crisis, the latter presents a plot twist just as the war room began celebrating on the success of averting the crisis, as the destroyed Discriminator meant that the bomber led by Major T. J. “King” Kong will not receive the recall code. The Discriminator is the underlying cause to the entire crisis and sets up the structure of the film. The coded device has been designed to block further incoming messages following the receipt of the first go-code. The B-52 bombers can only be recalled if ground control is able to match the 3-letter prefix that had been initially set up by base commander General Ripper. The concept of the telegraph, in its encrypted language, permutations and its function to create a ‘lock code’ thus formalises the structure of the crisis, where the only viable solutions to prevent a doomsday is to either destroy the bombers or match the prefix.

Time and the Telephone Time is an important component in the trajectory of the film, which is often brought up and reminded of during telephone conversations. Following General Ripper’s hijack of ‘Plan R’, forces on the ground work to transcribe all 17,000 possible permutations of the 3-letter prefix, which Turgidson says will take approximately two and a half days. This however, is juxtaposed with the 18-minute time frame for which the planes will reach Russian radar, forcing President “Merkin” Muffley to make a call to Russian Premier “Kissoff” Dimitri to tell him about the war planes en-route to bomb his country. Similarly, in the first telephone call with the Premier, the President re-assures him that it will be at least another hour until the bombers reach their targets, enabling Soviet forces to regroup and destroy the bombers. Timeframe and the lack of time thus play an important role in the plot structure of the film.

Proportion of time can also be used to understand the imperative role of the telephone as a filmic device. In the 93-minute long film, a large portion of 15 minutes and 23 seconds are dedicated to telephone scenes. In fact, turning points of the film can be wholly understood through telephone conversations only. The telephone forms a relationship between the caller, messenger and receiver. The caller is the bearer of news and information, while the receiver is one to act on the given information. The messenger, however, often causes an interruption by delaying the passing of information and extending the length of the conversation. The dissection of each telephone scene in the next section, where a film still is captured every 5 seconds, presents the relationship between participants of the conversation that is manifested through the amount of screen time (but also the absence) of each character.

1. [00:03:16 - 00:04:57] Caller: General Ripper Messenger: Subordinate

Captain

Mandrake’s

Receiver: Captain Mandrake

Ripper lays down the framework of the crisis. The instruction to Mandrake consists of a move to i) establish the crisis itself, and ii) create obstructions to prevent the crisis from being averted.

i) Crisis: Mandrake is instructed to transmit ‘Wing Attack Plan R’ to all 34 airborne B-52 bombers. The crisis is established as the bombers depart from their failsafe points and the 2-hour timeframe for which they would reach Russian radar begins. ii) Obstructions: Ripper commands Mandrake to put Burpleson Air Force Base on ‘Condition Red’ so that the base is sealed tight from interceptors, and to have all privately-owned media impounded. These obstructions delay the process for the army to reach General Ripper and obtain the 3-letter code prefix that would recall the bombers.

The conversation between Ripper and Mandrake is the only telephone scene in which Kubrick presents both sides of the phone line. Often, either the caller or receiver in the conversation is absent and the audience is only presented with one character’s responses to understand the entire conversation. This scene introduces the importance of the two characters, and also creates a duality between the two characters and the relationship between authority/subordinate and instructor/ receiver.

2. [00:10:56 - 00:13:27] Caller: General Puntridge “Freddie” Messenger: Secretary Ms. Scott Receiver: General “Buck” Turgidson

Ms Scott who is dressed in a bikini and appears to be tanning on a (indoor) sunbed prior to picking up the telephone, downplays the seriousness of the information being passed from the caller. The humorous depiction of Ms Scott as Turgidson’s full-time secretary and part-time mistress captures the essence of power and masculinity that Turgidson portrays in his vengeance towards “Commies” and his efforts to convince Muffley to go ahead with the first strike. This masculinity is however easily broken by the presence of an attractive lady.

Ms Scott’s role as interruptor is also imperative. By repeating the responses of both the caller and Turgidson, she extends the duration of the conversation. Her flirtatious exchange with the caller also delays the passing on of critical information:

[softly] Freddie, how are you? Fine and you? Oh, we were just catching up on some of the General’s paperwork. Well, look Freddie, he’s very tied up at the moment. I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone. In this scene, Turgidson is introduced to the crisis by a General Puntridge. A war general, Turgidson understands that an internal hijack of the deterrence plan may have occured, as ‘Plan R’ was a retaliatory safeguard that could only be passed if there was a threat from the enemy. Turgidson will become the mouthpiece to pass the information on to Muffley and other members in the war room.

3. [00:29:02 - 00:29:41] Caller: Secretary Ms. Scott Receiver: General “Buck” Turgidson

The direct call to Turgidson is seemingly superfluous as he reassures his mistress that he would rather be with her than in the war room, and that he would one day make her his wife:

Hello. [pause, then whispering] I told you never to call me here; don’t you know where I am? [pause] Well I can’t talk My president course Bucky be there with

look, baby, to you now. needs me. Of would rather you.

[pause] Of course it isn’t only physical. I deeply respect you as a human being. Someday I’m going to make you Mrs. Buck Turgidson. [pause] Listen, you go back to sleep. Bucky’ll be back there just as soon as he can. Alright. Listen, sug’, don’t forget to say your prayers. hangs up and composes himself in fact it is a pre-emptive move by Kubrick. Turgidson picking up his personal telephone presents the hilarity of each member in the war room as having their own telephone. This is later shown in the iconic scene of the circular conference call when Muffley calls Dimitri to tell him about the bomb.

4. [00:38:17 - 00:43:05] Caller: President “Merkin” Muffley Messenger: Ambassador de Sadeski Receiver: Premier “Kissoff” Dimitri

The Russian Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski is introduced. The invitation of the ‘enemy’ into the crisis and even the war room to access state secrets symbolically introduces the subsequent cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union. His presence in the war room, and him sitting next to Muffley during the entire conversation plays an important role in corroborating authenticity to Muffley’s words:

Listen, I’ve been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. The Ambassador also becomes an agent in the war room as he warns Muffley to ‘be careful’ as the Premier is drunk, and later explains the concept of the Soviet Doomsday Machine to the Americans.

In the longest telephone conversation of the entire film, Muffley awkwardly breaks the news to Dimitri of his base commander who “went a littly funny in the head” and “went and did a silly thing... [he] ordered his planes to attack your country”. The collaboration between the US and Soviet Union is established, as Muffley reassures Dimitri that the US army will help the Soviets to destroy the bombers. The absurdity of the US military calling the Russian People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters to share “a complete rundown of the targets, the flight plans and the defensive systems of the [bomber] planes” solidifies the temporary alliance.

5. [01:07:49 - 01:09:55] Caller: Captain Mandrake Messenger: Operator Interruptor: Colonel “Bat” Guano

Mandrake has cracked the 3-letter code ‘Peace on Earth’ or ‘P - O - E’ following Ripper’s suicide. Yet, the path to transmitting this information to President Muffley is delayed as Colonel Guano refuses to believe the importance of the message, and mocks him for his desire to telephone the US President in the Pentagon. In Kubrick’s words: “most of the humour in Strangelove arises from the depiction of everyday human behaviour in a nightmarish situation, like... the reluctance of the US officer to let a British officer smash open a Coca-Cola machine for change to phone the President about a crisis on an air force base, because of his conditioning about the sanctity of private property.”1 Guano’s “everyday human behaviour” is matched by the telephone operator, who disregards Mandrake’s urgency to get in touch with the Pentagon and refuses to redirect the call as the caller did not have enough change.

This delay and interruption emphasises the complete dysfunction and miscommunication on all sides and hierarchies - from the highest authority (President Muffley and Premier Dimitri), to their subordinates (General Ripper, General Mandrake, General Turgidson and Ambassador de Sadeski), and down to people who are completely removed from the crisis (General Guano and even the telephone operator).

Castle, Alison, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, published by Taschen, 2008, pp. 356. 1

6. [01:11:41 - 01:14:18] Caller: Premier “Kissoff” Dimitri Messenger: Muffley

President

“Merkin”

Receiver: General “Buck” Turgidson/ President “Merkin” Muffley

Dimitri breaks the news to Muffley that one B-25 bomber is still airborne and en-route to the Missile Complex in Lapuda.

The changing roles between Muffley and Turgidson as messenger and receiver portrays Muffley as a weak president. At the beginning of the call, the helpless Muffley reiterates news from the Premier to Turgidson as he assumes the role of the messenger and allows the latter to shape the responses to the Premier:

Turgidson: Whah... [Laughs in wheezing incredulity] That’s impossible, Mr. President. I mean, look at the big board! Thirty-four planes, thirty recalls acknowledged, and four splashes, and one of them was targeted for Lapuda! Muffley: [to phone] Dimitri? Look, we’ve got an acknowledgement from every plane except the four you’ve shot down. Oh. Oh. He says... Hang on a second, Dimitri. [covers phone] He says their air staff now only claims three aircraft confirmed. The fourth may only be damaged. The scene however shows that Muffley is perhaps the only sane person in the room who is capable of showing anxiety and fear of the situation at hand. He later instructs the Premier to gather all his forces to shoot down the last bomber.

Why the Telephone: Nonsense and Point The telephone allows for conversations to flow freely from one’s stream of consciousness, thus having the comedic effect of combining completely inessential information [or nonsense] with the important messages [or point]. Friedrich A. Kittler, in his writing on the ‘Gramophone, Film, Typewriter’, discusses the continuous “utterance” of the psychiatrist when “speaking into a phonograph, thereby relinquishing the professional status that distinguishes them from madmen” on the chair.2 Such utterances by the speakers create interruptions that breaks the urgency of the calls.

In Muffley’s first telephone conversation with Dimitri, the nervous President engages in awkward banter before getting to the point of the bomb. Even after either side has been made aware of the problem, the pair dwells on the “friendly” purpose of the call and later enters a petty argument on who is “more sorry”. The medium of the telephone in how it allows for the manifestation of irrationality and irrelevance from the crisis at hand adds to the comedic satire of the film.

Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can’t hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Oh, that’s much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I’m coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then as you say we’re both coming through fine. Good. Well it’s good that you’re fine and I’m fine. I agree with you. It’s great to be fine. [laughs] Now then Dimitri. You know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I’ll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country. Well let me finish, Dimitri. Let me finish, Dimitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri? Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri. I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn’t friendly, ... you probably wouldn’t have even gotten it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. I am... I am positive, Dimitri. Listen, I’ve been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. Well I’ll tell you. We’d like to give your air staff a complete run down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. Yes! I mean, if we’re unable to recall the planes, then I’d say that, uh, well, we’re just going to have to help you destroy them, Dimitri. I know they’re our boys. Alright, well, listen... who should we call? Who should we call, Dimitri? The people...? Sorry, you faded away there. The People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters. Where is that, Dimitri? In Omsk. Right. Yes. Oh, you’ll call them first, will you? Uh huh. Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dimitri? What? I see, just ask for Omsk Information. I’m sorry too, Dimitri. I’m very sorry. Alright! You’re sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don’t say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we’re both sorry, alright? Alright. Yes he’s right here. Yes, he wants to talk to you. Just a second.

Kittler, Friedrich, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, published by Stanford University Press, April 1999, pp. 86.

Audience becomes Caller Telephone conversations in the film are often one-sided and do not portray the responses from the other side of the line, hence inviting the audience to become participant to the conversation. The pattern of a telepehone conversation of: response - pause - response - pause allows for the audience to complete their own version of the conversation. The one-sided responses from the shown character provides hints to the replies and emotional state of the person on the line, such as with Muffley’s final conversation with Dimitri as he constantly tells the Premier to stay calm although he himself is getting increasingly anxious.

The length of pause between each response also provides a clue to how much the person on the line is speaking. The conversation begins with a long pause as Muffley enquires on the possibility of setting off the doomsday machine, followed by a series of pauses as Muffley tries to calm Dimitri, who appears to be speaking (or shouting) unintelligibly on the line. By the end of the conversation, the pauses become extremely short with each lasting for less than a second, suggesting that the Premier probably continues in belligerent speech as Muffley tries to politely interrupt him in an attempt to provide a solution. In this way, the visual absence of Dimitri’s character and his existence as only being through a telephone, reels in the audience as a caller and the enemy.

Dimitri’s response to Muffley could have been: Dimitri, look, if this report is true and the plane manages to bomb the target, is it... is this going to full.. is this going to set off the doomsday machine?

Of course it will set off the doomsday machine! Your planes blowing up Lapuda and Bordkov will do just that! Muffley, the machine sets off automatically on its own... It is triggered by an attack that is substantial enough to annhilate us, that’s the whole point! Mutual destruction and the end of both You and I! There is nothing we can do, we can’t stop the doomsday machine... it is... it is irrevocable Muffley!

Am I sure? Of course I’m sure! The machine is designed to do just that! A deterrence against a situation just like this Muffley!

[long pause 01:13:08:23 01:13:12:12]

Are you sure? [pause 01:13:13:08 01:13:13:18]

Well, I.. I guess you’re just going to have to get that plane

The only reason we haven’t been able to shoot them is because your planes are flying way too low and jamming our radar!

[short pause 01:13:18:20 01:13:19:24]

Dimitri! Dimitri, I’m sorry they’re jamming your radar and flying so low, but they’re trained to do it. You know, it’s it’s initiative!

More like incompetence! And it is a stupid idea that Discriminator of yours... You should stop your own planes Muffley! There is no way we can stop them if we don’t even know where they are!

[pause 01:13:25:16 01:13:28:08]

Look, Dimitri, you know exactly where they’re going and I’m sure your entire air defense can stop a single plane.

Are you calling my air force incompetent Muffley? Don’t you dare blame my air force for your mistakes Muffley!

[pause 01:13:34:05 01:13:36:15] Listen, I mean, it’s going to help either of us if a if the if doomsday machine goes now is it?

This... this is a plot isn’t it Muffley... You want all our fighters in one area just so that you can make a surprise attack on us! This is just a distraction to annihilate us!

[pause 01:13:41:00 01:13:43:03]

not one the off,

Dom... Dimitri there’s no point in you getting you hysterical at a moment like this! Hysterical! I will show you hysterical Muffley! Why should we believe you... How do I know that it is in fact going to Lapuda and Bordkov and not detouring into some place else to catch us off guard!

[short pause 01:13:46:18 01:13:47:24] Dimitri! Keep your feet on the ground when you’re talking, Dimitri. I...

Are you getting upset at me Muffley? Are you raising your voice? How... how dare you raise your voice at me Muffley!

[short pause 01:13:51:15 01:13:52:19] I am not I am not getting... no, Dimitri. I... I just am worried, that’s all.

That is.. that is ludicrous Muffley... There is no...

[short pause 01:13:57:06 01:13:58:18] Look, now if our air staff say it’s primary target is Lapuda and it’s secondary target it Bordkov, I mean it’s it’s true, Dimitri! You gotta believe it. Look,

There is no way we can stop those planes if we don’t even know where they are!

[short pause 01:14:06:16 01:14:06:23] Can I gi... Dimitri, can I give you just one word...

It is ludicrous Muffley! Lud...

[short pause 01:14:10:05 01:14:10:22]

Can I give you just one word of advice, Dimitri? [short pause 01:14:13:00 01:14:13:21]

Advice! Why would I need your advice at a time like this Muffley!

Listen, Dimitri, put everything you’ve got into those two sectors and you can’t miss.

fig 3.

The call-and-response pattern in human conversation provides boundaries to the dialogue, with each pause representing the time and space for which it is a person’s ‘turn’ to speak. Yet it is probably unlikely that the two figures, in the midst of the rising anxiety and passion during the conversation, is fully respecting these boundaries. In Muffley’s dialogue, he constantly calls for Dimitri’s attention: “Dimitri! Dimitri!”, “Look, Dimitri...” and “Listen, Dimitri...”, suggesting that the Premier must have broken the pattern of call-and-response, and instead is speaking continuously and interrupting the President’s ‘turns’. The telephone allows for layering to exist, where the speakers talk over one another and confuses the ‘turn’ and pattern of intervals. fig 3. Musical scores of Giovanni Gabrieli in ‘Ecclesiis’. In Music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually written in different parts of the music, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or in response to the first. It corresponds to the call-and-response pattern in human communication and is found as a basic element of musical form.3

“Antiphony”, article in the New Grove Dictionary of Music (2001). Oxford University Press.

Perhaps a more likely scenario of the conversation could have been:

Premier Dimitri: President Muffley:

Dimitri, look, if this report is true and the plane manages to bomb the target, is it... is this going to Of courseis it will set going of the doomsday bombersmachine? blowing up full.. this to set machine! off the Your doomsday Lapuda and Bordkov will do just that! Muffley, the machine sets off automatically on its own, it is designed to do just that! A deterrence against a situation just like this Muffley! There is nothing we can do, we can’t stop the doomsday machine... it is... it is irrevocable Muffley! Are you sure? Am I sure? Of course I’m sure! The machine is designed to do just that! A deterrence against a situation just like this Muffley! Well, I.. I guess you’re just going to have to get that plane The only reason we haven’t been able to shoot them is because your planes are flying way against flight protocols and jamming our radar! Those planes of yours are flying way below any flight aviation protocols Muffley! Does Dimitri! Dimitri, sorry they’re jammingtoyour radar your men even know howI’m to fly... It is not our responsibility help you get and so your low, they’re trained to do it. You them flying back! Have menbut to decode that Discriminator of yours and do it quick! it’s it’s initiative! know, More like incompetence! And it is a stupid idea that Discriminator of yours... You should stop your own planes Muffley! There is no way we can stop them Look, Dimitri, you know exactly where they’re going if we don’t even know where they are! and I’m sure your entire air defense can stop a single plane. Are you calling my air force incompetent Muffley? You started this stupid thing, why should we help you! Listen, I mean, it’s not going to help either one of us if a if if isn’t theitdoomsday machine goesa sneak off, now This... this the is a plot Muffley... You are planning attackis onit? us! This is just a distraction to annihilate us! Of course it is... it has always been your plan, you sneaky little... Dom... Dimitri there’s no point in you getting you hysHysterical? Let me show you what hysterical looks like... Your incompetence terical at a moment like this! in controlling your own men doesn’t concern us Muffley! You should take care of this yourself! Stop your men,on get the to your when ill-designed DisDimitri! Keep your feet thecode ground you’re criminator! Why should we take responsibility... talking, Dimitri. I... Are... are you getting upset with me Muffley? Are you raising your voice? How... how dare... how dare you raise your voice at me Muffley! Nobody Iraises am their not voice I amat me... not getting... no, Dimitri. I... I just am worried, that’s all. Why should we believe you... How do I know that it is in fact going to Lapuda and Bordkov and not detouring into some place else to catch us off guard! Look, now if our air staff say it’s primary target is Lapuda and it’s secondary target it Bordkov, I mean it’s it’sridiculous, true, ridiculous... Dimitri! this Youis agotta it. to Look, Ridiculous, joke! It’sbelieve a joke Muffley, call me and tell me that we have to stop your planes from bombing us! That is.. that Can I gi... Dimitri, I give just word... is ludicrous Muffley... There is can no... There is noyou way we can one stop those planes if we don’t even know where they are! They are flying way below flight aviCan I give you just one word of advice, Dimitri? Lisation protocols Muffley, they are... they are in it for the attack! Advice! Out ten, Dimitri, put everything you’ve got into those two of everyone else I need advice from, why would I need your advice at a time sectors and you can’t miss. like this Muffley!

In this uncontrolled rampage of words, the Premier hears only certain keywords from Muffley’s responses instead of digesting the entire message. This could-be version of his monologue breaks out of the structure of the call and response.

Telephone and the Camera During telephone conversations where the speakers are unable to see each other and facial expressions are limited, the camera compensates for the anxiety, tenseness and nervousness of the characters.

In the Ripper - Mandrake scene, movements of the camera is representative of the changing emotions of the characters and also hints of the lies that are being told. In the first cut to General Ripper, the camera is zoomed out to present a full image of his office. Only a strip light hanging off the ceiling illuminates the room, and right under it is Ripper sitting alone by his desk. The perspective of the camera introduces the character and his authority, but also provides a sense of mystery to what he is about to say. This is a contrast to Mandrake, who’s character is followed by the camera as he walks towards the telephone, and is immediately pictured zoomed in and focused. Mandrake’s working open office that is brightly lit has several of his subordinates walking by as he speaks onto the telephone, which is a direct contrast to the lone Ripper in his dark room.

As the conversation continues, the camera begins to shift excessively in Ripper’s scenes, while Mandrake’s remain as a still frontal shot. The camera shifts to his right, showing the various paraphernelia displayed on his desk and the large windows behind him, then to a frontal shot and back to the right again. These moves warm up the scene, as Ripper engages in small talk of “You recognise my voice, Mandrake?” and the likes. The camera suddenly closes up onto Ripper in the frontal view, as his string of lies begin. The camera’s abrupt shift to a higher level, looking down onto Ripper, captures his avoidance to Mandrake’s question of whether the Russians had been involved in the shooting war, and his lie of receiving an order to seal the base tight. The camera comes back to a frontal view as Ripper begins reading out clear instructions.

In this scene, 4 camera angles capture the changing intensity of Ripper’s instructions, and takes on the role of the audience in assessing the lies in his conversation.

Ripper: Group Captain, I’m afraid this is not a exercise

Mandrake, that’s all I’ve been told. It just came in on the Red Phone. My orders are for this base to be sealed tight, and that’s what I mean to do: seal it tight. Now, I want you to transmit plan R, R for Robert, to the wing. Plan R for Robert.

Mandrake: Yes sir. Plan R for Robert, sir. Ripper: Now, last, and possibly most important, I want all privately owned radios to be immediately impounded.

The roundtable telephone conference scene between Muffley and Dimitri does not have the same amount of camera movements as the RipperMandrake scene, since the setting is much larger and encompasses many more characters. There are however, many still frontal shots that zoom in and out between individuals, pairs (Muffley as de Sadenski looks on suspiciously) and the entire roundtable.

It is clear that the participants to the crisis are President Muffley, Premier Dimitri on the line, Ambassador de Sadenski and General Turgidson, as the camera captures their reactions to the ongoing conversation. While the Ambassador is often seen peering through behind Muffley, looking at him with great doubt and suspicion, Turgidson listens intently to the conversation and nervously chews on gum. The other members in the roundtable who are only shown in groups or in a zoomed out shot of the entire conference table, sets up the atmosphere of the war room and creates a presence through numbers.

Number is used to amplify the mood in the war room. When the Ambassador is speaking in Russian to the Premier, thereby excluding all other people in the room, or when Muffley engages in nervous exchanges of pleasantries, the zoomed out image of the war room to show all members around the conference table and the big screen behind adds to the awkwardness of the entire scene. This contrasts between the singluarity of the telephone speaker and the mass of non-speakers who are not privy to the conversation. The non-speakers here can be likened to the audience, who are only watching from the sideline.

Ambassador: I don’t phone.

[speaks sian]

have

Rus-

President Muffley: Hello? Dimitri?

Hello,

Listen, I can’t hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Well then as you say we’re both coming through fine. Good. Well it’s good that you’re fine and I’m fine. I agree with you. It’s great to be fine. [laughs] the bomb Dimitri, the Hydrogen bomb.

Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri? Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello?

A Strange Love for the Telephone

fig 4.

The telephone has a rigid structure. It defines a conversation between 2 people and creates a fixed space within the medium itself. In this fixed space, speakers are further limited by the call-and-response pattern that forms boundaries in which it is one’s ‘turn’ to speak. Kubrick’s telephone scenes clearly denote this duality, as the absence of a receiver or caller on the other side of the line is often replaced by a messenger on screen. This is clearest in the second telephone scene with Ms Scott. The caller, a General Puntridge or Freddie, is never properly introduced in the film and neither do we see his face. Film stills captured every 5-seconds of the telephone conversation clearly depicts Ms Scott’s presence to compensate for the absence of the caller. Despite being a messenger in the scene, her role is imperative in the transmission of the message. In this case, the absence of a character breaks the space of the telephone and brings this space to reality, where the conversation now takes place in real life between Ms Scott and Turgidson.

Kubrick’s use of the telephone medium also allows for humour to be translated through the space of reality. The telephone allows for one’s stream of consciousness to be released, perhaps more so than during a face-to-face conversation, as the listener’s face (that may hint of boredom) is removed. The convergence of nonsensical utterances and point thus create a comedic dialogue that downplays the seriousness of the crisis in reality. Furthermore, the one-sided portrayal of conversation allows for the audience to be participant to the dialogue. Audience is the caller and also the enemy in real time. In the same way, privy members in the war room who are used to make up the numbers of the scene, are participant to the conversation as much as the audience watching it through a movie screen.

In the film, the structure and space of the telephone is continuously tested and pushed to its limits. Drawbacks to the medium (in its removal of ‘face’ and reliance on voice alone) is compensated via camera angles that hints of lies being told and anxieties of the character. Ultimately, the introduction of the camera, messenger and audience to a conversation cleverly shares the space of reality to the space of sound traveling through a telephone cord.

fig 4. Major Glenn Nordin, left, poses for a farewell photo in 1966, his last month manning the Moscow hotline. Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ us-news/truth-behind-red-phone-how-u-srussia-really-connect-n698406 Original source: United Department of Defense (DOD)

The direct hotline, known as the ‘red phone’ in populat culture, was first tested on August 30, 1963. Washington sent Moscow the text: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back 1234567890.” The primary link was accidentally cut several times, for example near Copenhagen by a Danish bulldozer operator, and by a Finnish farmer who plowed it up once. Regular testing of both the primary and backup links took place daily. During the even hours, the US sent test messages to the Soviet Union. In the odd hours, the Soviet Union sent test messages to the US.4

From Electrospaces.net: The WashingtonMoscow Hotline [electrospaces.blogspot. co.uk] 4

Bibliography Films Dr Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Columbia Pictures, 1964. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on ‘Red Alert’ by Peter George.

Books Castle, Alison, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, published by Taschen, 2008. Kittler, Friedrich, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, published by Stanford University Press, April 1999. Serres, Michel, Parasite, published by University of Minnesota Press, May 2007.

Articles “Antiphony”, article in the New Grove Dictionary of Music (2001). Oxford University Press Electrospaces.net: The Washington-Moscow Hotline

Transcript All transcipts courtesy of visual-memory at [http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/ doc/0055.html]

Image Bibliography All film stills from Dr Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Nagasaki: Photographs of Allied and Axis Personalities and Activities, compiled 1942 - 1945 from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Kennedy and Excomm in the White House Negotiation Room: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/fall/cuban-missiles.html

Cuban Missile Crisis: National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC) at the UN: https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nuclear-close-calls-cuban-missile-crisis

Moscow-Washington Hotline Commemoration Photograph: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/truth-behind-red-phone-how-u-s-russia-reallyconnect-n698406