Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: desire and the fragmenting of character

Abstract

This article is an attempt at analysing several aspects of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove from a point of view which includes concepts of both narratology and post-structuralist analysis. I study the level of the fabula and the characters (at the level of the story) in order to prove the existence in the film of a tendency to discard its apparently satiric aim and privilege a logic of spectacle. The contents of the fabula reveal that the film introduces fantasy to satisfy the audience's desire for identification and creates a self-conscious film which dismatles the satiric text. The study of the characters lays bare the existence of a complex web of signification around each one of them, produced by their being impersonated by well-known stars. The several interactions among the characters in the film, previous characters played by the actors and the actors as personae bring about a dissemination of meaning which deprives the characters of any satiric claim. They are transformed into mere objects to be enjoyed and incorporated to the pervading logic of spectacle, therefore pointing to the ever-present tendency of cinema to present itself as a product to be consumed rather than a text to be analysed.