Director's Style in Dr. Strangelove

A director's style is the manner in which the director's personality is expressed through the language of the medium.  Every element or combination of elements may reveal a unique creative personality that shapes, molds, and filters the film through intellect, sensibility, and imagination.  Since all directors strive to communicate clearly with the audience we can assume that they want to manipulate our responses to correspond with their own so we can share that vision.  Therefore everything directors do in making a film is a part of their style because in almost every decision they are in some subtle way interpreting or commenting on the action, revealing their  own attitudes, and injecting their own personality indelibly into the film.  To analyze the director's style you must examine the subject matter, cinematography, editing, and other individual film elements.  In the film Dr. Strangelove the subject matter is a black comedy and the genre itself is at the very least an oxymoron, perhaps even contradictory to what we would expect.  The film invokes such a wide array of emotions that we are often uncertain whether to laugh or cry.  One scene to discuss the cinematography in Dr. Strangelove is when Strangelove talked to the audience about new human species. This scene was very interesting due to the movement and use of the camera.  It captures the viewer's attention as the camera got very close to Dr. Strangelove, the zoom on his face invited us to see every detail including his expressions.  Then right after this the camera turned to a different point which captured him from a low angle position.  The cinematography was very well done because the purpose of the director was to make Dr. Strangelove the center of attention which makes the audience pay close attention to his speech. During the low angle shot the camera and lighting were concentrated on Dr. Strangelove and his words, also the background had minimum light which helped.  Lastly the film was made in black and white which makes it look as if it were created during the time when the cold war was taking place.  I would rate this movie an 6/10.

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