Scene Analysis

Dr. Strangelove - Doomsday Machine

This scene is built around the reveal of the Doomsday machine and its reception amongst America’s most powerful military and foreign authorities. The whole scene is dimly lit with hard lighting.

-Skip first <7 seconds-

-7 Seconds

The scene opens up with moderately fast dynamic camera movement on a dolly.

The camera quickly approaches Alexi de Sadesky as he is distressed.

General Buck gets out of his seat and walks to Alexi prompting the camera movement to slow down, once Buck comes to a distance at which he will hold a conversation with Alexi the camera movement stops. The characters are not at eye level but they are composed against each other like polar opposites.

-23 Seconds

Alexi walks in the camera's direction and the camera moves with him keeping a consistent distance (no need to refocus). General Buck follows two paces behind, he looks smaller in the image and is essentially trying to keep up with Alexi which is symbolic of what Alexi is about to tell him.

-45 Seconds

Camera takes a slight left turn and the actors account for it by walking to stay in frame. The russian doomsday machine has been revealed by Alexi, a weapon beyond/ahead America’s arsenal just like how Alexi was walking beyond/ahead of General Buck.

General Buck has caught up to Alexi and both of them are equal in frame now. General Buck stands pridefully next to Alexi because he does not believe what he has said.

-47 Seconds

First cut in the scene. Neutrally shot. The camera is still for a second and waits for President Merkin to get out of his seat and start walking, only then does the camera start to move in the same direction. Due to his approaching direction we cannot tell what he was walking towards however because we could see the table at which he was sat in the background of their prior exchange we can tell he is walking towards Alexi and Buck. This aids in the continuity of the scene when the next exchange follows-

-55 seconds

The camera has followed President Merkin to Buck and Alexi. The composition is appealing, the characters are situated in their own thirds of the screen; President Merkin close right, Buck dead center a few paces back, and Alexi close left. Due to the shallow depth of field our view of Buck is mildly obscured, this renders him out of the scene for a bit as Alexi and President Merkin talk amongst themselves. One thing I find particularly enjoyable during their conversation is that as Alexi continues to deliver more and more ever devastating news about the impending end of the world we feel an opposing build up in the room as Buck fails to contain his outright suspicion of what Alexi was saying. I said that he was “rendered out of the scene earlier” but that’s not quite right, to put it right it is that his character begins to take on a different purpose in the scene as he becomes incredibly expressive with his body language to make up for the fact that he is not perfectly clear in frame.

The rest of the scene is great but it’s over 4 minutes.

Dr. Strangelove talks about the Doomsday machine from Yonggeun Kim on Vimeo.