Hogarth and the Strangelove Effect

In Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963), directed by Stanley Kubrick, a mad USAF general orders a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union with apocalyptic consequences. When all recall mechanisms fail, the Superpowers are spurred into cooperation. The Soviets, forewarned of the approaching American B-52s, set about shooting them down, but one of the planes evades Soviet defenses. Badly damaged and leaking fuel, its wacky pilot diverts the attack to the nearest possible target, a Soviet missile base. As the crippled plane maneuvers over the earth in a desperate attempt to drop its load of nuclear bombs on the enemy installation, the film activates a familiar rhetoric. The crew of the B-52, on what is now virtually a suicide mission, are shown to be individuals of heroic coolness and efficiency, motivated by a patriotism of refined emotional purity. The inside of the plane is metamorphosed into the abstract space of the action film, in which friends take on foes and where cinematic suspense, assisted by the soundtrack, persistently invites the viewer to empathize with the crew and so to hope that they will survive. Cinematic techniques help the viewer learn to stop worrying and love the bomb. If the heroes succeed, however, the Soviet counterattack (the Doomsday Machine) will be triggered and the world will be destroyed. This plot development remorselessly underlines the fascinating absurdity of the response to the cinematic artistry, which generates an emotional power that can undermine a rational response to the horror of the events. The madness of this Strangelove Effect is personified by the weirdly hawkish General Turgidson (George C. Scott) who simultaneously squeals with childish excitement and covers his mouth in horror when he speaks of the crew’s certain success; by the naïve pilot of the plane who opens the failed bomb doors manually and rides down to earth on an H-bomb waving his cowboy hat; and most importantly by Dr. Strangelove himself (Peter Sellers) whose body, erupting periodically in uncontrollable Nazi salutes, refuses to be restrained by his mind. The film closes with scene after scene of mushroom clouds accompanied by Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again.

Plate 1.

William Hogarth, A Midnight Modern Conversation. Engraving, Second State, 1732/3. Photo curtesy of The British Museum.

Hogarth is a master of the Strangelove Effect. In the ironically entitled Midnight Modern Conversation (1730–31, Yale Center for British Art), for example, the scene is a riot of drunkenness. The circular table in the center of the room barely holds the party of drinkers together, and the social grouping alluded to in the title has fragmented into atomistic chaos. A man in the foreground of the engraved version published in March 1733 (Plate 1) has fallen off his chair and broken a cup, shards of which are shown flying past his head while his pointing finger directs our attention to the empty bottles on the floor. Above him, a blind-drunk man staggers forward, his wig askew, his body needing the support of the back of a chair. An upturned bottle in his left hand empties itself onto the head of the man below. To the right of the plate, by the table, a man has fallen asleep while lighting his pipe, and the flaming candle is now dangerously close to his lace cuffs. In the painting a member of the group stares in horrified anticipation of the imminent conflagration but does not do anything about it; the engraving leaves all sense of anticipation to the viewer as the equivalent figure is obliviously drunk. At the back of the engraving two subgroups achieve limited social interaction, centered ironically on the brimming punchbowl, while to the left, in the far corner, a man smoking a pipe with his back to the room is oddly mirrored by a man smoking a pipe who faces the viewer, perhaps to indicate a quarrel. On the extreme left another drinker has fallen asleep, precariously balanced against the wall on the back two legs of his chair, his mouth and...