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Mad Doctors of the Movies: Strangelove and Lecter · The Difference Engine Podcast

0:11
SPEAKER_02: This fourth of our Mad Doctors of Science podcasts is concentrating
0:17
SPEAKER_02: on Dr Strangelove and Dr Lecter.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: Now, before we launch in, it may seem that this is somewhat
0:26
SPEAKER_02: of an incongruous pairing, and to a certain extent it
0:30
SPEAKER_02: a psychopathic cannibal versus a wheelchair-bound nuclear genocidal maniac.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: But what actually comes across to me is the physicality.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Good pairing, okay, fair enough.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: They seem to have quite a lot in common. They're both psychopaths of it.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: But it's the physicality that intrigues me,
0:50
SPEAKER_02: in the sense that they're both very physical characters.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Even though Strangelove is almost marooned in his wheelchair,
0:58
SPEAKER_02: his twitching hand and the fact that he's centre stage all the time means
1:04
SPEAKER_02: that The physical nature of the character as well as the intellectual nature
1:09
SPEAKER_02: of the character comes across and of course it's exactly the same
1:13
SPEAKER_02: with Hannibal Lecter particularly
1:15
SPEAKER_02: in his first screen outing when he was played
1:21
SPEAKER_02: by Brian Cox in Manhunter who was a bigger more muscled guy than Anthony Hopkins.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a possible link between the two.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: In terms of Strangelove, I think it's important that he's also a central character
1:40
SPEAKER_01: in thematic terms.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: The scientist is considered by Kubrick to be majorly responsible for the position
1:50
SPEAKER_01: of nuclear weapons and for their The impact they might have, no pun intended.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: So from that point of view, is central physical importance
1:59
SPEAKER_01: within the drama is perhaps a bit of a change?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think a lot of scientists during World War II tried to distance themselves
2:10
SPEAKER_00: from the bomb, tried to say just because they were inventing it,
2:13
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't their responsibility as to whether or not it was actually That was
2:18
SPEAKER_00: a decision for politicians.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: No, that's a very interesting contribution Naomi's made there
2:23
SPEAKER_01: because I recently picked up a quote
2:26
SPEAKER_01: from the famous British-American physicist Freeman Dyson who said
2:33
SPEAKER_01: that scientists rather than generals...
2:36
SPEAKER_01: He took the initiative in getting nuclear weapon programs started
2:41
SPEAKER_01: and that they were motivated to build weapons by feelings of professional pride
2:46
SPEAKER_01: as well as a patriotic duty rather than strategic needs.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: So he suggests, in fact, that scientists were instrumental In making the atom
2:57
SPEAKER_01: and hydrogen bombs.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And that's perhaps one of the reasons why the inclusion of strange love
3:04
SPEAKER_01: in centre stage, as Neil was suggesting earlier, is as important as it is.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, and this is going to seem like a strange fit,
3:12
SPEAKER_02: but go with me here for a second, because I think that Lecter is the same.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: In Silence of the Lambs...
3:19
SPEAKER_02: He deploys this weapon, Buffalo Bill.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: Remember, he's the psychiatrist who talked to Bill and Bill was one of his patients.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: And instead of curing him or helping him come to terms with these feelings
3:33
SPEAKER_02: and this rage, he's groomed him almost.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: And they have this symbiotic relationship.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: And at the beginning of the film...
3:43
SPEAKER_02: It's almost as if Bill is the centre stage.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: He's taking these women, he's skinning them, he's wearing their skin like a coat,
3:50
SPEAKER_02: that sort of thing, in a particularly gruesome fashion.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: And then, as the film slowly unfolds,
3:57
SPEAKER_02: it's not that Bill's pushed aside and becomes a minor character...
4:02
SPEAKER_02: But it's Lecter's brooding presence over the whole thing.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: And even when Clarice Starling is stalking Buffalo Bill through the house,
4:11
SPEAKER_02: we're aware of Lecter's presence because Lecter has led her to him.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: But also, Lecter's the one that started the process off, as it were,
4:20
SPEAKER_02: that encouraged this weapon, that encouraged Bill to deploy himself.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's the fact that he's not just a manipulative person.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: The fact that he's a scientist, that he's a psychiatrist,
4:36
SPEAKER_02: that he has the professional ability to be able to mould and shape personalities
4:42
SPEAKER_02: that comes out in Silence of the Lambs.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: And at the end, of course, without wishing to spoil it for those of you
4:49
SPEAKER_02: who haven't seen it, although it's nearly 20 years old now,
4:52
SPEAKER_02: Lecter's on the loose and It's a mixture of feelings of horror because it's not just
4:59
SPEAKER_02: the fact that he's on the loose to continue to wreak his reign of carnage,
5:05
SPEAKER_02: but that he could also encourage others to follow Bill down a similar path.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: So at the end of Silence of the Lambs, who knows what possibilities are out there.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Doctor Strangelove was released early in 1964.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to put it in context.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: It comes just a year or so after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: It comes five or six years after Sputnik.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: We're celebrating this year, in fact, in 2007, the 50th anniversary of Sputnik going into space.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: It's worth reminding ourselves that at that time,
5:45
SPEAKER_01: the Americans became even more paranoid about the possibility
5:49
SPEAKER_01: of nuclear annihilation, which is an easy word to say,
5:53
SPEAKER_01: than they were previously because they suddenly realized that The possibility
5:56
SPEAKER_01: of intercontinental ballistic missiles, for want of a better phrase,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: that America was possibly subject
6:06
SPEAKER_01: to attack from afar, from space,
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SPEAKER_01: the first idea of Star Wars weapons, I suppose.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: As a result of the assassination of John F.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Kennedy in late 1963, the film premiere was delayed by a few months.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: It was due to come out late 1963.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: It actually came out in early 1964.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think probably because of all those factors,
6:30
SPEAKER_01: and apart from the fact that the film is a brilliant film,
6:34
SPEAKER_01: it made a tremendous impact on the public psyche.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, tied into everything that you've just said, of course,
6:41
SPEAKER_02: is the fact that this was, you know,
6:45
SPEAKER_02: the arms race had just really started to get going.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: And you have this doctrine emerge of mad, mutually assured destruction.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: And we have this idea of, you know,
6:58
SPEAKER_02: mega deaths and how can we possibly measure death?
7:04
SPEAKER_02: The amount of devastation that the nuclear arsenals of the world could wreak upon the earth.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: And you have to invent a new number.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: You have to invent a new coding system.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: And the Megadeth system is the one...
7:18
SPEAKER_02: Whenever we think of Megadeths now, we think of... Bad heavy metal bands.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: Bad heavy metal bands or comic books and that sort of thing.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: But at the time...
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Just those sorts of phrases, mutually assured destruction and mega deaths,
7:34
SPEAKER_02: had a tremendous impact upon the psyche.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: And Doctor Strangelove wasn't, and the original book, Red Alert by Peter George,
7:45
SPEAKER_02: on which it was based, wasn't just the only exploration of that.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: There was a whole raft of books and films that started to explore those issues
7:55
SPEAKER_02: on the beach by Neville Shute.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: The book and the film Both with the consequences of the bombs actually detonating.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: And you have these disturbing images in the book of whole families taking tablets
8:13
SPEAKER_02: to commit suicide because this radiation cloud is sweeping towards them.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: This is on the beach now, yeah?
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: That's not the only reaction.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: There were a couple of old bods who decided to drink the cellar dry.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's true. There were those as well. Port enthusiasts.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and also on the beach there were the racing car enthusiasts
8:32
SPEAKER_02: who just got whatever cars they could and kept driving them round and round
8:37
SPEAKER_02: and round the circuit until they crashed and died.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: They'd rather go out that way.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: Sounds good.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's symptomatic of the fact that it was foremost
8:46
SPEAKER_02: in the public imagination at that time.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: And what Kubrick was doing was tapping into that.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: But up until this point...
8:57
SPEAKER_02: Nobody'd had the same take on it.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: No, well, that's a very good point, actually.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Kubrick said that he personally felt vulnerable and he personally was threatened.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: There's another obvious link, by the way, the link between the two films,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: apart from the physicality, is the Welsh link.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Lecter is played by a Welsh actor.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: The original book, upon which Strange Love is based, is written by a Welshman,
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Peter Brian George, or under the pseudonym of Peter Bryant.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Written in 1958, the book Red Alert. That's a good point.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: Kubrick read the book.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: It was a melodrama.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: I think that Peter Brian George was an RAF man who then later joined the Campaign
9:35
SPEAKER_01: for Nuclear Disarmament, which was only just set up in roundabout 1961 and 62.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Kubrick read the book and decided that the end of the world, by accident...
9:46
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't really melodrama, it was farce.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think the more they went on writing the film,
9:52
SPEAKER_01: and the original author of Red Alert was part of the screenplay team that developed
9:59
SPEAKER_01: the script.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: The more they went on writing the film, the more and more it became farce.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: In fact, until at the end there was the false ending, sorry I should say,
10:06
SPEAKER_01: the ending they never actually put out on the film, which was the slapstick ending,
10:11
SPEAKER_01: where the entire thing degraded into a custard pie fight.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Which never actually made the final cut.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's the idea that this book, Red Alert by Brian George,
10:21
SPEAKER_01: repeated itself once as melodrama and second as farce.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: So in that sense there were three Doctor Stringsloves because there was a Doctor Stringslove.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Their book based on the film as well for that matter.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was a result of his...
10:37
SPEAKER_01: His reaction to the film, but Peter Brian George,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: about two or three years after the film, shot himself.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just because of his Welshness that he shot himself.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: With. Well you know, Welsh is supposed to be dark, aren't they?
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Brooding and so on and so forth.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: I think it's interesting that Strangelove is representative of the times.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: And I think that in its own way, Silence of the Lambs and Lecter is as well.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: Because if you remember the context that it's operating in, this is a serial killer,
11:11
SPEAKER_02: a man, doctor, who's a psychiatrist, who's a therapist.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: And in the 80s and the 90s, particularly in America, The therapist,
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SPEAKER_02: the psychiatrist, had been elevated to become the high priest
11:25
SPEAKER_02: of the scientific establishment.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: He was the scientist, which most people had contact with on a regular basis.
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SPEAKER_02: And it seemed as if everybody was in therapy for whatever reason.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: And that everything could be fixed with a combination of pharmacology...
11:44
SPEAKER_02: And therapy.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and of course there were a lot of cases at the time
11:48
SPEAKER_00: of things like repressed childhood memories or so-called repressed memories of abuse
11:55
SPEAKER_00: and ill treatment which people were being brought out of people by their therapists
12:02
SPEAKER_00: which of course many people have subsequently claimed were not true
12:05
SPEAKER_00: and people were having their lives...
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SPEAKER_00: Damaged by these allegations that were being made and it really did seem
12:13
SPEAKER_00: as though the therapists could manipulate their patients into saying whatever
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SPEAKER_00: the therapist believed to be true rather than anything else.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Manipulation then in both cases.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: Because up until this point In its own way Silence of the Lambs is
12:29
SPEAKER_02: a slasher flick It's got A protagonist
12:34
SPEAKER_02: who Wants to lurk in the darkness And get you
12:40
SPEAKER_02: That has long antecedents Going back Right the way back
12:44
SPEAKER_02: to Caligari Actually recalling one of our previous Podcasts But up until This point
12:51
SPEAKER_02: The Slasher Was always monstrous.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: And there was an element of evil here.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: But in the 80s and the 90s, the psyche of the killers started to be explored.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: And it was because they had abuse as a childhood or they had a split personality or whatever.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why these people were killing was starting to be explained away.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: And it was coming into...
13:21
SPEAKER_02: Our own homes because everybody's in therapy and everybody's taking the drugs.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: And yet we explain these serial killers as having these psychological problems.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, remember the other big psychological thriller at that time was
13:37
SPEAKER_02: the Michael Douglas-Glen Close fatal attraction thing where she goes loopy
13:43
SPEAKER_02: because he's spurned her.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: And she has this breakdown and starts to boil bunnies and all that sort of thing.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: And it brings it into people's homes now.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: Caligari, you have this big insane asylum on the hill.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: And in Frankenstein, in James Wells' 1931 version,
14:07
SPEAKER_02: they're in the windmill, far away.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: And although the monster comes into your home,
14:14
SPEAKER_02: he then takes you back to his lair to do with you what you want.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Whereas in the 80s and the 90s, fear continues.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: Becomes personal.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: Becomes real.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's exactly the same with Strangelove.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: People are afraid in their own homes.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: People start to build bomb shelters again in their back gardens
14:36
SPEAKER_02: because they feel threatened where they should be feeling the most safe.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: But there was, of course, a plan for the eventuality of the nuclear holocaust
14:46
SPEAKER_01: and that was the duck and cover campaign where you simply... Hit under a desk.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, or put a little newspaper over your head
14:54
SPEAKER_00: I remember...
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Before you vaporised.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to remove your doors and prop them up against a wall
15:00
SPEAKER_00: and put cushions and pillows over them.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is the later one, is it? In the 80s.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is the one in the 80s.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, When the Wind Blows. Yes.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Protect and Survive. Yes.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: But I think one of the things that's perhaps most scary about Strangelove is
15:13
SPEAKER_00: the fact that the people in charge, the people that have the power,
15:18
SPEAKER_00: appear to actively want to have this...
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Mutually assured destruction scenario,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: as though they are deliberately seeking to encourage the end of the world
15:32
SPEAKER_00: so that they can rebuild it and remake it.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: I guess the only wise man that's portrayed in Strange Love is President Merkin Muffley.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: Because he at least seems to have some model scruples about what's going on,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: but it seems that the rest of the people, in fact,
15:51
SPEAKER_01: one might even argue that the destruction itself is the rationale for Strangelove
15:56
SPEAKER_01: to reveal his master plan.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Because he does that just towards the end of the film where it's almost certain
16:05
SPEAKER_01: the destruction is going to take place.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: This is the going down into the mines with ten
16:11
SPEAKER_01: nubar blondes to every one
16:13
SPEAKER_01: old Nazi and breeding a future race.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: In fact it's just after the President says, gentlemen you can't fight in here,
16:22
SPEAKER_01: this is the war room.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Just after that, remember that famous line, just after that,
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Strangelove talks about, in his words,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: preserving a nucleus of carefully selected specimens of the human race at the bottom
16:36
SPEAKER_01: of America's most deepest mineshafts.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: That's the idea.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: Whether they can, it's almost like it's...
16:43
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a piss takeover,
16:44
SPEAKER_01: this Wellsian idea of eliminating the dregs of society, preserving the best,
16:50
SPEAKER_01: undoubtedly scientists and engineers and politicians.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, phoenix-like from the ashes, the human race will rise again.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Fascistic idea.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: There's this suggestion, I think it's in Christopher Frayling's book.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: That after the master plan of Strangelove has been revealed,
17:08
SPEAKER_01: towards the end of the film, when you get the We'll Meet Again idea,
17:12
SPEAKER_01: it's the We'll Meet Again theme tune,
17:16
SPEAKER_01: the master plan is of Strangelove or the scientist as God,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: because you get scientists and politicians,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: the metatocracy are preserved at the bottom of the mineshaft,
17:28
SPEAKER_01: The human race will rise again in their image.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: So there's that kind of idea.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: And as Major King Kong rides
17:37
SPEAKER_01: as a kind of phallic rodeo mount, the bomb,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: as it's just about to impact into the ground,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: as a result of all this destruction in his mind,
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Strangelove shoots up vertically out of his chair.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And says, Mein Fuhrer! That kind of thing.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: He made a mistake earlier of saying Mein Fuhrer instead of Mein President.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: But Freling's idea is that the destruction is so exhilarating to Strange Love
18:05
SPEAKER_01: that he has a bodily erection, forgets his disability,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: and gets a hard-on in the middle of the film set kind of thing.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Not sellers, of course.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean Strange Love.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: That's the Strange Love.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's the point.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: That's the love that's strange.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: It's the destruction causing some kind of, you know,
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Because when Slim Pickings,
18:25
SPEAKER_02: the actor, is sitting astride the bomb,
18:28
SPEAKER_02: he's got his cowboy hat off and he's riding it like a rodeo bull, as it were.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: Or you could imagine that he could be engaged in coital relations with a young lady
18:40
SPEAKER_02: at the same time.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Both of the things you could suggest are a neurotic love of mass destruction.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of idea that people are going for there.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Interesting, but...
18:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't necessarily think there is a link with Lecter because the thing
18:56
SPEAKER_02: about the relationships within that particular set of films and the portrayal
19:03
SPEAKER_02: of Lecter is that he's broken
19:08
SPEAKER_02: in some way and the relationships
19:11
SPEAKER_02: that he forms aren't normal.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: So I suppose there is a link because they are strange.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: Lector's relationship with Clarice Starling which emerges in the later books
19:23
SPEAKER_02: and films is strange as well.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting in that film as compared to earlier slasher movies that it's not
19:33
SPEAKER_00: a sexual relationship.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Most slasher films it is young women who are being killed by being targeted
19:41
SPEAKER_00: by the serial killer but of course that's not what Lector does and even
19:45
SPEAKER_00: when Buffalo Bill Is murdering young women.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not because he's sexually attracted to them, but because he wants to be one of them.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: So it's a very different kind of scenario.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: The relationship between Lecter and Starling kind of engages the intellect rather
20:04
SPEAKER_01: than the
20:05
SPEAKER_00: libido.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Certainly as it's presented in the film, it's almost a fatherly relationship.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He's encouraging her, leading her on, helping her with her career...
20:17
SPEAKER_00: That sort of thing.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: He seems to have some kind of affection for her, but it's not sexual.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: It is, yes.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Indeed.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: There's been a lot of debate as to the character or the scientists
20:31
SPEAKER_01: behind Strangelove, if you know what I mean.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: Strangelove is a kind of black comic amalgam of a number of other scientists,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: and there's been some debate as to who those scientists are.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: In our book, we're suggesting that it's an amalgam of, first of all, Herman Kahn.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Herman Kahn famously wrote a controversial book called On Thermonuclear War.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: He was a guy who worked for the Rand Corporation.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And Strangelove in the film works for something called the Bland Corporation,
21:03
SPEAKER_01: which must be, you would have thought, some kind of reference.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Kubrick had met Kahn.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: And he talked to him about this.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: This is part of what Neil was talking about earlier,
21:12
SPEAKER_01: about the idea of mutually assured destruction.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Khan's idea was that there was a logical notion of winning a nuclear war,
21:23
SPEAKER_01: as you said earlier.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: They started thinking about it.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Winning a nuclear war strategically.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: So they started, you know, politicians in general started thinking about using him
21:31
SPEAKER_01: in that way rather than in any other way.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: There's also Wernher von Braun that we've at least talked about in passing before,
21:41
SPEAKER_01: the famous German rocket scientist who went over to America
21:45
SPEAKER_01: after the Second World War and became famous in film.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: As well as also in science and associated with NASA.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, I like two things about Von Braun.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: Whenever I think of him, first, he was the father of the V2 rocket,
22:01
SPEAKER_02: which famously killed more people in its construction than it did when it landed.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: In the countries in which it was targeted
22:10
SPEAKER_02: because they used concentration camp labour and over 10,000 people were killed
22:15
SPEAKER_02: during the production of the rockets and only 8,000 people were killed
22:18
SPEAKER_02: by the rocket's impact.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: But also Von Braun is name checked absolutely in Alphaville.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: Where the head scientist there who's in charge of this dystopic country,
22:31
SPEAKER_02: this dystopic city, Alphaville,
22:33
SPEAKER_02: where everything is controlled and regulated by computer, is called Von Braun.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: And Jean-Luc Godard decided that he didn't want an amalgam, he wanted people to get.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: The name, absolutely.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Well, in our case, I think we could argue for an amalgam of Herman Kahn,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Werner von Braun and Edward Teller,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: but it's von Braun that gives Strangelove that Teutonic touch.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: In the book...
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Dr. Strangelove written after the movie rather than the book before it
23:04
SPEAKER_01: if you get my drift.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Peter George describes Strangelov's black gloved hand
23:11
SPEAKER_01: as a memento
23:13
SPEAKER_01: of his time working on the German V2 rocket.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: So that's obviously, although it's implicit, it's obviously a nod towards Von Braun.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: The third part, and perhaps the major part Of Dr Strangelove is Edward Teller.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: He was probably the most famous father of the super bomb and probably
23:33
SPEAKER_01: the most famous classic scientist turned strategist that was very kind of notorious
23:40
SPEAKER_01: and infamous right-wing kind of neo-fascist scientist working in America
23:46
SPEAKER_01: in the post-war period.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: I think he's a major contributor.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Teller himself also had a disability.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: He lost one of his Feet in a tram accident early in his life.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: So there's that link as well.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: There's that other motif that we've talked about before and we've referred to some
24:03
SPEAKER_01: of these scientists.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of part machine.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're part automaton because they have something which is either veiled
24:10
SPEAKER_01: or mechanical.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And in the case of Strangelive, it's this black-gloved hand.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Peter Sellers...
24:17
SPEAKER_01: He had a great phrase when he described the black-gloved hand of Strangelove.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: He said that, you know, because the hand is always jerking into the Sieg Heil
24:25
SPEAKER_01: when Strangelove is trying to control it,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: and it's jerking into the Sieg Heil with embarrassing and erratic zeal.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: And Sellers said that...
24:34
SPEAKER_01: That Strangelove, sorry, The Hand,
24:37
SPEAKER_01: hated the rest of the body because the rest of the body had made a compromise
24:40
SPEAKER_01: with liberal bourgeois American politics but The Hand was still a Nazi so there was
24:45
SPEAKER_01: that kind of dialectic going on within Strangelove.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: I think there's an element within Lecter as well
24:55
SPEAKER_02: of that urbane veneer
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Even when you glimpse the monster within, even when you glimpse the killer within,
25:07
SPEAKER_02: you know, I'm having a friend for dinner.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: I ate his liver with some fava beans and a little Chianti, that sort of thing.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: But the thing that strikes me is Lecter comes across as his most mechanical
25:22
SPEAKER_02: when he's strapped to that...
25:27
SPEAKER_02: And he's got the straight jacket on and he's got
25:31
SPEAKER_02: that hockey mask type thing over his face.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: And it removes his features really and makes them almost mechanical
25:43
SPEAKER_02: with the exception of his eyes and his mouth.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: He can still talk and he can still convey menace using the eyes.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: But at that moment...
25:55
SPEAKER_02: It's almost as if he's been trapped in a mechanical body, as it were.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's interesting because it's Strangelove who's trying
26:08
SPEAKER_02: to keep his hand under control, his physicality under control, and it betrays him.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: But in Lecter it's the reverse.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Everybody else is trying to constrain Lecter.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: He wants to be let loose.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: He wants to embrace what he is
26:23
SPEAKER_02: and wreak terrible vengeance on everybody that he comes across.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: But everybody else wants to lock him behind glass or actually physically bind him.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that both Strangelove and Lecter have this Nazi connection
26:41
SPEAKER_00: because obviously as we found out more recently in the books,
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Lecter was a child under Nazi occupation and it was the atrocities committed
26:52
SPEAKER_00: to his family by the Nazis that shaped him in childhood.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: I think it's quite interesting that even today we still have this fear
27:00
SPEAKER_00: of the Nazi regime and Even though it's been 50 years, over 50 years now,
27:08
SPEAKER_00: since its demise, it still exerts an enormous influence on our imagination
27:14
SPEAKER_00: and our fears.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Naomi's reminded me of the fact that Orwell had characterised the Nazi regime,
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Germany under National Socialism, as being very kind of cold and rational,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: a place where science...
27:33
SPEAKER_01: Was at the helm in many senses because everything was reduced to line and number.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Everything was reduced to a kind of rational approach.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: So I guess it fits from that kind of point of view as well.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: That's what one of the cold and chilling things about Strangelove is that he has
27:49
SPEAKER_01: that, you know, that
27:52
SPEAKER_00: That people are merely numbers and that you can talk about tens
27:56
SPEAKER_00: and millions of deaths. Mega deaths.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Of mega deaths as though they're just figures, not actually people's lives.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: Similarly with the Nazis, we know that they used a pseudoscientific system
28:09
SPEAKER_02: to classify the human race into five different...
28:13
SPEAKER_02: And to justify their racial purification policies.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: And that they created this whole scientific backdrop
28:25
SPEAKER_02: to justify the atrocities
28:29
SPEAKER_02: that they wanted to commit.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And it's the same with Strangelove and with Lecter.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: They're using science...
28:37
SPEAKER_02: To justify their actions and their violence.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good point.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: I think we shouldn't, even though we just talked about Nazi Germany,
28:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it's worth remembering a number of things.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: First of all, the atom bomb was not developed by Nazi Germany.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: It was not used by them.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: It was used by another country and everybody is well aware of that.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, some major scientists, I mentioned Freeman Dyson at the beginning of the podcast.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: Freeman Dyson acknowledged the draw of nuclear weapons as a scientist when he said,
29:14
SPEAKER_01: I have felt it myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist to feel it's there
29:23
SPEAKER_01: in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars,
29:27
SPEAKER_01: to lift a million tons of rock into the sky.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: He felt that was mostly responsible for all our troubles.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And if it affects people like Freeman Dyson and it affects people like Oppenheimer,
29:39
SPEAKER_01: as it did, then, you know, an Oppenheimer,
29:42
SPEAKER_01: unlike Strangelove and unlike Felix Honecker
29:47
SPEAKER_01: in Kurt Vonnegut's famous book Cat's Cradle,
29:50
SPEAKER_01: which is another expose of the attitude of nuclear scientists,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: if it affects people as erudite as Oppenheimer,
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Then you can imagine what the rest of the scientists would be like.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: It was described by a guy called Philip Stern as that technology is
30:06
SPEAKER_01: an even more fearsome monster than most of us realize.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And I guess that's the important thing,
30:10
SPEAKER_01: that without the necessary checks against the misuse of science and technology,
30:17
SPEAKER_01: then most of us would be prone to its misuse.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: We know in this country with checks and balances and recently with checks
30:25
SPEAKER_02: and balances in medical matters that it's the same with Lecter as well.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: We've famous had one of the most prolific serial killers that has ever existed
30:36
SPEAKER_02: in real life, a medical man based here in the UK who was able
30:41
SPEAKER_02: to cover his tracks convincingly.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's...
30:50
SPEAKER_02: It comes across because the first thing that a medical person, a doctor does,
30:56
SPEAKER_02: is take the Hippocratic Oath, which states at its very start, first do no harm.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's almost as if that approach in the public's mind has been broadened
31:09
SPEAKER_02: to the entire of science itself.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Science is there and should be there for the benefit of mankind.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So when doctors, medical doctors, when research scientists go wrong,
31:22
SPEAKER_02: when they make errors,
31:24
SPEAKER_02: when they are corrupted, the public is even more shocked.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: They expect it of politicians and used car salesmen.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: But the trust that the general public and the cinema-going public...
31:41
SPEAKER_02: As a consequence, vest in doctors and in scientists is very high.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: So when they fall from grace, they've got farther to fall in the public's mind.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: And it makes it seem so much worse.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, though it's interesting as well that people obviously believe doctors
32:04
SPEAKER_00: and scientists to actually have the power as well that once they're fallen
32:08
SPEAKER_00: from grace they can do harm.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: We don't have very many movies about serial killing politicians, for example.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: As you say, people don't trust politicians, but politicians,
32:21
SPEAKER_00: once they're fallen from power, have nothing.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: They're just ordinary human beings.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Whereas, as you say, doctors and scientists...
32:30
SPEAKER_00: We kind of almost imbue them as being slightly different to the rest of us,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: almost superhuman in some respects,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: as particularly someone like Lecter is portrayed as having this intellect that is
32:40
SPEAKER_00: so far above everybody else's that even
32:44
SPEAKER_00: when he is constrained and tied up
32:48
SPEAKER_00: on a trolley, he can still find a means to his own escape.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: No matter what precautions you take, you'll never be able to keep him in a cage.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: Interestingly, about a quarter of the way through Silence of the Lambs, of course,
33:05
SPEAKER_02: the inmate who's next to Lecter dies.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: And Lecter kills him, even touching him.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: He convinces the guy in the next door cell to swallow his own tongue and kill himself.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: But Lecter is the author of that death.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Um.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: I think that's about all we've got time for.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for listening to The Difference Engine podcasts.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: We hope that you've enjoyed the series.