Yale Film Archive Fights In The War Room

The return of Yale students to campus for spring semester means a new class schedule for them, but it also means a new spring screening schedule for the Yale Film Archive, one that is free and open not only to those students, but to the general public. 

This week the first two films of their ​“Treasures from the Yale Archive” series — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Tuesday and Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb on Thursday — were screened to full rooms of film fans in all of their 35 mm glory. And according to managing archivist Brian Meacham, this is only the beginning. The Treasures series is one of three film series the Archive presents each semester. 

“We try to be as broad as possible,” said Meacham about how the archive chooses films for the Treasures series, though they all come from the Archive’s collection. They try to accomplish two goals with this particular series: to showcase films they have not screened before — no film has been repeated since they began in 2014 — and to showcase prints that are newly acquired. For example, Yale worked with Sony to commission the print of Dr. Strangelove shown last night that is brand new for its 60th anniversary. 

The other two series change focus from year to year. This spring will include a series called The World of James Ivory, highlighting films that Ivory himself donated to the Archive from his personal collection, and the Cinemix series, which Meacham said features a lot of ​“one-off” films. Last week that series screened Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest from 2023 — in digital, not 35 mm — which has already won a multitude of awards and is up for a number of Oscars. Next week that series will be showing Jackals and Fireflies, a short directed by Charlie Kaufman, who will also be there in person for the screening. 

Some of the Treasures series events will also feature guests including director Ira Sachs at the screening of his 2023 film Passages and filmmaker Alexis Krasilovsky, who, according to Meacham, was part of the first Yale graduating class that included women in 1971. Krasilovsky will be at the screening of her documentary The End of the Art World, which is also being shown with the 1966 classic Daisies. James Ivory himself will appear at the screening of one of the films in his series, Shakespeare Wallah.

The films are shown in the Humanities Quadrangle at 320 York St., in one of two rooms that hold 92 and 180 people respectively with an occasional film shown at 53 Wall Street (which holds over 200). Meacham noted that they have seen a ​“huge upswing and interest in seeing films collectively and seeing them in 35 mm,” an experience he referred to as ​“original’ and ​“authentic.”

“It’s the most accurate way to see them, the way they were originally seen by audiences,” he said. ​“We try to give our audience as close to an original experience as possible.”

He noted that the Yale undergraduates have come of age in a fully digital world, so seeing any of the 35 mm films is like ​“seeing an original manuscript at Beinecke or an original work of art at the Yale art galleries.”

For Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove, cinephiles started to enter the screening room, located in the lower level of the Humanities Quadrangle, just after 6:30 p.m. Around 20 minutes later only single seats were available, and by 7 p.m. all were filled. Meacham came to the podium to welcome everyone. 

“This is a very special night — well, they’re all special,” he said with a laugh and received laughs in return as he added that tonight was ​“yet another sold out show.” He exalted the ​“return to moviegoing” and ​“renewed interest” in collectively viewing films and thanked the audience for being there, as well as his colleagues and everyone involved in making this new copy of Dr. Strangelove happen. Meacham added that ​“according to Kodak,” this copy would last anywhere ​“from five to eight hundred years,” so they would be able to show it over and over again. 

“This is the first of many showings,” he said to much applause. 

He then introduced a special guest for the evening: Professor Steve Lamoreaux from the Yale physics department, who would introduce the film.

An atomic physicist who also worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lamoreaux spoke of his time there as well as growing up during the Cuban missile crisis. He also spoke of how Kubrick ended up making the serious subject matter of a nuclear threat — based on the book Red Alert — into a dark comedy after reading about situations in the book that were ​“so bizarre they made him crack up.”

Lamoreaux may have spoken of serious matters himself, but he ended the introduction with a joke that mimicked a particularly funny scene from the film that I won’t spoil here, but garnered quite a bit of laughter from those who had already seen the film. (Let’s just say it involved a black glove and a nuclear bomb effects computer, which apparently really exists). 

The film proceeded with a rapt audience that seemed to stay off of their phones and refrain from chatting while also engaging in a hearty amount of laughter. For those who are not familiar with the film, it is the story of what happens when rogue US air force general Jack D. Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden, who chews up every scene he is in like the end of his ever-present cigar) decides to order the enactment of Plan R, which involves dropping hydrogen bombs on Russia based on his conspiracy theory that the Russians are ​“attacking” us through the fluoridation of our water supply which then affects our ​“precious bodily fluids.” The ensuing scramble to not only stop the plan from being carried out, but to stop Ripper himself, leads to all kinds of ridiculous and hysterical events.

These events are played out by a host of amazing actors, including George C. Scott — who is typically remembered for playing a much more serious general in Patton — as manic General Buck Turgidson; Slim Pickens as the bombastic Major Kong, the pilot who will do whatever it takes to carry out the orders; and, most famously and hilariously, Peter Sellers in three, yes, three roles: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, United States President Merkin Muffley, and the titular character Dr. Strangelove. The laughs are many throughout, but Sellers really sells it three times over in three distinct roles that showcase his gift for voices and physical comedy as well as restraint. 

Without seeing the film itself, it may be difficult to understand how a film about such a serious subject could be so hilarious, but the absurdity of how anything like that could actually happen lends itself to a wealth of humor, albeit dark. When the President yells at two of the men who are fighting, ​“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!” you can’t help but laugh, though a shudder might also follow. The film may be 60 years old, but its themes, including the light it shines on unbridled power and ego, seem even more relevant today. 

I would be remiss to not mention the look and the sound of the film, which were both top notch, as well as the comfort of the room. They all brought this film lover back to the days when you still had the excitement of not choosing a seat until you were actually in the theater, and once you did, awaiting the first sounds of the feature without a barrage of advertisements. It made it all seem fresh and new. 

You know I’ll never spoil the film here, but I will add one more thing: The use of music in it, in particular the final song, really made it all hit home and made the collective experience of seeing it with others, as Meacham had put it, very special. The audience erupted in applause when the film was all over and left having conversations about it — another beautiful part of the collective experience you just can’t have sitting on your couch. 

The spring screening schedule can be found at the Yale Film Archive webpage.