Strangelove Country: Science Fiction, Filmosophy, and the Kubrickian Consciousness

D. Harlan Wilson’s Strangelove Country is an original, dynamic study of Stanley Kubrick’s relationship with science fiction that explores how the genre shaped his cinematic identity and how that identity reshaped the genre. Focusing on Kubrick’s futurist trilogy-Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange-as well as his collaboration with Steven Spielberg on A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Wilson takes a unique approach that is at once scholarly and defiant of academic stodge. Specifically, he views the ＂Kubrickian consciousness＂ through the lens of schizoanalysis and filmosophy, methods of inquiry that he uses to probe how Kubrick’s oeuvre forms a singular, autonomous, interstitial ＂filmind＂ distinct from the director, with its own manner of thinking, seeing, and being. Synthesizing film theory, critical analysis, and certain novelistic techniques, Wilson reaffirms Kubrick’s status as one of the twentieth century’s greatest auteurs while casting new light on the filmmaker’s extraordinary contribution to the history of cinema.