Determined to film key scenes of Barry Lyndon entirely by candlelight, Stanley Kubrick sought out NASA’s permission to use a one-of-a-kind lens developed for filming in outer space. Inspired by this obscure moment in film history, William Karel fashions a dark re-imagining of the U.S. space program that draws from recent conspiracy theories a vein of black comedy worthy of Dr. Strangelove himself. Loading his film with hidden reference to the films of Kubrick and Hitchcock while turning to such surprising witnesses as Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld, Karel has fun with the deadly serious topic of U.S. military technology’s role in U.S. image-making.

Designed at the very beginning of the Cold War as a high-altitude bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons, over the subsequent decades the B-52 became a symbol of American military might and technological prowess. In this experimental and provocative documentary, Hartmut Bitomsky examines the aircraft as an embodiment of contemporary American culture, using the B-52’s singular history to meditate on half a century of American technology at war and its representation. Best known for his documentary essays examining such icons as the highway, Bitomsky here examines the costly bomber as both a historical object and a cultural symbol, interweaving archival footage with interviews with devoted B-52 crew members, as well as artists and museum staff who grapple with the iconic war machine’s usage and influence.