Paths of Glory
by Stanley Kubrick
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Wayne MorrisDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Brand: DOUGLAS,KIRK
Producer: Kirk Douglas
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: James B. Harris
Writer: Calder Willingham
Writer: Humphrey Cobb
Writer: Jim Thompson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Paths of Glory
Movie Review: Jaw-droppingly good.
Summary: 5 Stars
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
I spent most of my life running Stanley Kubrick down. Until 2008, I'd only seen two and a half Kubrick movies I actually liked: Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and the first forty-five minutes if Full Metal Jacket. Problem was, I hadn't seen Kubrick's entire oeuvre, and I basically extrapolated from the movies I'd seem that I simply couldn't stand. But a friend whose judgment I implicitly trust kept telling me I absolutely had to see The Killing, and I eventually broke down and did so. He was right, as he almost always is (thanks, Niall!), and so I started tracking down the Kubrick movies I hadn't seen before, especially the early ones (after all, The Killing was made in 1957, Lolita in 1962; I figured the farther back I went, the more likely I was to like a random Kubrick flick). While Paths of Glory does have some of the same hammer-to-the-face unsubtlety that would mar later Kubrick work like the second half of Full Metal Jacket, there's no denying that Paths of Glory is an undoubtedly powerful film, and must be counted a success.
The film centers around Dax (Kirk Douglas), a colonel during World War I who is ordered by his superior General Mireau (George MacReady), who's mad as a hatter, to take the Ant Hill, a German fortification that's long been considered impregnable. Still, Dax and his squad, the 701st, are considered the bets in the business, the guys who will never back down, no matter the odds, and so Dax comes up with one of those out-of-the-box plans that's actually crazy enough that it might work. Come dawn, the strike commences, and despite Dax's excellent strategy and the bravery of the troops, they're pummelled. After some of the men, having seen the massacre of the first wave, refuse to leave the trenches, Mireau and his ambitious colleague Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) order Dax to fire on the trenches. Dax unequivocally refuses. Why am I telling you all this? Because this is all the setup. The real bulk of the movie comes after the strike on the Ant Hill. This is not so much a war movie as it is a trial movie, and despite Kubrick's stunning depictions of the battle itself, what takes Paths of Glory out of the general category of the war movie and makes it transcendent is the trial. It's where all the suspense in the movie lies, and it's also the portion of the film that contains the performances that have made this movie a classic and gotten it on IMDB's list of the top 250 films of all time (as I write this, it's sitting at #43).
Trial flicks, or trial scenes in other flicks, are great places for top-notch actors to do their best work. Think about the trial scene at the climax of M, which turned Peter Lorre from a character actor into one of the greatest stars of the forties. For that matter, just tune into one of TNT's ubiquitous Law and Order marathons, where some of the best obscure actors of our generation have done some of their finest work. Never has that been truer than it is in Paths of Glory. Kirk Douglas ruled the silver-screen roost for a lot of years, to be sure, but you want to see his awe-inspiring acting chops distilled into one great speech? Rent Paths of Glory. And while Douglas was the obvious draw when the movie was released, a number of the supporting cast turn in performances as impressive, perhaps more so. The incredible Menjou (King of the Turf) is just the epitome of evil in this flick, but not in that superhero-movie type sense; this is the evil of bureaucracy, as it was personified in the Nuremberg Trials, so fresh in the memories of those who saw this movie when it came out in the late fifties--"I was just doing my job." But in this case, there's no one around to call him to task. He's a tin-pot dictator who actually has the power to do what he wants, and revels in it, but he thinks he's constrained by procedure. It's a fascinating, complex character, and Menjou brings it to life. Contrast MacReady, who's just as ambitious, but has no pretension of constraint; he just doesn't care, thanks to his mental derangement. (I have a strong urge here to compare the two to Pinky and the Brain....) On the other side of the coin are Dax's three underlings who have been picked out as examples, all of whom are scripted differently, and all of whom are played by actors who are more than capable of bringing those differences out and working them over.
And yeah, as I mentioned way back at the beginning of this, one thing you certainly won't get from this movie, as you never do with Kubrick, is subtlety. As he does in so many films, Kubrick takes his anti-war message and batters you over the head with it, wanting to subdue you in the same way the Germans in the Ant Hill want to subdue their French assailants. While the pronounced lack of subtlety that was such a hallmark of Kubrick's works in some cases (in a heist flick like The Killing, subtlety would be about as appropriate as horns on a cow, or however that expression goes), it does mar some of the scenes in this film as we get closer to the climax. Every once in a very, very great while, however, an actor can overcome a script's lack of subtlety and work what would otherwise be a boring message speech into a work of art. (Witness Willem Dafoe's sermon on the mount in The Last Temptation of Christ, for example.) And to me, what propels this film from the ranks of the great into the ranks of the immortal is the way Kirk Douglas' speech does this. A lesser actor, it seems to me, could very easily have botched the material. I've no idea how many takes Douglas went through before getting it as good as it is (Kubrick being the notorious perfectionist that he was), but the take they finally settled on was perfect, and I am not using that word in any hyperbolic sense. As a trial speech, it ranks right up there with the Lorre scene from M I mentioned before, but where Lorre ensured his place in film history by completely losing his cool, Douglas ensures his with that quiet, deadly anger that telegraphs that if he could, he'd leap over the table and rip out the trbunal's throats with his bare hands--but he's considered the possibility and rejected it because he thinks this approach would be more effective. For lack of a better term, that's just awesome. It's one of those scenes that will stay with you for a long, long time after you've watched the film.
Absolutely stunning. A must-see movie, even if you're not a Kubrick fan. Take it from me, I should know. **** ˝
Summary of Paths of Glory
Safe in their picturesque chateau behind the front lines, the French general staff passes down a direct order to Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas): take the Ant Hill at any cost. A blatant suicide mission, the attack is doomed to failure. Covering up their fatal blunder, the generals order the arrest of three innocent soldiers, charging them with cowardice and mutiny. Dax, a lawyer in civilian life, rises to the men's defense but soon realizes that, unless he can prove that the generals were to blame,nothing less than a miracle will save his clients from the firing squad. A compelling masterpiece from world-class director/writer Stanley Kubrick and screenwriters Calder Willingham and JimThompson, Paths of Glory is a blistering indictment of military politics and "an unforgettable movie experience" (Newsweek).Stanley Kubrick had already made his talent known with the outstanding racetrack heist thriller The Killing, but it was the 1957 antiwar masterpiece Paths of Glory that catapulted Kubrick to international acclaim. Based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb, developed by Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas, it would become one of the most powerful films about the wasteful insanity of warfare. In one of his finest roles, Douglas plays Colonel Dax, commander of a battle-worn regiment of the French army along the western front during World War I. Held in their trenches under the threat of German artillery, the regiment is ordered on a suicidal mission to capture an enemy stronghold. When the mission inevitably fails, French generals order the selection of three soldiers to be tried and executed on the charge of cowardice. Dax is appointed as defense attorney for the chosen scapegoats, and what follows is a travesty of justice that has remained relevant and powerful for decades. In the wake of some of the most authentic and devastating battle sequences ever filmed, Kubrick brilliantly explores the political machinations and selfish personal ambitions that result in battlefield slaughter and senseless executions. The film is unflinching in its condemnation of war and the self-indulgence of military leaders who orchestrate the deaths of thousands from the comfort of their luxurious headquarters. For many years, Paths of Glory was banned in France as a slanderous attack on French honor, but it's clear that Kubrick's intense drama is aimed at all nations and all men. Though it touches on themes of courage and loyalty in the context of warfare, the film is specifically about the historical realities of World War I, but its impact and artistic achievement remain timeless and universal. --Jeff Shannon
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