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
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 (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Paths of Glory
Movie Review: Amazing classic war film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an amazing, classic war film taken from the French perspective. As far as I am concerned this film easily rivals All Quiet on the Western Front in portraying a compelling portrait of the "unseemly side of war". The movie begins by informing the viewer that we are seeing France in 1916. By then, the landscape had been reduced to a pock-marked, naked battlefield, littered with wrecks, both human and machine. The view then changes to an exterior shot of a beautiful European Chateau, where inside the French army officers are apparently living in luxury. The Corps Commander, General Broulard, proposes a plan to take an impregnable position called Ant Hill. The General easily manipulates division General Mireau, depicted as a scar faced evil looking man, into accepting his proposal. Mireau is convinced that he will be considered for a promotion if successful and Ant Hill is taken. "Nothing is beyond those men once their fighting spirit is aroused".
Mireau then goes to Colonel Dax, to inform him of the plan. They meet at Dax's trench shelter for the meeting. Mireau appeals to Dax's patriotism, but Dax is shocked and dazed, knowing that this attack would never succeed. (What we the audience are witnessing is the effect of a bad plan moving its way down the ranks, finally ending up with the end user, the ones who will pay for its folly with their lives) Of course Dax ultimately agrees.
An eerie night recon scene follows with three men moving trench to trench, guided by flares. We stare at some tangled wreckage for a few moments before it is illuminated to become a crashed plane, bodies, and some kind of low bunker. The flare's light makes for a very haunting and memorable scene. The lieutenant then orders one of the men to take a closer look. When he does not return quickly, the lieutenant, panics, throws a grenade in the direction of the wreck, and runs away. We see that he has blown up his own man during his cowardly act of running away. The third man makes it back to the trench where he encounters the lieutenant and says, "You are a booze-guzzling, yellow-bellied rat with a bottle for a brain!"
The next scene takes place the following morning. We see Dax striding confidently down the long trench. His men are standing next to the walls with bayonets fixed in place, preparing to go over the wall. The camera work is fantastic as it follows a grim faced Dax, walking unfazed as bombs and machine-gun fire go off all around him. He reaches his position, a ladder, and amidst all the noise of the bombs and gun fire, blows a very weak sounding whistle. I am sure it was the director's intention to have a barely audible and pathetic sounding whistle signal this fruitless attack. The men follow Dax with a roar.
The attacking force is cut to shreds. The men are stumbling over their fallen comrades only to be killed a few steps later. Chaos rules and the men retreat. One group never makes it out of the trenches due to heavy fire, this is seen by Mireau. An enraged Mireau orders his battery commander to open fire on the French troops still in the trench. Three times the battery commander refuses saying that he must have written proof of the order. The commander is relived of duty and ordered to be under arrest for his failure to follow orders.
Dax runs back to the trench and finds the cowardly lieutenant and commands him to attack. "It's impossible sir, all the men are falling back". With that Dax climbs the ladder only to be hit by a dead soldier falling back into the trench. An angry Mireau announces "if those little sweethearts won't face German bullets, they'll face French ones!"
Mireau calls for a court-martial and wants at least one hundred men to stand trial for "cowardess in the face of the enemy". General Broulard finally haggles Mireau down to three men, selected by each company commander. Mireau corners Dax on a stairway inside the Chateau and says, "Broulard seemed to think you were funny. I don't. I'll break you; I'll ruin you, for showing such little loyalty to your commanding officer."
Dax is selected to be the defense attorney for the selected men. Dax meets the doomed men in prison and commands the men to "act like what you are, soldiers!"
The trial is held in the Chateau without the slightest hint of justice. Dax is incapable of even having the indictment read into the record, and further, no stenographer was present. Each of the three soldiers is hammered by the prosecutor, and each time Dax defends the soldiers he is ignored. The prosecutor sums up by saying that this "attack was a stain on the flag of France." A clearly enraged Dax counters with, "There are times when I am ashamed to be a member of the human race, and this is one such occasion!" Still, ultimately, Dax is ignored.
The execution scene builds with a crescendo of uniformed men surrounding the gallows. Three posts are standing vertically with three caskets visible nearby. One of the men is unconscious, being carried on a stretcher, while another hangs whimperingly on a priest. I hoped that Dax's last minute effort (with Broulard, to convince him to let the men off due to Mireau's order to open fire on his own troops) would pay off, but the end was inevitable. The men are summarily shot.
The final scene will stay with me for a long time, I hope. The war weary soldiers are in a nearby tavern, getting drunk following the execution. Dax hears the men whistling lecherously inside and looks in the door to see a blonde German girl being paraded on stage. The men are catcalling the innocent girl who is standing on the stage crying. When encouraged to sing by the emcee, she begins in a frightened little voice, barely audible over the din. The soldiers quiet a bit and begin to hear her sing. The hooting soldiers are transformed back into men, some crying, some looking off into space, obviously thinking of home and family and not the war. In a very humanizing way the film brings us back from this grotesque journey of inane battles, deaths, trials, and executions, and reveals that even in the face of ultimate depravity, we have a propensity for kindness.
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, the film was initiated by Kirk Douglas, who chose the young Kubrick to direct what 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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