Paths of Glory

“Paths Of Glory” is a 1957 Stanley Kubrick film adapted from the novel of the same name penned by Humphrey Cobb.

First off, I’m watching the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray and it looks great. Second, we almost immediately have a scene where General George Mireau, played by George Macready, slaps a soldier because he’s a “baby,” not shell-shocked as another soldier advises. The general declares “there is no such thing as shell-shocked!”

A great dialogue follows wherein General Mireau, after advising Kirk Douglas’s character, Colonel Dax, that his men are expected to suffer 60% casualties after the planned offensive on the “Ant Hill.” Mireau notices a smirk on Dax’s face and asks Dax if he is amused after stating that “all of France is depending on you!” The two-minute conversation if full of traps and release, well-acted and contains more cinematic worth than most movies.

Throughout the film, the secondary actors leave a little something to be desired and take the audience out of the movie, unfortunately. The dialogue, however, is interesting enough so these minor acting deficiencies don’t significantly impact the movie as a whole.

The assault on Ant Hill is fantastic. It starts with Colonel Dix walking through the trenches, looking each weary soldier in the eye as the morning’s initial military barrage starts. He then whistles for the assault to begins, and the soldiers leap out of the trenches for the assault, which ultimately fails due to soldiers’ refusal to fight against insurmountable odds.

The film becomes a legal one. It is an early, antiwar movie, and illustrates the tenuous legal dynamics in military tribunals. Col. Dix uses an emotional appeal to protect the sometimes randomly-picked defendants in a court-martial trial for “cowardice in the face of the enemy.”
This appeal fails, and the three defendants are sentenced to death.

A rather shocking scene occurs when the priest informs the prisoners of their fate and offers to accept their confessions - hostility against religion is displayed, a precursor for anti-establishment films to come.

This is what I think is paramount to this film - it is a very early example of anti-establishment, anti-war film that is expertly made and primarily courageous for its time.

The cinematography is certainly worth mentioning. Not being a film scholar, it seems that the incorporation of wide-angle, macro shops with off-center, perspective shots was also early for its time. This movie has the distinctive Kubrick signature.

It is a short, 88 minute movie. Stakes are established, gambled, and realized. A closing scene of a bunch of horny soldiers clamoring for an obviously traumatized German woman to sing naively takes the humanist tone to a improbable conclusion - the soldiers stop acting like crazy horndogs and hum along with her, some sobbing in recognition of the dynamic present. Col. Dix looks on in approval and grants the men some more time before having to move back to the front.

This is not a perfect movie, but stands as an amazing accomplishment.