Monday, August 20, 2018

PATHS OF GLORY (1957): Fighting In World War I



As director Stanley Kubrick’s earliest blockbuster, Paths of Glory is so much more than almost every film ever made.  As one of the earliest antiwar films, it is relevant.  It has characters we care for, and some that we despise – all well played.  And at only 88 minutes, it is an instance of concise and powerful storytelling.

Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) is ordered by the French General staff to attack a well-fortified German position known as the “anthill.”  While even the generals believe that a successful attack is virtually impossible, the possibility of a promotion makes the general in charge, General Paul Mireau (George Macready), decide that such an attack is indeed necessary and doable.

Despite the bravery of Colonel Dax and many of his men, the attack is a disaster.  When it appears that the men will have to retreat, General Mireau orders that the artillery fire on his own men in order to motivate them to keep moving forward.  But because an artillery commander refuses to do so without written authorization, Mireau’s plans are thwarted.  Eventually, Colonel Dax and his men retreat back to their trenches.

Mireau is outraged and wants to execute 100 men.  However, General George Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), Mireau’s superior, convinces Mireau to reduce the number of executions to three.  The commander from each of the three squads under Dax’s command will choose which soldier would be put in front of the firing squad.  Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker) is chosen by his company leader, Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Morris).  Corporal Paris was aware that Roget was drunk at the time of the raid and probably responsible for the death of another French solider due to Roget’s negligence.  Therefore, Roget viewed Paris as the best choice because Paris knows too much.  Private Ferol (Timothy Carey) is chosen to be executed because his commander considered him a social degenerate.  With two bravery citations, Private Arnaud (Joseph Turkel) is chosen because his commander decided to draw lots.

Colonel Dax, a lawyer in civilian life, volunteers to defend the three men.  This enrages Mireau who would more than anything like to see Dax broken and used as a scapegoat for the failure of the raid.  But Mireau knows that he does not have any justification to bring charges against Dax.

The entire trial is a sham.  No one intended to ever give the three men a fair trial, and all three are ordered to be executed at dawn.  Still, Dax does have sufficient evidence on his side to convince General Broulard that Mireau did intend to fire on his own men.  While Broulard has no intentions of stopping the executions, he does use the evidence to bring an investigation against Mireau.  Mireau, to the very end, protests that Broulard has just stuck a knife in his back.

Dax, knowing Roget’s complicity in having Paris executed, orders Roget to supervise the shootings of the three men.  The three soldiers react to their sentences very differently.  Ferol subs and is meekly blindfolded.  Paris refuses a blindfold and is executed standing on his own two feet.  Arnaud, injured the prior evening in a prison fight, is carried out on a stretcher and tied to the post to give the appearance that he is standing up.  

We don’t know what Kubrick thought of this film.  He could be extraordinarily harsh about his films where he didn’t have full control.  And how much control he had over Paths of Glory remains debatable.  Nevertheless, Paths of Glory was highly praised as well as highly criticized and censored.  It would be almost twenty years before the film could be shown in France.  And it would not be shown in Spain until well after the death of Francisco Franco.  

But for me, it probably is my favorite of all Kubrick films – many of whose films are among the best.   Paths of Glory does not have the humor of Dr. Strangelove nor does the violence shock like it does in Clockwork Orange.  Yet everyone in the audience understood what the soldiers must have felt.

At the end of the film, the soldiers are in a saloon at first having fun with a young German girl who is asked to sing in front of the French troops.  Understandably frightened, she still manages to sing a well-known German song.   The French soldiers stop mocking her and listen.  Many of the soldiers even sing along.  Colonel Dax knows that the soldiers are ordered back to the front.   But Dax cannot tell the soldier the news as of yet until they had their chance to listen to the singing.

To my knowledge, no other film has had a more moving ending.

August 21, 2018


© Robert S. Miller 2018