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Summary: An Indictment of the French Army during WWI!!
Review: Stanley Kubrick's vision is remarkable. His shots are carefully crafted, especially during the court martial. Watching this movie made me realize how absurd war really is. This film is based on the true story of a General's blunder during a battle in World War I. The role of the French General especially angered me because it showed there were people in the French Army during that time who should never have been in command. It speaks volumes!! It's an unforgettable classic.
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Summary: the korean war
Review: this is a stanley kubrik film.most people only know the ones from 2001 a space odyssey on.theres some parts which are a bit long.these 3 maybe 4 guys get put to death for showing cowardice in the face of the enemy.its not for kids.its not the best military movie .full metal jacket is better.haha.the execution scene is particuraly stirring.i liked spartacus better out of the 2 kubrik/douglas films.
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Summary: The Best in TWO catagories!!
Review: best black and white movie; best anti-war movie... I've ever seen!
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Summary: An appropriate study of ethics in politics and government.
Review: Although set in the environment of a war movie, this screenplay is more appropriately a psycholigical study of how government really works. Unfortunately, there are fewer in government like Colonel Dax. Politicians are more apt to protect their own skins at the expense of their ethics and the welfare of the citizenary. As a retired Federal employee and analyst with 33 years of experience in Washington, DC, I consider myself well qualifed to comment.
Unfortunately, politicians are more interested in protecting their own position than the welfare of the public. If the public benefits, that is considered "extra."
The novel and the movie could have easily been set in the White House and the current situation in Iraq.
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Summary: "I cannot accept such an order unless it is in writing."
Review: The film "Paths of Glory" is set in WWI France in 1916. The story is loosely based on events that took place during the Battle of Verdun. When the film begins, the war between the Germans and the French has reached an impasse. The armies are bogged down in their trenches, and battles are fought over a few feet of ground. General Mireau is approached by General Broulard to use the 701st Regiment to take the "Ant Hill." Mireau, at first, dismisses the idea as he is quite aware that it's a suicide mission, but then he becomes seduced by the idea that he stands to be perceived as a "fighting general." Mireau agrees to launch the already exhausted regiment at the Ant Hill on an appointed day. Mireau approaches Colonel Dax of the 701st, (Kirk Douglas) and reveals his plan. Dax is also aware that the plan is suicide, and he lays out the projections for the numbers of dead. On the appointed day of the attack, the weather conditions are extremely unfavourable, but the suicide mission goes ahead as planned.
As predicted, many men are slaughtered in the insane assault. In the aftermath of the attack, General Mireau comes unglued by the defeat, and so after the assault is over, he looks for somewhere to cast blame. He states: "one way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then." Three soldiers are selected to go on trial for cowardice, and if they are found guilty, the punishment is execution. Colonel Dax defends the men against the accusation that the assault was lost as a result of their cowardice.
This early Stanley Kubrick film was made in 1957, and the film was banned in several countries for its controversial anti-war stance. This is a very tight little film with no frills or wasted scenes. The subject matter could so easily have been overdone with excessive sentimentality, but the sentiment here is sparse. But in spite of its low budget and low sentimentality factor, the film manages to create extremely powerful battle scenes. The black and white photography really lends itself to the gloom of the trenches and to the assault against the Ant Hill. Scenes depicting the horror of the trenches are compared to the lives the Generals lead in opulent chateaus, full of exquisite and delicate furniture. The generals still have time for balls and banquets while their men die unnoticed in the trenches. Kubrick does a good job of showing the class differences between the enlisted men and the officers. The enlisted men are viewed as sub-human and quite expendable. While the bullets fly, the generals, safe in their luxurious palaces, send men down the "Paths of Glory" (war and death) with the same old rhetoric and flag-waving. These same generals are ready with criticism against those who give life and limb for a piece of dirt. "Paths of Glory" is one of three great anti-war films from Stanley Kubrick--the two others are "Full Metal Jacket" and "Dr Strangelove." It's good to see Kirk Douglas in these early roles, as it's very easy to see his power as an actor. I recommend "Paths of Glory" for those interested in Kubrick's career or for those wishing to watch an intensely powerful antiwar film--displacedhuman
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Summary: Friendly fire
Review: Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" is the best war movie -- or, rather, the best anti-war movie -- ever made, and that includes "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Grand Illusion". Based on a novel by Humphey Cobb (which in turn was based on a real event), the story follows the fates of three French soldiers accused of cowardice in 1916. "Paths of Glory" was not exactly a box office smash when it was released in 1957; and evidently it completely puzzled the Academy -- though, strangely enough, an anti-war epic, "The Bridge on the River Kwai", was chosen 1957's Best Picture, but that fine film was in color and wide-screen. (I knew an ex-Marine who was horrified by "Paths of Glory", though he basked in the CinemaScope sentimentality of 1955's "Battle Cry".) Directed by Kubrick when he was only 28 from a screenplay written by himself, Jim Thompson, and the shamefully under-rated novelist Calder Willingham, the film's plot hinges on its first scene, a meeting between two French generals, expertly played by Adolphe Menjou and George Macready, the latter's facial scar emphasized by overhead lighting. Menjou has come to Macready to discuss the absolute importance of Macready's men capturing a strategic (and impregnable) German outpost -- mentioning, en passant, that Macready is up for a promotion, provided. Macready's character is one of those paragons of impatience who speaks of troops as though they were matériel. During the harrowing and unsuccessful attack on the enemy's bastion, he is so infuriated by the lack of advance he commands his battery to turn their guns on their own men, an astonishing order that plays an important part in the plot's outcome. Menjou's character is more mysterious: it's difficult to tell if he tempting people or testing them. The star of the movie is Kirk Douglas as the humane Colonel Dax, commander of the regiment ordered to take the "ant hill". It's a strong performance of restrained idealism; only near the end is Douglas allowed one of the big outbursts for which he was noted. It is he who must act as defense lawyer when Macready insists that three men of the Colonel's regiment -- one man from each battalion -- be placed before court martial, charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy. The three actors Ralph Meeker, Timothy Carey, and Joseph Turkel are excellent, playing three very different soldiers, all of them facing a French firing squad. The supporting cast includes Wayne Morris, who played College Joe types in the Thirties, giving a subtle portrayal of a weak alcoholic, and Richard Anderson, Mr Nice Guy at Metro, thoroughly unlikeable here as the court martial's prosecutor. "Paths of Glory" was photographed by George Krause with an eye for the atmosphere of the Great War; the only thing lacking is sepia. There's an exciting cut in the film's second half. Colonel Dax is in his quarters, tired and depressed, when a battery commander enters, saying he has information which may have a bearing on the court martial. Dax immediately perks up and says "Come in". Then the camera cuts, not to the commander but to a smiling, somewhat oily retainer crossing a ballroom floor to the strains of "The Emperor Waltz". It's a stunning depiction of the contrast between trench life and the luxury in the upper ranks on the Western Front. Nothing about "Paths of Glory" presents war as anything like la gloire idealized by the French, and the mood of the entire movie, including the climatic scene, is summed up in the title, when one realizes it is taken from a poem by Thomas Gray: "The paths of glory lead but to the grave".
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Summary: One of Kubrik's first, and more relevant than ever
Review: This is one of Kubrik's first films. He is still developing, but we can see his trademakrs already: the ultra-realistic scenography and photography, minimalistic dialogue, and the dreamlike sequence as the camera follows Kirk Douglas in the trench.
The film takes place during the first world war. A French general has ordered an attack on a German fortress. Due to ridicilously bad planning the attack ends in a dismal failure. To protect his reputation the general orders a military tribunal where randomly selected soldiers are made into scapegoats and sentenced to death.
Does it not sound familiar? Who can believe that simple private soldiers commited all the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, without their superiors knowing, or even ordering the abuse? We should live in a time where media coverage would prevent such blatant miscarriage of justice.
Again, reality is worse than we can imagine.
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Summary: Stanley Kubrick's film on the futility and madness of war
Review: In 1916 France Commander Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) wants General Mireau (George Macready) to have his battered division take the "Ant Hill", an impregnable German fortress, promising Mireau a promotion and another story if he succeeds. Mireau orders Dax (Kirk Douglas) to lead the charge, which is a complete failure. When soldiers are pinned down by German artillery and machine gun fire Mireau orders his own artillery to fire on their own trenches, screaming, "If those sweethearts won't face German bullets, they'll take French ones!" "Paths of Glory" has a deserved reputation as a great anti-war film but I think that director Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Humphrey Cobb's 1935 semi-fictional novel is a rather specific indictment of both a particular military and a particular war. The suicidal attack in the first act of the film was loosely based upon the battle for Fort Douamont during the Battle of Verdun, where over 300,000 French soldiers lost their lives. The assault, doomed to fail before it began, is ordered by French generals more concerned with prestige and promotions than the lives of their troops or the actual prospects for success. In the wake of the disaster three men are selected to be tried and then executed for cowardice. They are defended in court by their commander, Colonel Dax, the lone voice of reason speaking out against the insanity of what has happened. This film was banned for almost twenty years in France and it is an indictment of the French military on a par with those films that have touched on the infamous Dreyfus case. I have trouble extended this indictment beyond these French generals, not only because in cinematic history there is this sense of this being standard practice for the French military but because hypocritically sending troops to such senseless death is rare in American military history. A.P. Hill sending Confederate troops in a series of useless charges to teach them a lesson at the Battle of Franklin comes to mind, but I remember most American generals as taking blame and responsibility for such slaughters (e.g., Burnside at Fredericksburg, Lee after Pickett's Charge, Grant with regard to the final charge at Cold Harbor). But there is also a sense in which we identify this sort of waste of young soldiers with World War I. In cinematic terms the obvious comparison is to "Gallipoli," where British troops are having tea on the beaches while Australian troops are gunned down in a needless charge ordered by stubborn British generals (another category of military leaders easy treat with disdain given how they are portrayed in the movies). The Civil War has provided amble evidence that troops charging entrenched or fortified positions was horribly futile and yet fifty years later European armies were still sending thousands of men against machine guns (the iconic weapon of the first World War). As the opening narration explains, "Successful attacks were measured in hundreds of yards - and paid for in lives by hundreds of thousands." The title of the book/film comes from a line in Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," where the poet writes, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." This might be an anti-war film but it still shows the heroism of the troops as Kubrick uses a tracking shot to follow the Dax and his soldiers across No Man's Land against the German fort. After all, these men are fighting an army that has invaded their country, so there is a sense in which the title is inappropriate simply because these men are not involved in a quest for glory. The film was shot in Germany and cinematographer Georg Krause provides one of the sharpest black & white films you have ever seen. The clarity is almost daunting and it is impossible not to think that it is not but another part of Kubrick's grand design. As for the performance by Douglas I would agree with the general consensus that this is his finest performance, even over what he would provide for Kubrick three years later in "Spartacus." In the end Kubrick makes a final argument for the universality of human experience when a German singer (Susanne Christian, who was Christiane Kubrick wife of the director) is forced to sing a song for the French troops whose jeers turn to tears. There are, relatively speaking compared to other wars, relatively few films about the First World War. But it is rather impressive when you start listing the ones that immediately come to mind ("Wings," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Sgt. York," "Gallipoli") how good they tend to be and how many of them are, at their essence, anti-war films. For that, I think the credit for linking that particular war with the idea of the futility of war clearly belongs to Erich Maria Remarque, author of "All Quiet on the Western Front."
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