"Paths of Glory" - Film Review

Heading into World War I, everyone involved expected an easy, quick conflict. For years Europe had devoted themselves to the notion of “progress” that technology and war would advance society for the better. Those attitudes still prevailed early on in the war before it had really started to take its toll. WWI was in many ways the first war that made people realize that may be war was bad and perhaps it should be avoided.

The military mission given to the French troops (although played by no one French and with no French spoken throughout)  in Paths of Glory is impossible, even foolhardy. They’re to take a fairly useless strategic position, a hill labeled the “Anthill”. In the process, the loss of more than half the troops is expexted, and once they’ve taken the hill they’re to hold it for several hours until backup arrives. It’s a pointless military assignment that doesn’t serve to advance the war effort and all-in-all is meant to look good for the politicians and press back home. 

Paths of Glory is an “antiwar” movie. Its message is didactic and it’s filled with archetypes and lofty themes about the cost of war. There’s not exactly real people to get attached to, but rather people who stand in for different ideological systems or who become constrained by those ideological systems. There’s the general, Major General Georges Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), who has no real sense of the cost of war and still enthralled by the so-called chivalry of war. He keeps insisting they take the position even as it becomes increasingly unfeasible and dangerous. There’s the solider, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), who chooses to oppose him. Idealistic and concerned for his troops’ lives, he questions the purpose of the mission from the word go.

When the mission stalls, the troops are unable to make it more than halfway through no man’s land (some don’t even leave the trenches because their commanding officer died before they were given an order to exit), the general court marshals all the surviving troops, who are few and far between considering most died in the foolish forward march. The colonel won’t stand for this and defends them in their military trial, a loaded court case overseen by top military officials who intend to make an example of three soldiers chosen as stand-ins for their companies. They, not unexpectedly, lose the trial and are sentenced to death by firing squad.  Nobody learns anything, other than the colonel, and the war continues on. 

The film is directed by the inimitable director Stanley Kubrick in one of his earliest feature films. Kubrick would become increasingly abstracted and thoughtful about the nature of the medium of film. This is arguably his most accessible film; fans of his film will know that his later films would find him exploring the medium’s possibilities with exceedingly strange but brilliant results. Kubrick was best remembered as a calculating perfectionist. Much of his immaculate framing and impeccable sense of detail are present in the film. Kubrick had a tendency to put his audience at arm’s length from the action taking place. We can see this in the forward movement out of the trenches. It’s one long tracking shot, occasionally spliced with a less extreme wide shot of Douglas. It’s not overly stylish; it’s not gruesome. People are frequently being mowed down by bullets and the lines noticeably thin, but there’s no sense that Kubrick is trying to get us engrossed in the action or deeply involve us in this moment. We’re at a distance, watching this tragedy unfold. There’s no honor or glory here, just death.

It’s not all that thought provoking or original of a message, but it’s an incredibly assured and well-crafted film and Kirk Douglas gives a great performance. 

Grade: A-