Directed by Stanley Kubick, screen written by Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson and Stanley Kubick; Paths of Glory is a 1957 drama movie of a French division during the First World War (WWI).
The story is summarized merely. The harsh conditions of WWI is depicted as a unit commander, Col.Dax (Kirk Douglas) in the French army must deal with the refusal of his men to fight, with a glory-seeking General, Gen. Mireau (George Macready) and with an unjust trial of three of his men after part of his forces fails in an impossible suicide mission ordered by the General.
The director Stanley Kubick has successfully transformed Humphrey Cobb’s novel Paths of Glory to a movie that shows the immorality of the ruling class, stability of trench warfare, the destruction of attack, and the panic of the captured and condemned men.
The film begins with a voiceover describing the trench warfare situation of World War I up to 1916. In a château General Georges Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), a member of the French General Staff, asks his subordinate, the ambitious General Mireau, to send his division on a suicide mission to take a well-defended German position called the “Anthill.” Mireau initially refuses to comply, citing the impossibility of success and the danger to his beloved soldiers, but when Broulard mentions a potential promotion, Mireau quickly convinces himself the attack will succeed. From this conversation, we can see the hypocrisy, the indifference and the pride of the ruling class. They have no care for the soldiers who will fight and probably die for the sake of a General holding a higher office. This is very well depicted throughout the movie. Later, when the soldiers refuse to move forward with the attack because they know that they will die for sure, Gen.Mireau orders fire on his troops and thinks that this would ‘teach them a lesson on obeying orders.’ How can a life of one man, let alone a whole division be this easy? Vanity, we see here, is an element of self-destruction and a danger to the moral compass.
The camera goes on to show the trenches and soldiers saluting the Gen. as he makes his way to Col.Dax’s office and there informs the Colonel about the order of taking Anthill. The Colonel argues his men have no motivation but the General is determined and leaves after he ‘orders’ the Colonel to take Anthill even if half the men of the division dies. The story continues as we see the terrible conditions of the trench warfare and the destruction and devastation of the attacks. The soldiers are frightened of dying, the Colonel is worried of losing his men and not being able to carry out the orders, and the General is only concerned with the high position and reputation he will be given once Anthill is taken. The permanence of the trench warfare and the destruction of the war are so successfully reflected by the director, that the audience feels the effects of the bombing and shooting and the dread of the soldiers who will die.
The attacks on Anthill start and when one of the divisions refuses to obey orders, Gen.Mireau orders the attack on his division. The commander of the division refuses the orders because there are no written and signed documents for such an action. Furious, the General tells the commander to resign. Later, three soldiers from each company are chosen to be executed because of cowardice and disobeying orders. One is chosen by lot. One because he is “socially undesirable.” One because he was an eyewitness to the cowardice of a superior officer, who abandoned a comrade on a reconnaissance mission. While Col.Dax tries very hard to save these soldiers, Gen.Mireau is determined to have them executed. Here we see the recklessness of the ruling class towards the soldiers who fight for them. As the soldiers wait for the decision of the ruling class after trial, we see each of them panicking. One of them prays the other is determined to escape, and the third has accepted his fate. In the end, even though Col.Dax finds out and informs Gen.Boulard of the actions of Gen.Mireau, the men are executed. The execution scene is one that is very emotional, very real and very disturbingly unjust.
The novel is about the French execution of innocent men to strengthen others’ resolve to fight. Like the other participants in WWI, the French Army did carry out executions for cowardice and disobeying orders. The interesting point in the movie is the selections of the individuals for execution. They are randomly chosen and condemned, even if they were not cowards, for the sake of teaching the whole group a lesson. This is similar to the Roman practice of decimation, which was rarely used by the French Army in World War I.
Kubrick and his cinematographer, George Krause, use sharp and deep focus for every shot. There is not a single shot composed only for beauty; the movie’s visual style is to look, and look hard. The black-and-white picture is a good choice because it adds to the realistic view of a movie that depicts war, which in reality has no color. The sound effects allow the audience to feel the vanity of the General, the condemnation of the soldiers, the destruction of the attacks and the hopelessness of the Colonel. The final song at the end of the movie sung by the actress Christiane Harlan shows how special and powerful that scene was, how it came out of nowhere to provide a heartbreaking coda, how by cutting away from his main story Kubrick cut right into the heart of it.
Paths of Glory is a film that conveys the message of morality and vanity. It shows the destructiveness of war and the hard conditions of trench warfare. It bores directly into the minds and souls of men, and into the hearts of patient but the frightened soldier who have no other choice but to accept orders to die.
Works Cited
“Paths of Glory.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 04 May 2014
Crowther, Bosley. “Paths of Glory” Rev. of Paths of glory. New York Times, 26 December 1957, Natl.ed. Print. 04 May 2014
Ebert, Roger, ed. Roger Ebert. Reviews, Paths of Glory, 25 Feb. 2005. Web. 06 May 2014