Paths Of Glory Details

Paths of Glory is not an anti-war film per se, though it does depict unflinchingly the horrors of warfare ? instead it is a film about class struggle and self-advancement during wartime, focusing on officers willingness to see their own soldiers die in order for personal gains. The main plot concerns a suicidal push against German lines and the need to find a scapegoat to take the blame when it fails, but there is also a smaller scale subplot where a cowardly Lieutenant accidentally kills one of his own men while on patrol and decides to silence the one witness to preserve his own skin. As with Full Metal Jacket, this is very much a film of two distinct halves ? the first half concentrates on the misguided military action, while the second half is more of a court-room drama picking over the events to find someone to blame. Visually the film contains some great flashes of genius from Kubrick ? a soldier creeps through the murky blackness of no-mans land on a reconnaissance mission when a flare reveals the ground to be littered with corpses; the long tracking shots through the trenches; the still impressive push ?over the top?; the rigid angles and looming menace of the court marshal. As often with Kubrick?s films, the narrative structure is a little odd and unconventional, and the ending is not particularly satisfying, though the rank and file soldiers? confrontation with a captured German girl works as a mirror to the court marshal, with the soldiers ultimately showing more compassion for the enemy than the generals did for their own men.Some aspects of the film look a little dated, and having supposedly French soldiers portrayed by actors with American accents is rather distracting, but this is still an excellent film, though not quite in the same league as Kubrick?s later output.

POWERFUL

Powerful Kubrick war film about three men that are wrongly court marshalled for cowardice during battle and sentence to execution. The film is an anti-war statement and portrays the tragedy of war. The lack of justice and compassion for fellow human beings is clearly indicated and Kirk Douglas gives a very good performance. Worth watching.