Review: Paths of Glory

Directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1957, Paths of Glory depicts World War I French military life so harshly it was banned in France for almost two decades. Kubrick was a young man of staggering confidence who directed an equally powerful cast; together, the group produced a film whose darkness and absolute refusal to compromise remains shocking even today, nearly 50 years after it was made. As Roger Ebert writes in his essay on the film, it was with Paths of Glory that Kubrick “entered the ranks of great directors.”

Kubrick's film - appropriately, given its economical duration - tells a story of profound simplicity. Mired in the trenches of Europe, the French military advance against the enemy Germans has stalled, and the absence of good news from the front has the officers corps restless. In search of a dramatic offensive that will galvanize the public and press, General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) approaches an ambitious younger officer (General Mireau, played by George Macready) with plans for an obviously doomed attack on the German position. Though he at first resists such a suicidal mission, Mireau - who would be at no personal risk in any attack - is persuaded by the suggestion that success will mean promotion, and heads to the trenches to share the news with his command.

The French commander in the field is Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), a deceptively small, solid man whose easy confidence is immediately apparent. From the very start, it is evident that Dax makes Mireau uncomfortable. By refusing to hide his distaste for his superior’s constant patter of patriotic cliches, Dax is a constant reminder to Mireau of his own weakness; simply by looking him in the eye at all times, Dax quickly reduces Mireau to immature bluster and aimless confrontation.

Despite his understanding of how the attack will end, at his core Dax is an idealist who follows orders, and he agrees to lead the offensive. To the surprise of no one, the offensive is a miserable failure. Death counts are so high and German fire so intense the second wave of French attackers are physically unable to even leave their trenches. Seeing his promotion slipping away, the furious Mireau orders French gunners to fire on their own position, presumably to drive the desperate soldiers towards the enemy. When the gunnery commander refuses the order without written verification, the General explodes with rage and not only relieves the man of his duty but also includes him in the court martial he orders for every man in the company.

Eventually, a vaguely amused General Broulard persuades Mireau to court martial three men as examples, rather than charge the entire command. Facing the death penalty, the trio (Joe Turkel, the wonderfully odd Timothy Carey, and a surprisingly human Ralph Meeker) are railroaded through a show trial; even Dax’s spirited, principled defense (he was a respected lawyer before the war) never has a chance to save their lives. Despite the tantalizing suggestion of a last minute reprieve, the men are executed the next morning and Dax is left, struggling to bring his fundamental belief in the goodness of man into line with the calculated horror he has experienced.

Paths of Glory has many strengths, but the greatest among them is its director. Kubrick here is in complete command of his craft, and his direction of the film is incredibly tight and assured. The black and white photography possesses such a striking realism that it’s impossible to watch the movie and not remember that Kubrick started his professional life as a still photographer. There is an almost liquid quality to some of the images, and even the most horrifying sequences of battle are so beautifully shot that the irony is excruciating. In addition, Kubrick mixes long, traveling shots with images of stark realism to tremendous effect. Whether he’s tracking the Generals through their opulent villa headquarters or leading the trio of condemned men to their deaths, these often wordless shots are consistently the most emotionally revealing of the film.

Another of the film’s great strengths lies in its performances, most notably the one by Menjou as Broulard. In many ways, Menjou is the key to the success of Paths of Glory - if he hadn't brought such complexity to his character, any nuance Kubrick hoped to convey would have been lost beneath the foregrounded battled between right (Dax) and wrong (Mireau). At times, Mireau is so evil that it sometimes verges on absurd, and Kubrick risks losing his viewers. In these moments, though, Broulard is there to rescue the film with his vaguely amused worldliness. In Menjou’s hands, despite his very strange personal manner (there is something in the way he carries himself that often brings George Sanders' Addison DeWitt to mind), the General is surprisingly likable. He takes such obvious pleasure in his job - particularly when it affords him opportunities for verbal and intellectual sparring - that it’s almost impossible not to look forward to his appearances on screen. As opposed to the completely predictable Mireau and Dax, Broulard is impossible to pin down; he seems to always be several gleeful steps ahead of everyone around him. In fact, his role as observer of events combined with Menjou’s disarming charm pushes viewers into an unexpected identification with Broulard, thus adding a layer of complexity to our relationship with the film as a whole.

Douglas’ Dax, on the other hand, is always something of an alien to audiences. Though we immediately respect him for his idealism and principles, the character’s moral perfection is such that it’s impossible to achieve emotional identification with him; we admire Dax without ever really understanding him. That said, however, Douglas brings as much humanity as he can to a man who claims an early spot in Kubrick’s long procession of fundamentally distant characters. The actor’s own heartiness and strength are perfect for the role, and they combine to give him a deeply physical presence that the other central characters lack. When Dax shares the screen with Mireau and Broulard, their profound difference from one another is made abundantly clear simply by the way they look: the two Generals share a stereotypically European upright rigidity, while as embodied by Douglas, Dax has a very American look that calls to mind honesty and physical labor.

Though Paths of Glory is an undeniably powerful statement against war and those who wage it, our modern cynicism inevitably subtracts from the original power of Kubrick’s film. It has become an easy escape for us to pull away emotionally when things get too painful, and such are the extremes of this work that our self-defense mechanism kicks in repeatedly, particularly as the movie ends. Even when we withdraw from the suffering of his characters, however, it is a credit to Kubrick’s forceful, graceful images that we are never able to fully escape their pull.

[The film begins a week-long run at New York's Film Forum on Friday.]