Paths of Glory (1957)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Kirk Douglas, George McGready, Adolphe Menjou
Runtime:88 minutes
World War I was a senseless war. The crown prince of Austria Hungary and his wife were assassinated by a Serb, which caused Austria Hungary to declare war on Serbia, and as a result its ally Germany did the same too. Russia joined its ally Serbia’s side. Britain and France joined on Russia’s side, Turkey on Germany’s side and very soon nearly all of Europe was pitted against each other, sacrificing thousands of its fine men to gain few hundred yards of enemy territory. Initially something that was to last till Christmas 1914 stretched till 1918, and led to the loss of 10 million soldiers and an untold number of civilian casualties.
This war introduced the world to horrors of modern warfare, and made changes to the world politics and geography, the effects of which continue till today. It ended aristocracy in most of Europe for good, accelerated the development of technology, most prominently in aircraft, but at the same time made way for the rise of fascism and communism and set the foundation stone for military industrial complex and global warfare.
Unlike World War II, its not captured that well in the medium of cinema or literature. There are a very prominent books or even films which come to the mind that depicted various battles of World War I. But one film comes to the mind prominently, which captures the senseless carnage that was a part of the trench warfare.
In one sentence, Paths of Glory is about an idealistic army officer in the French army trying to save three soldiers of his unit sentenced wrongly to death for cowardice. It is based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb . The film itself is based loosely on the true story of four French soldiers, executed in 1915 during World War I under General Géraud Réveilhac for failure to follow orders. It addresses the practice of selecting individuals at random and executing them as a punishment for the sins of the whole group, not very different from the decimation system used by the Roman army.
The film begins with a voiceover describing the trench warfare situation of World War I up to 1916, where Germany and France are bitterly fighting each other for two years now.
Major General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), a member of the French General Staff, asks his subordinate, Brigadier Mireau (George Macready), to send one of his regiments on a suicide mission to take a well-defended German position called the “Anthill.” Mireau initially refuses, citing the impossibility of the mission and loss of life of his men, but when Broulard mentions a potential promotion, Mireau subtlety changes his opinion that the attack will succeed.
Mireau gives the detailed planning and the execution of the attack to the 701st Regiment’s Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), who protests that this will only lead to half of his men getting killed, as they are ill equipped for the task and infact are looking to be relieved after facing prolonged action. Mireau dismisses his pleas and tells that such losses are unavoidable, and orders that the attack be carried out at dawn the very next day, with barely a fifteen minute artillery cover. ( En route to meeting Dax while inspecting the trenches, Mireau throws a traumatised soldier out of the regiment for showing signs of shell shock, which he dismisses as cowardice).
Dax sends a reconnaissance mission under the habitual drunk Lt Roget, who takes Corporal Paris and a soldier along him to the enemy lines. He sends the soldier ahead to scout, when the scout doesn’t return, he gets nervous and lobs a grenade and retreats. Cpl Paris find that the scout was killed by the grenade. He confronts Roget, but Roget brags that he can’t prove anything against an officer and files a false report to Col Dax.
The attack on the ‘’anthill’’ commences next day at dawn, with Dax personally leading the first wave of his regiment. It is a disaster, with none of the men reaching the German line and most being wiped out. B and C companies cannot even leave their trench due to German artillery and machine gun fire. Brigadier Mireau who is watching everything, gets furious and orders his artillery commander to open fire on his own men to force them into battle. The artillery commander Capt Rousseau refuses any such action without a written order which Mireau refuses to give. Meanwhile, Dax returns to the trenches, and tries to rally B Company for one last push, but as he climbs out of the trench, the body of a dead French soldier knocks him down. The remaining soldiers of the first wave, meanwhile retreat.
The catastrophe makes Mireau panic, and to shift the blame he blames Dax’s regiment of cowardice (which Dax dismisses angrily) and proposes to Broulard to court martial 100 men. Broulard instead persuades him to bring down the number to three, one from each company. Mireau privately threatens Dax with dire consequences if he goes ahead with the matter. Dax unwillingly asks his subordinate company commanders to pick a man each. Corporal Paris is chosen by Lt Roget to keep him from testifying about his actions in the scouting mission. Private Ferol is picked by his commanding officer because he is a “social undesirable.” The last man, Private Arnaud , is chosen randomly by lot.
Dax, who was a criminal defense lawyer in civilian life, volunteers to defend the men at their court-martial. The court martial is however a show trial, with the verdict almost predecided even before Dax makes his opening statement. Dax is not allowed to present any evidence which may be useful in absolving the condemned men, even in case of Arnaud who has been cited for bravery twice previously. The men too are not allowed to give any explaination. Dax gives a moving closing argument that this trial makes him ashamed to be a human, and that the members of the court will rue condemning the men till their dying day. The men are nevertheless condemned to be shot on the subsequent day.
Both Dax and the condemned men are flabbergasted. Dax summons Lt Roget and to his horror, makes him incharge of the next day’s execution of the three men. Just then, the artillery commander Capt Rousseau (who had refused Mireau’s order to fire on his own men) arrives to give his report to Dax. Dax rushes to meet Broulard, who has thrown a grand banquet for the top brass and politicians, and makes his plea to Broulard, but he supports the sentence to be carried out saying that the best way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then.) Dax then tries to blackmail him into sparing the men’s life by showing the signed report attesting to Mireau’s order to shell his own trenches. Broulard accepts the statement, and curlty dismisses Dax.
In the prison cell, the three men take the last few hours of life differently. Arnaud spends it in drinking, Paris and Ferol in trying to be calm unsuccessfully. The men receive a roast duck meal from Mireau, which is nothing but an added insult. When a priest arrives to console them, Arnaud loses his temper and attacks him, prompting Paris to hit him back which gives him a fatal skull fracture. The authorities nevertheless give him sedatives and confirm that the execution will happen as planned.
**spoilers**
The next morning, the three condemned men are led out into a courtyard, among soldiers from all three companies and senior officers. Arnaud is carried out on a stretcher and tied to the execution post. A sobbing Ferol is blindfolded. Paris is offered a blindfold by Roget, but refuses. Roget meekly apologizes to Paris for his actions . All three men are then shot by the firing squad.
The next morning, Dax visits, invited by Broulard , who is having breakfast with the gloating Mireau (Your men died wonderfully, he tells Dax). Broulard then reveals that Mireau will be investigated for the order to fire on his own men, as Dax has the whole report with sworn witnesses confirming the same. Mireau leaves angrily, protesting that he has been made a scapegoat (after unsuccessfully trying to discredit Dax). Broulard then offers Mireau’s command to Dax, assuming that Dax’s attempts to stop the executions were a ploy to gain Mireau’s job.
Dax, who by now has realised that this whole plan to attack the ‘’anthill’’ was infact a ploy by Broulard to get rid of the foolhardy Mireau, cannot hold back his disgust any longer, and calls Broulard a “degenerate, sadistic old man.” Discovering that Dax is in fact sincere, Broulard angrily rebukes him for his idealism and equates him with a village idiot, telling that everything possible has to be done to win wars. He tells him that he’s done no wrong to have the men shot and at the same time put an enquiry on Mireau . Dax replies that because he finds nothing wrong in his actions, he is a pitiable person.
The last scene of the film shifts few days later, where the remnants of Dax’s regiment are having a gala time at the inn. A captured German woman is brought in front of them by the innkeeper who goads her to sing. The soldiers become wild, whistling and jeering the woman. The woman starts to sing Der Treue Hussar (a sentimental song about a soldier who fights hard and comes home to find his beloved dead) and immediately the mood changes, with the soldiers joining her in singing, many openly weeping. Unknown to them, Dax is watching this from outside, finally content that atleast something is still right. The sergeant reports to him informing that the men have been ordered back to the front immediately. Dax tells him to give the men a few more minutes while his face hardens as he returns to his quarters.
*spoilers end*
The title of the film comes from a few lines of poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth ever gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
With this film, Stanley Kubrick entered in the league of great directors , never to leave it again. Its noteworthy that he made just 13 over his 45 year career, and never won any major awards. Kubrick has used black and white as the medium to shoot the film, to underline the bleakness of war. He has pushed the anti war narrative in the most effective manner, showing the conscripted soldiers as nothing but sugar or salt grains that the generals sprinkle on their tables. The film was banned in France until 1974 for its “unflattering” depiction of the French military, and was censored by the Swiss Army until 1970.
There is virtually no background music used, hence not glorifying the act of war. The dialogues too are very simple but very effective. Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of direction is that no German soldier is ever shown, underlining the impersonal nature of war where nine times out of ten, soldiers do not know who they are killing or who is killing them. The battle scene is shot brilliantly, and is hard to watch, even in today’s era of CGI generated blood and gore.
The camerawork is superb, eg: long wide shots are used for the generals opulent HQ and close shots are used to show the cramped space in the trenches (In days leading upto WWI, officers came from aristocracy and the soldiers from working and poor), or that during the attack scene, the camera hovers very close to the soldiers , giving it a ‘’newsreel’’ effect.
The very last scene which is a contrast to all that went before it, and offers some consolation to the viewer. No happy ending is shown, because there was almost none for people who fought the great war. Dax’s remaining army is summoned back to the front, its weaker than before, most of the killed being replaced by very young or middle aged men (which again is Kubrick’s genius to portray how war destroys an entire generation of able bodied men, France lost 10% of its adult male population in the great war), and this time, the remaining men and even Dax may not survive.
Broulard will retire in glory, and by the war’s end may design more anthill like suicidal attacks to get rid of undesirable commanders and replace them with agreeable ones. Nearly six decades after the film’s released, there is yet to be a similar feature which portrays the injustice, shows the futility of idealism and highlights the anti war sentiment all at once in a runtime lesser than 90 minutes.
Kirk Douglas carries this film on his shoulders effortlessly as the idealistic and dutiful Colonel Dax (his first name, strangely isn’t given in film),The viewer literally feels his anguish, having unwillingly led his men to massacre pursuing a target that he knows cannot be taken, and zealously defending scapegoated men in a morally corrupt court-martial hearing that he knows he cannot win.
Adolphe Menjou and George McGready have smaller roles in comparison, but they superbly portray the cunning Broulard and the brutal foolhardy Mireau, respectively. Their pompousness and hollow and cruel logic, from treating soldiers as cannon fodder to indulging in opulence while the men in trenches cant get decent food, fills the viewers with disgust. Its a pity that Douglas and Kubrick participated in just one more project, Spartacus (1960) before falling apart.
The film is not even 90 minutes long, but speaks more than a load of documentaries put together. It is certainly the best World War I film made, and I dare to rate it ahead of Lawrence of Arabia. 88 minutes of cinema never meant more.