Paths of Glory
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IMDB rating: 8.60 Plot: In Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” war is viewed in terms of power. This mesmerizing, urgent film about a true episode in World War I combines the idea that class differences are more important than national differences with the cannon-fodder theory of war, the theory that soldiers are merely pawns in the hands of generals who play at war is if it were a game of chess. The result of this amazing film has been the emergence of one of the great talents in contemporary cinema, the master whose greatest work was yet to come. |
Actors: Douglas Kirk,Meeker Ralph,Menjou Adolphe,Macready George,Morris Wayne,Morris Wayne,Anderson Richard,Turkel Joe,Hausner Jerry,Capell Peter,Capell Peter,Meyer Emile,Freed Bert,Dibbs Kem,Crime,Drama,War,
Paths of Glory questions?
1. Why is it called Paths of Glory?
2.Why might it have been called an anti- war film?
3. In the last scene, why is the song so important, what is its significance?
1. The title comes from a poem by Thomas Gray called "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard":
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry /Elegy.htm
…Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.<<
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise….
The poem is written about a familiar theme: we are all equal in death, and yet in life, the generals send the privates to die because they are "better."
2. The film demonstrates that many maneuvers on the battlefield are not done to win the war, but to satisfy the pride of generals and leaders who want their names in the history books. The General in Paths of Glory wants to be known as the one who took "the Ant Hill" — but it’s the men in the trenches who face the machine guns and barbed wire…they are paying the price so some general can be immortalized in a museum somewhere.
3. The last scene is something of a non-sequitor; the trial is over, the court martial has been concluded, and three guinea pigs have been shot as a token gesture of punishment. (One, as I recall, was picked because he was a witness to real cowardice — and he had to be put away.)
After this, the men are in a bar, drunk and crude, boorish even; when a young woman is dragged on stage to sing, the men go wild and she is scared for her life. Kirk Douglas (Colonel Dax) passes outside and, listening to their din, feels a sneer of contempt for them. Maybe, for a moment, he feels sympathy with the Generals — the enlisted men are pigs, they deserve to die…
But when the nervous woman starts to sing, the soldiers feel a sense of their hopelessness; they are trapped, and she is trapped. Even though she is a civilian, she is in danger too; a stray artillery shell could demolish half her village and her with it. In a moment of unspoken empathy, they start to sing with her, and Dax realizes that the men have some redeeming characteristics after all, and lets them have 10 more minutes before they have to fall out.
blunderbuss | Mar 16, 2008