One hundred years later, the absurd tragedy that was the First World War still looms heavy over the modern era. Naturally, battles that raged on for months and left hundreds of thousands dead or wounded for a cause that became more and more diluted with each passing day are hard to forget. With so many in the collective consciousness of Western society, the events and lessons of the “Great War” will surely linger for years to come. Already, such a huge and terrible event has led to decades upon decades of discussion. As the inheritors of the war’s legacy, though, we are fortunate that some of the most gripping, affecting, and, ultimately, famous, antiwar works of art were spawned as a result.

Chief among them is Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick’s adaption of a novel written during the war. Filmed during the patriotic yet paranoid era following the moral high ground reached after World War Two, as well as the first of Kubrick’s several antiwar films, Paths portrays how terrible the mud-filled trenches and out-touch commanders could be. Filled with disdain for the terrible, ego-driven mechanism of war, it’s an unflinching, thrilling, and sobering account of a single event undergone by a regiment of French soldiers.

Following a costly and futile attack on a fortified hill controlled by Germans, the ambitious French General who ordered it (George Macready), to help save face, decides to court martial his troops for what he declares to be cowardice. After much debate, he chooses an unlucky three, one from each of his companies. Chosen are Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker), who had witnessed an act of manslaughter by a drunken officer while on a scouting mission, the socially “undesirable” Private Ferol (Timothy Carey), and the unlucky Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel), who was chosen by lottery despite having received two citations for bravery. All that stands between these men and their executions is the spirited Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), commanding officer of the regiment. Dax was firmly against the attack in the first place, and to see even more of his men facing death for the actions of pompous generals fills him with rage and determination to see the men found innocent. However, whether this will be enough to actually save the doomed men from the cogs of the military is unclear.

Screening as part of the HFA’s Grand Illusions – The Cinema of World War, Paths of Glory shows just how grand the illusion of dying for one’s country really is.

Paths of Glory
1957
dir. Stanley Kubrick
88 min

Part of the series: Grand Illusions – The Cinema of World War I