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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Paths of Glory

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Paths of Glory is a 1957 American anti-war film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb.[1] Set during World War I, the film stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, the commanding officer of French soldiers who refused to continue a suicidal attack. Dax attempts to defend them against a charge of cowardice in a court martial.



Background

The book had no title when it was finished, so the publisher held a contest. The winning entry came from the ninth stanza of the famous Thomas Gray poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".[2]
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

[edit]Production

When the novel was published in 1935 it was a minor success. It was adapted by dramatistSidney Howard into a play that same year, but the stage version was a failure. A film adaptation was not made until 1957 when Stanley Kubrick decided to adapt it to the screen after he had remembered reading the book in his childhood. Kubrick and his partners purchased the filmrights from Cobb's widow for $10,000. It is supposedly inspired by the Souain corporals affair.
Paths of Glory is based loosely on the true story of four French soldiers, under General Géraud Réveilhac, executed for mutiny during World War I; their families sued, and while the executions were ruled unfair, two of the families received one franc each, while the others received nothing.
The novel is about the French execution of innocent men to strengthen others' resolve to fight. The French Army did carry out military executions for cowardice, as did all the other major participants. However, a significant point in the film is the practice of selecting individuals at random and executing them as a punishment for the sins of the whole group. This is similar todecimation, which was rarely used by the French Army in World War I.[3]
Production took place entirely in Bavaria, Germany, especially at the Schleissheim Palace nearMunich.
The only female character in the film, the woman who sings "The Faithful Hussar", was portrayed by German actress Christiane Harlan(credited in the film as Susanne Christian). She later married director Stanley Kubrick, and the couple remained married until his death in 1999.

[edit]Plot

The film begins with a voiceover describing the trench warfare situation of World War I up to 1916; immediately following this is a scene in which General George Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) of the French General Staff asks his subordinate, General Mireau (George Macready), to send his division on a suicidal mission to take a well-defended German position called the "Anthill". Mireau initially refuses the commission, citing the impossibility of success and the danger to his beloved soldiers, but when Broulard mentions a potential promotion, Mireau quickly convinces himself the attack will succeed.
Mireau proceeds to walk through the trenches, addressing his men. He asks several soldiers, "Ready to kill more Germans?" He throws one soldier out of the regiment for showing signs of shell shock, which Mireau denies exists, blaming the soldier's behavior on cowardice. Mireau leaves the detailed planning of the attack to the 701's Régiment Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), despite Dax's protests that the only result of the attack will be to weaken the French army with heavy losses for no benefit. Mireau does not relent.
During a scouting mission prior to the attack, a drunken lieutenant named Roget (Wayne Morris) sends one of his two men ahead as a scout. Overcome by fear while waiting for the scout's return, he lobs a grenade and retreats. The other soldier—Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker)—finds the body of the scout, killed by the grenade. Having safely returned, he confronts Roget, but Roget denies any wrongdoing, and falsifies his report.
The attack on the German position proceeds, beginning with a first wave of soldiers, and with Dax leading, but ends in disaster; none of the men reach the German trenches, and one-third of the soldiers (B Company) refuse to leave the trench because of heavy enemy fire. Mireau, enraged, orders his own artillery to open fire on them to force them onto the battlefield. The artillery commander refuses to fire on his own men without written confirmation of the orders. Meanwhile, Dax returns to the trenches, and tries to rally B Company to join the battle, but as he climbs out of the trench, the body of a retreating French soldier knocks him down; it becomes obvious that the attack has failed.
To deflect blame for the failure, Mireau decides to court martial 100 of the soldiers for cowardice. Broulard convinces him to reduce the number to three, one from each company. Corporal Paris is chosen because his commanding officer, Lt. Roget, wishes to keep him from testifying about his actions in the scouting mission. Private Ferol (Timothy Carey) is picked by his commanding officer because he is a "social undesirable". The last man, Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel), is chosen randomly by lot, despite having been cited for bravery twice previously.
Dax, who was a criminal defense lawyer in civilian life, defends the men at their court-martial, but the trial is a farce; the rights of the accused are violated repeatedly. In his closing statement, Dax challenges the court's authenticity, and requests mercy, saying, "Gentlemen of the court, to find these men guilty would be a crime to haunt each of you till the day you die." The three men are sentenced to death, nonetheless.
Later, Dax, aware of the reason Roget picked Paris to be executed, appoints Roget to have charge of the executions. Horrified, Roget protests, but Dax dismisses him curtly from his quarters.
Captain Rousseau (John Stein), the artillery commander who had earlier refused Mireau's order to fire on his own men, arrives to tell Dax about the order. Dax then informs Broulard of Mireau's treachery, providing sworn statements by witnesses, but is brusquely dismissed.
The next morning, the three condemned men are led out into a courtyard, among soldiers from all three companies and senior officers. Arnaud, injured during a desperate outburst in prison, 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 what he has done, eliciting an ambiguous response. All three men are then shot and killed by the firing squad.
Following the execution, Broulard has breakfast with Mireau. Dax enters, invited by Broulard. Broulard then reveals that Mireau will be investigated for the order to fire on his own men. Mireau denies having made such an order and leaves angrily, declaring that he has been made a scapegoat. Broulard then offers Dax Mireau's command, claiming that Dax had been angling for the promotion all along. Dax responds angrily. Broulard ridicules Dax for being an idealist, saying he pities him as he would the village idiot; Broulard adds that he's done no wrong. Dax replies that he pities the general for his inability to see the wrongs he has done.
After the execution, some of Dax's soldiers are loudly enjoying an entertainer, when the performer brings a young German woman on stage and makes her sing the German folk song "The Faithful Hussar". The hardened troops begin by howling and whistling, but, touched by her song, they end up humming along, some openly weeping. Dax overhears this scene from outside. A sergeant appears with word that the regiment has been ordered to return to the front immediately, but Dax tells him to give the men a few minutes more. His face hardens as he returns to his quarters.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Reception

The film was released in January 1958 and premiered in Munich and Los Angeles.[4] The film was considered a modest box office success, though it did earn Kubrick much critical acclaim.[5]
The release of the film and its showing in parts of Europe were controversial. Active and retired military personnel, offended by the way the French military was portrayed in the film, vehemently criticized it after its showing in Brussels (although the film was otherwise well received). Contrary to a persistent urban legend, the film was not banned in France; however, the French government placed enormous pressure onUnited Artists, the European distributor for the film, through diplomatic channels, to refrain from releasing the film. As a result, the film was not submitted to French censors, and was not shown in France until 1975, when moral codes had changed.[6] In Germany, the film was not allowed to be shown for two years after its release to avoid any strain in relations with France. The film was also officially censored in Spainby the government of Francisco Franco for its anti-military content, and was not released in that country until 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award under the category Best Film but lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai. The film also won a Jussi Awards' Diploma of merit. In 1959 the film was nominated for a Writers' Guild of America Award but ultimately lost.[7]
On the Criterion Collection Blu-ray, producer James B. Harris states that the original script contained an alternate "happy ending". However, in order to preserve the integrity of the film, the ending was changed. Harris got this past distributors by sending the entire script, instead of merely sending the new ending, knowing that they would be too busy to read the entire script again. Once the distributors from United Artists viewed the film, they were very enthusiastic, and left the film as it is.
During the production and release of the movie, Douglas experienced significant negative publicity and financial loss for his role in the making of such a film. Nevertheless, he persisted in his efforts and the film was made and released.
The film holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 39 reviews. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert added this film to his "Great Movies" list on February 25, 2005. Gene Siskel, on a section of Siskel And Ebert's At The Movies show regarding Stanley Kubrick films, declared Paths Of Glory to be one of the all-time great films and "almost" as good as Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (which was his favorite movie).

[edit]Popular culture

The BBC comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Corporal Punishment" satirizes some of the trial sequences of this film.
Paths of Glory is the name of a card-driven strategy game covering World War I in Europe and the Near East, developed by game designer Ted Raicer and published by GMT Games. "Paths of Glory" is also the name of the tenth track in Faith No More's Album of the Year.[8] Mike Patton (songwriter/singer of Faith No More) is a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick, and a few of the band's songs/videos have Kubrick-inspired themes in them.[9]
David Simon, creator of critically acclaimed series The Wire, has said that Paths Of Glory was a key influence on the HBO crime drama.[10]The influence of the film comes in its depiction of the tribulations of "middle management," in the form of Dax's unsuccessful attempt to protect his troops against the inhumane ambitions of his superiors, which in turn influenced The Wire's depiction of various institutions acting against individuals.
The 1991 Tales from the Crypt episode "Yellow" echoes the movie's themes. The episode stars Kirk Douglas, Eric Douglas, Dan Aykroyd, and Lance Henriksen. Kirk Douglas plays an American Expeditionary Force General whose son (Eric Douglas), is court-martialed for cowardice after a scouting mission in the trenches. Aykroyd plays the Colonel Dax role, and Henriksen is the mortally wounded soldier who testifies against the son.

[edit]Preservation and restoration



In 1992, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In October and November 2004 the movie was shown at the London Film Festival by the British Film Institute.[11] It was carefully remastered over a period of several years; the original film elements were found to be damaged. However, with the aid of several modern digital studios in Los Angeles the film was completely restored and remastered for modern cinema. In addition, Stanley Kubrick's widow Christiane (who also appears in the closing scene as the German singer) made a guest appearance at the start of the performance

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