Paths of Glory Movie Review

Paths of Glory (1959)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

The narrative structure of Paths of Glory centres around a near impossible mission given to Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas) and his men to storm a German base known as 'the anthill'. Even though pretty much everyone involved in the mission knows it's an impossible task, it goes ahead due to the corrupt officials in a higher ranking as they are just carrying out tasks to gain promotion and don't care how many men they lose along the way.

This is considered an anti-war film, so much so that it was banned in some countries due to it's portrayal of the corrput, power hungry nature of the military. The anti-war message does come across strong from the behaviour and conversations that the high ranking officers have to the way Kubrick shoots battle scenes, everything is put together to give a real attitude of disdain towards this kind of warfare.

Kubrick directs the scenes where the French attempt to take the anthill in such a way that gives the audience a very real intensity, by that I mean he doesn't rely on a soaring score to give the intensity, from what I remember there is no music at all, just the sound of explosions and Col. Dax whistle, it gives the audience a grim reality of what it might have actually been like instead of relying on cinematic cliché's to do the work for him.

I also feel that this is when Kubrick really started to develop his style more and more, there are some shots, particularly in the firing squad scene where I can see shots that wouldn't look out of place in some of his later work.

This is a great film, I loved it from start to finish, especially the last scene with the soon to be Mrs Kubrick singing to the French soldiers, it was a very unique and perfectly fitting tone to end this kind of film.

8/10

21/11/2015