Power

Rating: 10/10 (29 February 2012)

Paths of Glory is an anti-war film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb.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.Adapting Humphrey Cobb's novel to the screen, Kubrick and his collaborators Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson set out to make a devastating anti-war statement, and they succeeded above and beyond the call of duty.
In the third year of World War I, the erudite but morally bankrupt French general Broulard orders his troops to seize the heavily fortified "Ant Hill" from the Germans. General Mireau knows that this action will be suicidal, but he will sacrifice his men to enhance his own reputation. Against his better judgment, Colonel Dax leads the charge, and the results are appalling. When, after witnessing the slaughter of their comrades, a handful of the French troops refuse to leave the trenches, Mireau very nearly orders the artillery to fire on his own men. Still smarting from the defeat, Mireau cannot admit to himself that the attack was a bad idea from the outset: he convinces himself that loss of Ant Hill was due to the cowardice of his men. Mireau demands that three soldiers be selected by lot to be executed as an example to rest of the troops. Acting as defense attorney, Colonel Dax pleads eloquently for the lives of the unfortunate three, but their fate is a done deal. Even an eleventh-hour piece of evidence proving Mireau's incompetence is ignored by the smirking Broulard, who is only interested in putting on a show of bravado.
The movie was a failure when first released since it was banned outright in France for several years, Paths of Glory has since taken its place in the pantheon of classic war movies, its message growing only more pertinent and potent with each passing year.It was especially popular during the Vietnam era.This masterpiece still packs a wallop, though nothing in it is as simple as it may first appear; audiences are still arguing about the final sequence, which has been characterized as everything from a sentimental cop-out to the ultimate cynical twist.And most of all,it is all about that greatest of all movie subjects: power.