A Miniature of the Real Battle

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2005)

The film effectively depicts, in miniature, a historical realityGeneral Nivelle's spring offensive to regain the Chemin des Dames position in April, 1917. The real offensive involved 19 divisions, and not just one regiment, as in the movie. Forty thousand men were lost on the first day, with almost nothing to show for it.
Such a vast undertaking can be dealt with only in non-fiction works such as Barbara Tuchman's GUNS OF AUGUST, which marvelously depicts on a vast canvas, involving the movements of whole armies, the opening of the war in 1914, the events which led up to "the Miracle of the Marne." The irony here is that by stopping the Germans at the Marne, the French doomed themselves to four years of slaughter, eventually losing 1,400,000 young men killed.
Art cannot deal with such scope, but must miniaturize; thus the offensive in PATHS OF GLORY is confined to one regiment, and then focuses on just five men in that regimentits colonel (Douglas), a cowardly company commander (Wayne Morse), and three privates who are randomly selected as scapegoats. Of course, the selection is not really random; the Ralph Meeker character, for example, is selected by Morse because he had witnessed the latter's cowardice, which cost the life of one of his men on a scouting expedition.
In addition, two generalsperfectly played by a self-righteous George Macready ("If those sweethearts won't face German bullets, they'll face French ones") and a cynical Adolphe Menjou (who is surprised to learn that Dax is an idealist)are also individualized as the "bad guys." The point is often made that the bad guys are too bad. Of course they are. In a movie, more so than in a novel, you have to paint in broad strokes. The essence of film is melodrama.
The Macready character is loosely based on the real Nivelle, who was appointed commander-in-chief after the ten-month-long battle of Verdun, in which the French lost half a million men. Nivelle, more mistaken than evil, felt that what was needed was a major gung-ho offensive by artillery and infantry. But the Germans, forewarned, had taken the high ground (called the "Ant Hill" in the movie), along the Chemin des Dames, and had prepared impregnable positions. In WWI, unlike WWII, the defense almost always won.
The movie, based on Humphrey Cobb's novel, perfectly illustrates art's practice of miniaturization, individuation, and humanization of large historical events. As viewers, we need to see specific persons we can relate to. The Vietnam movie PLATOON, carries this idea still further, in that a platoon is only part of a company, which is part of a regiment. A WWII movie which does the same thing is A WALK IN THE SUN.
For me, PATHS OF GLORY remains a classic, and is not just an antiwar filmthough it is that too.