I apologize...for not watching this sooner!

Rating: 10/10 (29 September 2003)

Let me preface this review by stating that if anyone has seen Paths of Glory and afterward is unable, for whatever cockamamie reason, to give the biggest kudos to Stanley Kubrick's writing and directing work, then he/she quite simply is swine before whom those of us in the know ought not to cast our pearls.
The film is a masterpiece. From the brilliant choice to shoot in black and white cinematography (thus giving a gritty, darker feel to the entire story, and refraining from sugarcoating the absolutely hellish experience that trench warfare must have been), to the effective use of zoom-ins, to the short, poignant dialogues, and to the generally minimalistic approach to the anti-war message of the screenplay--it all mixes together incredibly. Kubrick could have spent hours of celluloid on the finer illogical points of military court martial trials as well as on the horrors of battle. Instead he wrapped the total package in some 87 minutes, credits included.

Though there were several memorable scenes (the battle in question itself, the kangaroo court, the priest's trite comments while administering last rites to those sentenced to execution, the conversation between Col. Dax and the commanding General), the shot that sticks in my mind occurs soon after the lovely German acquisition has very reluctantly and almost inaudibly began to sing "The Faithful Soldier". Kubrick cuts back to the previously heckling, boisterous crowd of French soldiers. On their faces the spirit of superficial revelry fades away to a much stronger force--that of human understanding and compassion--and the appreciation of innocence and beauty. The things good and true for which these men thrust their lives on the line to defend. Such evocative images are what make the many sins committed by the modern motion picture industry tolerable--perhaps even forgiveable.