Talk:Paths of Glory

message: I just saw the re-run on TCM; in the final scene, the young German refugee (played by Kubrick's wife) sings to a group of boisterous soldiers; they are quieted, and sing / hum along; Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas) asks a messenger not to order the soldiers back to the front, for a few moments.
My question is: are these French soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine? How else would they have known a song in German? Ancheta Wis 07:53, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: Why is this film declared an anti-war film in the first sentance? I wouldn't say that it's a pro war film, but it just seemed more like a war film. I think the declaration is very subjective and probably doesn't have a place in this article, perhaps an interpretations or common opinions section should be added. Tinman8443 17:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "anti-war" designation should be presented as critical opinion, as should the existence of differing views. The above reply makes a good case that Paths of Glory is an anti-injustice film; it undoubtedly is. That does not necessarily make it anti-war. HalleysFifth (talk) 09:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

text: I agree that reactively calling any film that shows something bad that happens in a war to be an "anti-war film" is POV.  However, it does seem that there is now a ref (the TCM one) that asserts that it was indeed Kubrick's intent for this film.  So, I think the label is justifiable for this film.  Although, in my own personal assessment (which isn't includable), the film was more focused on the particular abominable situation rather than on a larger anti-war message in general.  108.7.229.24 (talk) 20:55, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Just asking, but shouldn't the "See Also" entry for "Full Metal Jacket" be removed?  There is no real connection between the two movies, and each stands on it's own.  The loose implication that it's also an "anti-war" movie is flimsy at best.  War exists to serve itself, it is what it is, and just because someone refuses to "pretty it up" doesn't make a film anti-war, it only makes it more realistic and true to life.  Ask any veteran, there is nothing "glorious" in war.  Saying this is not anti-war, it is just a statement of fact.  Regardless, I just don't see the connection to "Full Metal Jacket" here, and it should be removed from the "See Also" section. 70.195.222.57 (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-war?

message: This is nit-picking I suppose, but the line "Mireau, seeking a promotion, orders a regiment on a suicidal mission to take a hill, a common occurrence during World War I..." bothers me. A "suicide mission" is commonly understood - today - to be rather like a Kamikaze mission where the individual goes out intending to die. Is that the case in this movie? Or did Mireau just recklessly send his troops forward, intending them to win (and get his promotion) at all costs? Subtle difference....  Engr105th 22:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suicide Mission ?

message: Everything I've read about Kubrick indacates that he was an unsentimental realist with a harsh if not cynical estimation of human nature. He particularly emphasizes that power corrupts and that the struggle for power and status embodies much desperation and pathology together with (and here's the irony) much intelligence. This theme in Kubrick's work is an up-to-date version one found in Shakespeare cf. villains like McBeth and Edgar (in King Lear). That the attack would result in massive casualties was known by the commanding officers from the start, as was the fact that it's chance of success was doubtful. Commanders have ordered such attacks from before recorded history even when their own safety was jeopardized much more when they were not personally liable to be killed or maimed. What sort of men rise to military command, or any sort of command for that matter? Experience in life on-the-job in the military and equally in civillian work tell me: not the man, or woman, over burrdened with scrupples or without a stain of ruthlessness. The men embarked on the attack don't have a death wish, quite the contrary. Consider if you will Hume's paradox: How is it that a few, a very few, can lord-it-over the many despoticly and terrorize the many? There's the rub.
::The talk page is about discussing changes to the article not about the moral and philosophical implications of sending men on a suicide attack. However if would like to use sources and references to   support your assertions, then please add them to the article. LordHarris 10:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suicide attack?

message: "The film has had an important, albeit small impact on popular culture." -- "Important impact on popular culture" is almost an oxymoron to begin with, but beyond that, the cultural references listed fail to establish the "importance" of this impact. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 04:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Impact on popular culture" not "important"

message: If I remember correctly (saw this long ago), there is an opening sequence composed of shots of the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner. Hope I'm not mentally attaching this from a different film. It was very striking, and probably merits a mention if my recollection is correct. - Jmabel | Talk 18:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening sequence

message: I agree that the article should be split into film and book.
It is confusing to search for the book and when reading the first line seeing the film mentioned instead. --NeF (talk) 20:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Split

message: In the supplements for the Criterion release, the producer is interviewed and goes into the story of Timothy Carey being fired from the film. During production, Carey was discovered by the police tied up along a road. He claimed to have been abducted but the police had doubts about his story. Carey was told to resolve the matter quickly with the police to avoid causing production delays and when he could not (or would not), he was fired.
He was replaced with a double in the remaining scenes after his departure. 70.234.255.222 (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timothy Carey 

message: The film was originally cropped to 1.66:1 for theatrical release? I'm used to seeing it full frame. A lot of the shots actually look better that way to me, same with his later movies. The reason I ask is the new Criterion release is cropped to 16:9 which I guess is the same as 1.66. 
I was thinking the film was made in the 40s and would undoubtedly be in Acamedy Ratio, but it's 1957. 99.104.188.76 (talk) 21:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: 16:9

message: Under the heading of Legacy, it is claimed that the "1989 BBC comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth episode 'Corporal Punishment' satirizes some of the trial sequences of this film." This claim is not referenced and is unlikely to be true. Blackadder Goes Forth is, if anything, a satire on the behaviour of the commanders of the British army during WWI. The author may mean to say that Blackadder is a pastiche or parody of Paths of Glory, or that the TV show references the movie in some way, but this also seems unlikely. The two works share a subject matter - a court martial during WWI - but that is the extent of the similarity. I therefore suggest that this claim is removed. 217.44.96.7 (talk) 01:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Or source it, as I did. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 13:29, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blackadder as a satire of Paths of Glory? 

message: Whoever wrote the description of the plot clearly doesn't understand the final denouement of the film, the whole point being that The General Staff wanted to get rid of General Mireau because they viewed him as a terrible general, division commander and overall leader; I tried explaining this but my copy was removed, not that it was all that well written; I was hoping that someone would see my point and smooth out my prose; deleting it was obviously, in my opinion, not the way out, in fact, I view this as someone who was angry and jealous with me for not having figured this out for themselves and that's not my problem though they chose to make it one in their own inability to figure this out for themselves.
Gen. Mireau was a lousy general and leader but he could not be dismissed outrightly by The General Staff because he had allies in the press and with politicians; he clearly could only be disposed of in another way.
It was General Broulard who used what were obviously the most cynical Machiavellian machinations that ultimately got rid of the over-weening Gen. Mireau even though it meant decimating a division and executing three totally innocent men to do this but ultimately it was the only way the general staff had of getting rid of Mireau.
Broulard then deftly tries to fob the whole thing on what is actually the reality of the non-existent ambitions of Col. Dax, all to keep his own skirts, and those of The General Staff, all nice, clean and starchy; that whoever wrote the plot description not only couldn't figure this out but also took down my attempt to explain it: this is totally asinine.
Satchmo Sings (talk) 04:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Understanding Of The Plot's Final Denouement 

message: There are dozens of WP:RSs that point out the anti-war nature of this film. The current three can be supplemented but is there any need to continually add new ones. BTW Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. MarnetteD|Talk 19:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: They have been removed per your comments. Thanks. MarnetteD|Talk 22:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of sourced info

message: it seems that the scene when mireau on his stroll through the trenches encounters a shell-shocked soldier and slaps him ought to be compared with the same scene in patton.  the parallels both in the act and the language used by mireau very strongly suggest that there's is some intertextuality going on.  chris  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.34.48.50 (talk) 20:39, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  slapping scene 

message: The article states under the development section that Stanley Kubrick had to interest Kirk Douglas into getting involved with the script; however a lot of research suggests that Douglas was already aware and interested in involvement in the film before any contact with Kubrick. This was first found in the Cinephilia and Beyond website [1] and has further been supported by multiple books such as on page 47 of Norman Kagan's Cinema of Stanley Kubrick [2] and page 37 of Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History[3]., while the only source found backing up the information already on the article is the New York Times reference that is cited. Should this be amended? Also, the Cinephilia and Beyond website states that Kubrick had agreed to change the ending of the film and then changed the decision in accordance with Douglas' outrage at the change. This is again in contradiction to the New York Times source and I have not found any other information yet to back it up. I am unsure on the reliability of the Cinephilia website as it appears to be a sort of blog but a lot of the other information found on it is accurate. User:J.o.thomp 5
 https://cinephiliabeyond.org/paths-glory-stanley-kubricks-first-step-towards-cinema-immortality/
 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MqtrbmtjBQoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E1PrIkji88EC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=paths+of+glory+writers+guild&source=bl&ots=c0VPvVUxHh&sig=ACfU3U1SaLTGaDGx4iwVPN724NC3sq8RPA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFteuSu5rgAhULSxUIHSNoBeMQ6AEwD3oECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=paths%20of%20glory%20writers%20guild&f=false  — Preceding unsigned comment added by J.o.thomp 5 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Please complete your "research" before contributing to Wikipedia. This constant change of text is unnecessary and does not contribute positively to the encyclopedia. Thank you, David J Johnson (talk) 13:40, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Development and Writing Contradicting Research