Paths of Glory
Brilliant but clinical: No one’s ever said that about a Stanley Kubrick movie before! Although “Paths of Glory,” released in 1957, may be his first effort that can be so pigeonholed. A year earlier, he released his nasty and relentlessly entertaining noir “The Killing.” “Paths of Glory” is equally bleak but much more self-consciously Important, and it’s hard to argue that its energy level remains the same when it transitions from war movie to courtroom drama. The war-movie part is breathtaking. Kubrick uses bravura tracking shots and dynamic, high-contrast lighting to communicate the horror and the absurdity of World War I trench combat. He also convincingly depicts the corruption of the officer class, thanks to masterful performances by Adolphe Menjou and George Macready. The movie is sickening and persuasive as it shows the depths of men’s ambition and capacity for self-delusion. Macready plays a general who orders his troops, led by Kirk Douglas, on a suicide mission. When it fails, he insists that three soldiers be executed for cowardice. The sacrificial lambs are chosen more or less at random, and Douglas’ Col. Dax, a lawyer, tries to defend them, but is stymied by a kangaroo court. The actors playing the doomed soldiers have some nice moments, and Kubrick dispenses with all niceties — even the priest sent to comfort them is corrupt, his words of comfort hollow. While the final scene offers some hope of redemption amid the folly and treachery of war, “Paths of Glory” is relentlessly outraged and mournful. But those emotions don’t quite leap off the screen and into the soul of the viewer — at least not this one. Even when shooting a closeup of a man reduced to groveling for his life, Kubrick’s style suggests a detached observer, one to whom human feeling is a curiosity, something to be studied rather than shared.