‘I’m not afraid of dying tomorrow, only of getting killed...’
Stanley Kubrick is undoubtedly the greatest film director of all time. 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut – the list is formidable and long. While you wouldn’t pigeonhole Kubrick as a director of war films, it is a subject that he returned to again and again, most notably with the aforementioned Full Metal Jacket and also Dr. Strangelove. Before both of those films, Kubrick made Paths of Glory, and true to form, it is a masterpiece…
When an ambitious but hubristic army general (George Macready) sends his men on a suicide mission, the inevitable failure of the mission falls squarely on the shoulders of three of the men – chosen by their superiors in order to make an example of them. Fighting their corner is the determined Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas).
While I am, of course, aware of his square jaw and steely gaze, I’ve never encountered Kirk Douglas until now. This is mainly because his other Kubrick collaboration (Spartacus) is incredibly long. Well, I will be turning to Spartacus after viewing his performance here. This is a true tour-de-force from Douglas who does justice to the emotive and prescient script (credited to Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson) in what is one of the great anti-war films. While Dr Strangelove, along with famous anti-war texts Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse-Five, used comedy and satire to expose the absurdity of war, Paths of Glory takes a more direct route, directly exposing the hypocrisy and lunacy of a militaristic society. Colonel Dax’s utter disgust for his superiors is palpable, and this manifests itself as a fire in the heart of the viewer. I left this film absolutely furious, which is exactly what Kubrick intended.
Paths of Glory may lack the sophistication of some of Kubrick’s later work, but this is his first true masterpiece, the genesis for everything that came after, and at under 90 minutes, it should be essential viewing for any Kubrick fans or fans of great cinema generally.