Dir. by Stanley Kubrick
Note: The following was written as an exercise in formal analysis for a graduate film seminar.
See Also: Full Metal jacket | Eyes Wide Shut
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On December 18, 1957, David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai was released to overwhelming and unanimous praise. Presented in CinemaScope with Stereo sound, the World War II film paints a widescreen portrait of disciplined military leaders waging psychological war amidst the lush backdrop of an Asian jungle. The film would eventually win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. One week after Kwai's premiere, Stanley Kubrick's fourth feature-length film, Paths of Glory, found its way into American movie houses. The two films make for an interesting juxtaposition — the first a Columbia Pictures blockbuster of epic proportions, the second an independent production shot in black and white for less than one million dollars. But perhaps what most distinguishes the films from one another is their ultimate depiction of man in war. While the finale of Kwai is certainly not typical of the 1950's war genre, its "madness" exists despite noble, human behavior. It's difficult, for instance, to identify the film's antagonist — Shears, Col. Nicholson, and Col. Saito all do the "right" thing. In The Bridge on the River Kwai, it is war itself that creates madness, not the men who fight or command it. Paths of Glory, on the other hand, shows much less faith in man's ability to retain his humanity amidst the chaos of war. Kubrick's film depicts a military bureaucracy that casually fires on its own men — both with artillery and with executioners' rifles — all in hopes of capturing a few more yards of meaningless ground. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther compared Paths of Glory's depiction of injustice to an exhibit in a medical museum, calling it "grotesque, appalling, nauseating," but also faulted Kubrick for so isolating the viewer from the action that it becomes inconsequential. It is that isolation, however, that removal of simple sentimentality, that makes Paths of Glory such an effective criticism of man's nature during times of war.
Paths of Glory opens like a World War II-era newsreel. As the titles roll, a snare drum introduces a military-style brass band's performance of the "Marseillaise." The credits dissolve into a high-angle extreme long shot of a large courtyard, the title, "France 1916," superimposed upon it. The camera pans slowly to the left to reveal a small unit of armed soldiers that marches in formation past marble sculptures toward a building of baroque opulence. Over these images of violence and extravagance, a non-diegetic narrator describes briefly the history of World War I, concluding, "Successful attacks were measured in hundreds of yards, and paid for in lives by the hundreds of thousands." Kubrick, only 28-years-old during production of the film, had trained first as a still photographer, then as a maker of documentary-style newsreels. The experience taught him great economy. In the opening shot of the film, one that lasts just over 40 seconds, we are not only firmly set within the time and place of the story, but we are also introduced to the two worlds in which that story will take place: the luxurious comfort of High Command where "success" is defined and the terrifying brutality of the trenches where lives are lost.
In a match-on-action cut, we are then placed within the opulent mansion, again looking down on the scene from a high angle long shot. The perspective allows us to see much of a great room that is furnished with ornately carved chairs, elegant tapestries, and Renaissance paintings. The perspective also introduces us to two of the film's main characters, General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) and General Mireau (Ralph Macready). Here, the men are characterized by the mise-en-scene. Their uniforms are perfectly pressed, the gold buttons and medals shining like the gilded picture frames hanging over their shoulders. They sit in Louis XIV chairs, cross their legs, and begin, like old friends, to discuss High Command's decision to send Mireau's division up against the Ant Hill, a heavily fortified German position. Mireau makes some effort to convince Broulard of the futility of such an assault, but already, only minutes into the film, his words lack conviction. "The life of one of those soldiers," he says grandly, "means more to me than all the stars and decorations and honors in France." Broulard, as unimpressed as we, looks away, fondles his gloves, and responds glibly, "That goes without saying." It comes as little surprise when Mireau, his ego bolstered by potential glory, commits his troops to action.
Much of Paths of Glory's affect is the result of Kubrick's repeated juxtaposition of images from the command post with images from the front line. In its first dramatic change of scene, the film cuts from Mireau's and Broulard's meeting to an extreme long shot of the Ant Hill, the camera lens acting as a surrogate for the typical infantryman's point of view. Then, after a quick cut, we are shown life within the trenches. The refined furnishings of command have been replaced with logs, mud, and a walkway barely wide enough for two men. Over the images we occasionally hear non-diegetic percussion, approximating, at its lowest frequencies, the sounds of exploding mortars. The camera dollies back, constantly remaining just a few yards in front of Mireau as he inspects his troops. It is a shot that serves as a recurring and quite memorable motif throughout the film (and one that reappears often in Kubrick's work, most notably during Sgt. Hartman's bunkhouse speeches in Full Metal Jacket). As Mireau makes his way through the trenches, we are introduced to each of the three soldiers who will ultimately be executed for their cowardice, first Pvt. Ferol (Timothy Carey), then Corp. Paris (Ralph Meeker) and Pvt. Arnaud (Joe Turkel). The first time we see each man, it is from a low angle. Although the scene was shot using only natural light, it appears to be slightly overexposed, reducing contrast, and causing the men to bleed into the mud walls that protect them. Mireau 's enthusiasm ("Are you men ready to kill some Germans?" he repeatedly asks) and his clean uniform set him in stark contrast to those he is about to sacrifice.
The lighting of the film changes dramatically when Mireau steps into the front line headquarters buried within the ground. The room is lit by only a few low-key lights, draping the background in darkness and exposing only select figures in high-contrast illumination. The scene serves the same narrative function as the earlier one at High Command, but this time it is Mireau who carries the orders to attack and Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas) who must be convinced to cooperate. As did Mireau in the first scene, Dax protests, but eventually complies. That, however, is where comparisons between the two men end. Kubrick shoots the scene from a fairly stationary camera position, panning often to follow the actors' movements. Mireau moves constantly ("I never got the habit of sitting," he says), stepping into and out of focus, while Dax remains still, his jaw grinding in the typically stoic Kirk Douglas fashion. When Dax does comply it is with his back turned from the camera and his face hidden by shadows.
"We'll take the Ant Hill," he growls.
Today, Paths of Glory is most often remembered for its chilling recreation of World War I trench warfare. Because of budget constraints, the film was shot on location using nearly 800 German policemen as extras. In Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, Vincent LoBrutto describes how the notoriously detail-minded director spent more than one month preparing the battlefield before shooting the charge on the Ant Hill. "After we'd dug and blasted up the field," LoBrutto quotes Kubrick as saying, "we put a great many little props around — ruined guns scattered in different holes, and bits of soldiers' tunics. You couldn't see them, but you could feel them" (141). The attention to detail lends a disturbing credibility to the scene, a credibility that has rarely been matched in the forty years of war-film-making since. Steven Spielberg's recent assault on Normandy in Saving Private Ryan has deservedly received much attention for its visceral punch. But his film, with its nearly limitless budget and CGI effects, does little to surpass Kubrick's accomplishment.
Harking back to Crowther's response to Paths of Glory, it is especially in these battle scenes (and later, during the executions) that the film refuses to wash its subject in sentimentality. There is no sweeping John Williams score to strategically manipulate the audience. Instead, the only sounds we hear are diegetic — explosions, rifle fire, Dax's whistle, and the screams of the men charging out of the trenches. There is no flag-waving speech given to fire up the troops. Instead, we simply walk through the trenches in Dax's boots. The famous dolly shot returns, this time the camera dollying forward at a quick pace, the faces of the men turning to greet it with looks of fear. There are no close-ups of "Johnny, the Patriotic Hero" breathing his last breath while clutching his mother's photograph. Instead, the charge across the battlefield is filmed almost entirely in long shots, the camera tracking from right to left and following Dax's progress. Only once during the actual assault does the film create a moment of perceptual subjectivity. Dax is first seen waving on his men in a straight-on long shot. Then, as he dives to the ground, the camera zooms into a medium close-up of his face looking off to the left. The film then cuts, using an eye-line-match, to Dax's view of the Ant Hill. It's a rather terrifying view. We first see only the Ant Hill, its distance exaggerated by the wide angle lens. But then, as the camera slowly zooms out, we are forced to watch four of "our" men killed by a single mortar explosion directly in front of us. Again, instead of lingering momentarily on the casualties, the film cuts quickly away to more violence. By the end of the nearly ten-minute scene, after witnessing the disastrously failed assault, the meaninglessness of the death has become a grotesque spectacle.
The dirt, blood, and grit of the battlefield is again contrasted with the opulence of High Command when the scene shifts to the trial of Ferol, Paris, and Arnaud. The sequence begins with an extreme-long, low angle establishing shot that reveals the immense size of the room. The wide-angle lens allows us to see both the checkered marble floor and the forty-foot ceiling, along with a ridiculously oversized landscape that hangs on the back wall. Again, the only sounds we hear are diegetic, in this case, footsteps and voices that reverberate within the great hall. The prisoners enter from the back, escorted by armed guards, and walk in formation toward the camera. The camera then pans slowly to the right, following their movement, before cutting to an extreme-long, high angle shot from the back of the room. A still photograph from this perspective could easily be mistaken for a chess match — the soldiers stand motionless on alternating dark and light tiles — an apt metaphor for the strategic game that is about to be played.
As in the battle scene, we are again forced to observe from a distance throughout the trial. When the prosecution presents its case, Kubrick cuts between two camera positions. The first is from within the jury box. The camera remains stationary, panning when necessary to keep the prosecutor blocked within the center of the frame. We sit behind the jury, our view occasionally even impaired by other jury members' heads. Kubrick then cuts to a wide-angle, medium shot of the defendant. The image is beautifully framed with the other two prisoners always visible over his shoulder. The short focal length, however, slightly distorts the background, making the other prisoners appear to be much further away then they actually are. The effect isolates the defendant, reinforcing the hopelessness of his situation. When Dax does step forward to defend his men, he is framed in a low-angle medium shot — a "hero" shot. The walls behind him are out of focus, drawing all of our attention to the only noble officer we have met. But the inevitable outcome of the trial is implied, again by camera distance, when Dax stands to deliver his closing argument. For the first time in the long sequence, the camera is placed directly behind the three prisoners, tracking from left to right as it follows Dax's movements. The sound of his voice, now reverberating greatly, also serves to reinforce the distance between him and his men. The hero's voice is quite literally lost within the massive structure of High Command. It's significant that we are never allowed to hear the jury's final decision. Instead, in another juxtaposition of Paths of Glory's two worlds, the trial scene simply fades out, then fades directly into a shot of a sergeant delivering orders for the execution.
Fifteen minutes later, we return to the grand courtyard that we first saw in the film's opening image. Now we see it in an extreme long shot, the camera twenty feet off the ground and facing the High Command building. It is another of Kubrick's trademark shots. The camera is centered exactly, and the building and the soldiers standing in front of it are framed in near-perfect symmetry. From a great distance, we see the prisoners emerge from the building and begin their long walk toward us. Perhaps the most disconcerting element of the execution sequence is that it is nearly seven minutes long, approximating real time. The film cuts between the establishing shot and medium shots of each man as he makes his way toward the firing line. Particular attention is paid to Private Ferol. Timothy Carey's performance is unique within 1950's war films. Instead of facing death with bravery and Gary Cooper-stoicism, Carey's Ferol whimpers and moans, incoherently sobbing at times. As he walks with a priest, he clutches at his rosary and cries, "Why do I have to die, Father?" But instead of eliding time, Kubrick dollies back with Ferol, forcing us to watch this man as he walks toward another meaningless death.
The dolly motif returns again as the film cuts to the prisoners' point of view. It's from their perspective that we first see the stakes to which the men will be tied. As the camera leads us up the path, all eyes turn directly toward us. A photographer snaps a shot of the condemned. Then we walk past Broulard and Mireau, who acknowledge us with expressionless faces. Finally, we walk past Dax. The camera tracks past him while simultaneously panning to keep him in frame. He stares into the camera without blinking, his face revealing a mixture of guilt, anger, and pity. All we hear is a diegetic drum roll and Ferol's sobs. When the prisoners finally reach the firing line, they are tied and blind-folded, again without any elision of time. But just as surprising (and affecting) is Kubrick's decision to also not expand time. When we hear "Ready!" Kubrick cuts to a high angle shot of the firing squad, the camera positioned so as to keep the prisoners below the frame. Here, the drum roll stops and the diegetic sound of as a singing bird can be heard. The films then cuts in a match-on-action to a shot from within the firing squad. We see the other executioners around us and the helpless men before us. The rifles fire and the prisoners fall over dead. Again, at the emotional zenith of the film, Kubrick observes his subject from a distance, remaining on the lifeless bodies for only a second before cutting away.
The cut returns us once again to the familiar high angle shot of an interior at High Command. Sitting at the same table in which we first saw them, Broulard and Mireau discuss how "wonderfully" the executed men died. "There's always that chance that one of them will do something that will leave everyone with a bad taste," says Mireau as he bites into a forkful of chicken, apparently unaware of the irony. When Dax arrives, Mireau is brought under investigation for his incompetence, but it is far from the satisfying conclusion of the typical Hollywood variety. Broulard remains in power and Dax is deemed a fool for his concern. The scene brings the film's story full circle — ending in the same room and with the same characters with which it began — and once again reinforces the impotence of honor amidst the bureaucratic power struggles of war.
However, the short sequence at High Command is not the final image of Paths of Glory. Instead, Kubrick added another scene in which Dax is shown returning to his surviving men. Following the sounds of their whistles and cat-calls, he makes his way to a small cafe where the men have gathered. There they watch a beautiful German woman (who would later become Kubrick's wife of forty years) as she sings "La Troeyer Hussar," a German folksong. Her performance brings tears to their eyes.
The addition of the scene is significant for several reasons. First, it concludes the film by putting human faces on the infantrymen who have, until this point, been portrayed almost exclusively as nameless cannon-fodder. However, it is also worth noting that Dax does not ever join the men in their reverie. Instead, Kubrick cuts occasionally to a medium close-up of Dax outside the cafe, lending the shots from within a feeling of perceptual subjectivity. The scene also presents a final portrait of war. Before introducing the singer, the master of ceremonies asks, "What is life without a little diversion?" With Col. Dax's final line, it is obvious that this moment of happiness will indeed be only brief respite. When a sergeant informs him that he has orders to return to the front immediately, Dax responds, "Well give the men a few minutes more." Dax turns toward the camera and once again it dollies back, leading him to his quarters. The final return of the dolly motif, accompanied by the drum roll that opened the film, leaves the viewer acutely aware of how little has changed during the course of Paths of Glory.
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