Delayed Reaction: Paths of Glory

The Pitch: Not all war movies are noble.

After their companies refuse a suicide mission, three WWI soldiers are scapegoated and sentenced to death by the military.

I'm inching my way through Stanley Kubrick's filmography. I still need to get to Barry Lyndon, Lolita, and his really early work. Paths of Glory is the earliest of his films I've seen. My stance on Kubrick is that I'm glad there is a Stanley Kubrick even though I have trouble connecting with his movies. He makes movies by his own rules. Plotting, pace, and structure don't follow the same rules as most other movies. That often leaves me cold. 2001 has always been more about Kubrick flexing as a director than a truly engaging movie for me. The beginning of Full Metal Jacket is so much its own thing that I know people who just watch that and don't bother with the rest of the film.

Paths of Glory is early enough that Kubrick is pushing up against studio rules rather than breaking them. This is a war movie. It has Hollywood stars and a battle. That battle is early on though. There's no honor in warfare in this film. I was shocked by how grim the ending was. I hardly have an encyclopedic knowledge of the films at the time, but I doubt any were this starkly dark at the end. This movie feels at least a decade ahead of its time. I'm surprised any studio greenlit the film. Maybe since it was WWI and the soldiers were French there was the necessary distance to critique war without coming off of anti-troops or unpatriotic. After all, this came out as McCarthyism and the "red scare" upended Hollywood.

Krik Douglas is great in the lead role. He's idealistic but not blind. He's caught in the middle of a machine too large for him to stop, but he does what he can to improve it. I'm told that this film inspired David Simon to make The Wire. That makes perfect sense. This is also a fitting trial run for the director who would make Dr. Strangelove less than a decade later.  Paths of Glory has the hypocrisy without the satire.

I quite liked this movie, although the rhythms of the story caught me off guard. I need to see it again some time to digest it all better.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend