Paths of Glory

Stanley Kubrick’s brave “antiwar” film (a concept film historian David Thomson challenges) remains one of the most coolheaded assaults on cold-blooded murder ever filmed. A Korean War–era audience could take little comfort in the fact that these scenes of ritualized slaughter were set during World War I. The story, based on a true incident in the French army in 1916, traces the court-martial and execution of three soldiers chosen as scapegoats for the failure of a suicidal French infantry attack against superior German forces. Suave, uncaring Adolphe Menjou and pathologically paranoid George Macready are the generals who shield themselves from blame; Kirk Douglas is the white knight who challenges their scheme. Paths of Glory is comparable in its beauty and pathos to classic World War I antiwar films like All Quiet on the Western Front. But in its concentration on lunacy in the high command, and in its brittle cynicism, it is pure Kubrick.