And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave." — Thomas Gray
Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 masterpiece is more than a war film; it is a clinical dissection of institutional failure and the dehumanizing nature of hierarchy.
“Paths of Glory” was the film by which Stanley Kubrick entered the ranks of great directors, never to leave them
It is arguably the best film about the first world war, and still has a reasonable claim to being Stanley Kubrick's best film. Paths of Glory (1957) is now re-released for the 1914 anniversary: this brilliant tale of macabre futility and horror in the trenches was adapted by Kubrick, Calder Willingham and pulp master Jim Thompson from a 1935 novel by Herbert Cobb, in turn inspired by a real incident.
George Macready plays General Mireau, an officer who in 1916 orders a suicidally pointless attack on a German stronghold and after the inevitable fiasco orders three men to be chosen, by lot, to be shot for cowardice. (Mireau is a cousin to Sterling Heyden's Brigadier General Jack D Ripper in Dr Strangelove: calculating percentages of acceptable loss is something that happens in both films.) The resulting execution scene is like a nauseous non-crucifixion — three thieves without Christ or three Christs without a thief.
Kirk Douglas plays Colonel Dax, the tough old soldier disgusted with his superiors' arrogant incompetence, who attempts to defend these innocent men. Kubrick's juxtaposition of battle scenes and this sickening petty tyranny behind the lines is masterly and there is a demonic flash of pure genius in making one condemned man, just before his execution, announce that he has not had "one single sexual thought" since the court martial. The final sequence, in which a German civilian woman sings to the troops, has a mysterious redemptive beauty. Kubrick combines compassion with something of those commanding officers' cool detachment and control. A real cinematic field marshal.
The story is simply summarized. French and German armies face each other along 500 miles of fortified trenches. Both sides have been dug in for two years. Any attempt at an advance brings a dreadful human cost in lives. The effete little Gen. Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders his subordinate, Gen. Mireau (George Macready), to take an impregnable German position, “The Anthill,” by, incredibly, the day after tomorrow. Mireau argues that it cannot be done. Broulard thinks perhaps it can be accomplished with no more than 55 percent casualties. He hints that there is a promotion and a third star for the general who does it. The two-star Gen. Mireau goes through the motions of protest: “The lives of 8,000 men! What is my ambition against that? My reputation?” And then: “But, by god, we might just do it!”
Col. Dax must lead the charge. He knows it is doomed, and he protests, but he follows orders. In a scene set the night before the raid, a scene which in other language might have been conceived by Shakespeare, two of his men debate the merits of dying by machinegun or bayonet. One chooses the machinegun, because it is quick; while the bayonet might not kill, it would hurt. The other says that proves he is more afraid of pain than death.
The actual assault has a realism that is convincing even now that we have seen Stone’s “Platoon” and Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.” The black-and-white photography is the correct choice; this is a world of shapes and shadows, mud and smoke, not a world for color. The loss of life is devastating. The advance is halted. Watching from the safety of the trenches, Gen. Mireau decides the men are cowards and orders French artillery to fire on their own men, to drive them forward. The battery commander refuses to act without a written order.
Kubrick and his cinematographer, George Krause, use sharp and deep focus for every shot. There is not a single shot composed only for beauty; the movie’s visual style is to look, and look hard. Kirk Douglas, a star whose intelligence and ambition sometimes pulled him away from the comfortable path mapped by the system, contains most of the emotion of his character. When he is angry, we know it, but he stays just within the edge of going too far. He remains an officer. He does his duty. He finds a way to define his duty more deeply than his superiors would have wished, but in a way, they cannot condemn.
And then that final song. It is sung by a young actress named Christiane Harlan, who soon after married Stanley Kubrick. One day in the summer of 2000, I visited her on their farm outside London, and we walked through the garden to the boulder engraved with Kubrick’s name, under which he rests. I wanted to tell her how special and powerful that scene was, how it came out of nowhere to provide a heartbreaking coda, how by cutting away from his main story Kubrick cut right into the heart of it. But it didn’t seem like the moment for film criticism, and I was sure she already knew whatever I could tell her.
The Absurdity of War: Kubrick frames the conflict not as a battle between nations, but as a struggle of egos.The "enemy" is often unseen, while the real danger resides within the French military’s own leadership.
The Injustice of Power: The film highlights how the upper class (the Generals) treats enlisted men as expendable "cannon fodder."Through its depiction of a rigged court-martial, it critiques how bureaucratic systems are engineered to protect the reputations of the powerful at the cost of human lives.
Individual vs. System: Colonel Dax acts as the moral center of the film, representing the tension between personal integrity and the rigid, often inhumane, demands of military duty
Technical and Cinematic Influence
Signature Kubrick Style: The film showcases early examples of what would become Kubrick's trademark style: fluid, wide-angle tracking shots through the claustrophobic, mud-filled trenches, and a masterful use of deep-focus composition.
The "Chess Match": The film uses the architecture of opulent French chateaus—where the generals plan their maneuvers—to contrast with the squalor of the trenches. The staging often mimics a "chess match," with characters maneuvering for status and control
Production Context
True Origins: The film is based on the 1935 novel by Humphrey Cobb, which was inspired by the real-life "Souain corporals affair," where French soldiers were executed for failing to obey orders during a suicidal charge.
Reception: Due to its unflattering portrayal of the French military, the film was banned in France and several other countries for decades. It was also pulled from the Berlin Film Festival at the French government's request.
A Humanistic Core: Unlike some of Kubrick's later, colder works, Paths of Glory is often noted for its deep humanism.The final scene—featuring a young German woman singing a folk song to a room of hardened, weeping soldiers—is frequently cited as one of the most poignant moments in cinema, offering a rare, fragile glimpse of shared humanity amidst the mechanical brutality of war.
Technical Milestones
The cinematography and direction in Paths of Glory were revolutionary for 1957, establishing techniques that became industry standards:
The Trench Tracking Shots: The legendary tracking shots—where the camera moves fluidly through the trenches as General Mireau and later Colonel Dax inspect the troops—are a masterclass in objective camerawork. By using a dolly track laid along the bottom of the trenches, Kubrick created a sense of "visual music" that feels entirely indifferent to the suffering on screen. It is an observer’s eye, not a participant’s, which only heightens the audience's sense of helplessness.
Geometric Composition: Kubrick began applying his background as a photographer to block scenes with rigid, geometric precision. The courtroom scene is a prime example; the staging is stark and symmetrical, making the trial feel like an inevitable, pre-scripted ritual rather than a pursuit of justice.
The "Three-Shot": Kubrick frequently utilized a three-person composition to balance the frame and imply a stable but underlying tension. You will see this throughout his career, from the dialogue scenes in Paths of Glory to the complex blocking in Eyes Wide Shut.
A Shift in Perspective
What distinguishes Paths of Glory from other war films of the era is its lack of "noble" sentimentality.
Documentary-like Realism: Critics at the time noted the film felt "like a documentary." This was a conscious choice by Kubrick, who wanted to strip away the "glory" typically associated with war films.
The Humanistic Contrast: The film’s final scene—where the captured German girl (played by Christiane Kubrick, whom Stanley married after filming) sings "The Faithful Hussar" to a room of rowdy, grieving soldiers—serves as a devastating pivot. It is the only moment in the film where the "enemy" is shown as human, and it highlights the emotional cost of the "system" the generals represent. It is one of the few instances in a Kubrick film where he allows for a moment of raw, unvarnished empathy.
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