Customer Reviews

Paths of Glory (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This review is for Paths of Glory (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Paths of Glory (The Criterion Collection Spine #538) [Blu-ray] obtained April 2013.

A really good film showing Kirk Douglas at a younger age than I have seen him before. He was an excellent actor even back then. The film is gripping and suspenseful.

I highly recommend this film for anyone over the age of 16, because it is not a straight forward war film. I worry WWI battlefield office politics (to put it plainly) would confuse many boys under that age (and bore most girls).

The restoration is excellent.

To me, the reason to buy a blu-ray is to get the full length film (even theatres run cut versions, so they can get more showings in) and to get the commentary, interviews and extras -- and this is something that Criterion Collection normally excels at.

This version of this film is like that. Lots of extras. You'll be able to watch the film over and over again over the year with new insights and new appreciation.

(If you watch the extras, there is a secret about the guy who sobs and how much he affected production. I had to chuckle at the hoops Kubrick and team had to jump through after him -- and you would never guess watching the film what happened and what needed to be done. It makes the film double the accomplishment.)

From the Criterion Collection product information:

New high definition digital transfer made from 35 mm film elements restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in cooperation with MGM Studios, with funding provided by the Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
New audio commentary featuring critic Gary Giddins
Excerpt from a 1966 audio interview with director Stanley Kubrick
Television interview from 1979 with star Kirk Douglas
New video interviews with Kubrick’s longtime executive producer Jan Harlan, Paths of Glory producer James B. Harris, and actress Christiane Kubrick
French television piece about a real-life World War I execution that partly inspired the film
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar James Naremore

I highly recommend buying this film.

It is the First World War. The French have dug into trenches, 500 miles long, from the English Channel to the border of Switzerland. As the film's intro eloquently states, victories are counted in hundreds of yards gained, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of men. This is the setting of Paths of Glory, certainly and easily one of the greatest war movies of all time.

Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, contains some of the most realistic First World War battle scenes ever put to film. The landscape is a cratered no man's land of mud, wire and bodies. The desperation is captured beautifully. The references to "shell shock" are historically accurate (it was considered to be a mythical condition by the generals of the day.) The only film that comes close for realism is the Australian classic, Galipoli.

Kirk Douglas is Col. Dax, once a lawyer in his old life, now being ordered to take the "Anthill": A fortfied position that the Germans have held for a year. Now the French intend to take it and keep it, but with tired worn out men. Dax doesn't think it can be done, but agrees to it anyway. The alternative for him would have been to be relieved of duty, and Dax won't abandon his men when they need him.

General Mireaux, his ambition for promotion clouding his judgement, has set up an impossible task. The men of course fail, not being able to clear their own wire before being turned back in the face of machine gun fire and shells. A humiliated and embarassed Mireaux orders his artillery to fire on his own men, and when that order is refused he decides to try them for cowardice in the face of enemy. After all, someone must take the blame for failure, and why should it be an officer? Col. Dax returns to his role of a lawyer and defends the three token men chosen to face the charges of cowardice. The ending is as inspirational and tear jerking as they can get.

Paths of Glory paints a picture of the way it was, based loosely on the French practice of executing men for cowardice before they "infect" the rest of the men with that defect. The trenches in the film are perhaps drier than the real trenches but the landscapes look very real indeed. Kubricks style at this point was still that of an observer, which came from his years as a newspaper photographer. He places his lenses where an observer would sit, and you can watch the events unfold like a fly on the wall.

Kirk Douglas is joined by Kubrick regulars Timothy Carey (two Kubrick films to his name), Joe Turkel (three Kubrick films) as well as Adolphe Menjou and a very young Christiane Kubrick.

The film itself is a heartwrenching look at the realities of First World War Europe, and also the human spirit. It attacks our prejudices and practices while reminding us that we are all the same regardless of our station in life. Kubrick seems to have been both fascinated by war while being repulsed by its necessity.

This being such an historically important film, I am glad that it has finally received the Criterion treatment, but why is this only the second Kubrick film to be treated as such? (Spartacus is the other.) The restoration is very well done compared to the original DVD edition. The audio is in mono just as the original film was. I appreciate that nobody tried to tinker with the audio to make it multi-channel. This is the way Kubrick made it. Supplimental features are here including audio commentary, an essay, and a fun interview with Kirk Douglad from the 70's, among numerous others.

This is absolutely nessecary for any fans of real war films and Stanley Kubrick. Hopefully this ushers in a set of brand new Kubrick Criterion editions. I bought two copies, one for me and one for my dad.

5 stars.

I saw this film in a college course on film and I realize why. It is one of the best directed films ever made. The black and white works to perfection.

This is my favorite Kirk Douglas film about the French military during WWI. A group of French soldiers are sent on an impossible mission. When they obviously fail, the General afraid of losing face for a stupid decision, decides to court martial some of the soldiers as a punishment. Three soldiers are singled out. One obviously fought very bravely and another was hit on the head and knocked unconcious during the battle. Their stories are futile against the kangaroo French military court. Douglas tries valiently to act as their legal council and present their defense in vain.

From what I understand this film is still banned in France! I guess the humiliating loss during WWII did nothing to sway the French military from its self-conceived notion of being a great military power!

One of the great beauties of Paths of Glory is how no shot or word is wasted, how everything plays a part in the greater whole. The best art cuts away the inessential to leave you with a core that grips and provokes you, and that's cerainly true of this movie. Not only are the story and acting superb, but the perfectly taught pacing far outshines nearly every film I've seen, where bloat seems to be all too inevitable. Writers, directors, and editors everywhere could learn a lot from this film.

Paths of Glory is one of those rare movies that leaves a mark on one's soul. It is a tale like Billy Budd which places the viewer in the achingly helpless state which decent people find themselves in when wanting to rescue the oppressed from those who mark them for destruction. In both stories evil triumphs, not because good men have done nothing, but because their efforts fall short. One identifies as much with the valiant Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglass) and Captain Vere (Peter Ustinov in Billy Budd) as they do with the poor unfortunates they desperately want to save. These are bittersweet tales that leave one yearning for the day when injustice and oppression will no longer triumph. They not only entertain the mind, but they impress the spirit.

Paths of glory is the ultimate war movie and probably the real Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece.

This film is clearly based on the 1917 mutiny of French troops during the Nivelle Offensives. What happened was that the French troops tired of advancing against well prepared German positions in badly thought out offensives spat the dummy and said no more. They would defend but not attack. The French general staff shelled their own troops to try to get them going.

This film is reasonably simple in structure. A poorly planned attack is carried out and fails. The French generals want to execute some randomly chosen men to encourage the rest to be more enthusiastic next time. A trial is held which is of course simply a joke and the men are executed. Kirk Douglas plays an officer who leads the original attack and then defends the men in what is a Kangaroo court.

Kubrick's main problem as a director is the lack of complexity of his characters and the fact that he was a rather heavy handed director.

This story which is basically a simple anti war tract is one of his better films as there are really no characters. He is talking about an event. The portrait of the French generals is something of a crude charactature rather than being realistic. Still it was necessary to show his notion of the idiocy of war to attack them as being remote.

Kubrick's strong points are his photography and the construction of his scences. All of that is well done and it creates a series of powerful tableaus.

This is probably the best anti war film ever made. I don't think you could find a better representation of cowardice and ignorance in the French General Staff during WWI. However, the movie touches themes much more complex than the throwing away of the lives of millions of young men. The nature of war itself and the men who are chosen to "lead" soldiers is called into question. The camera work is another highlight of the film, it just adds to the tragic and somber tone of the film. I think the final scene that takes place inside the cabaret is one of the most emotional and disturbing scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Just an absolute masterpiece.

This is one the finest works of Stanley Kubrick. There are few movies in the cinema story so shocking like this. The nasty human condition and the greed of a General makes he sents a command under Kirk Douglas's service to a real suicide. It's imposible reach the desired goal.
To save his reputation they are sent to a jury arguing cowardy .
This is a heavyweight anti war movie. Kirk Douglas in one of his most powerful roles in his career.
A cult movie!
A must in your collection.

Paths Of Glory is one of the essentials films that any serious movie buff should see. It is quite simply one of the best movies ever made.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, a French WW1 infantry officer whose regiment is given the task of assaulting a heavily fortified German position over open ground. The attack fails and the remnants of Dax regiment retreat, a fact which so infuriates the French high command that three soldiers are pulled from the ranks, supposedly at random, to be shot for cowardice.

This isn't fiction; it's based on an actual WW1 incident that historians have verified.

The defence of the three condemned troops falls on Colonel Dax, who, in civilian life, is one of France's leading criminal lawyers.

The end result is brilliant. This film has timeless things to say about war, physical and moral courage, the internal machinations of bureaucracies and the atrocities that can result from venal and totally amoral people being put in positions of authority.

This movie is a timeless classic. Any serious movie buff should have Paths Of Glory in their collection.