Written and posted: May 12th 2017. One of my first larger reviews.
A Lesson of Hope and Civility
In war films, the ones in question being ones based on history. So nothing like Suckerpunch or Children of Men. The common theme that should be present is that of awe and hope. The feeling a film can give you while your watching and makes you say, WOW. Moments like his can be found in any film but in war epics these moments should be held to support a greater message the film is trying to get across.
Director/Writer for Paths of Glory Stanley Kubrick outlines moments that can truly be scene as these AWEsome moments. These moments can inspire, sadden or even make the audience laugh but in films like this one it almost always begs the audience to question even there own morals. There are many scenes in this film that make the audience feel. Weather that be anguish for the characters or even simple empathy is up to the viewer but in my case I found myself feeling the ever-present feeling of tension and hopefulness, but which quickly turns into maddening acceptance.
The sequence I feel gives the most glaring sense of AWE is the ending, the scene where Kubrick wants to outline his own views and opinions on the idea of war. The scene comes soon after the conclusion of the execution so the aching feeling of hopelessness and images of death are ingrained into the minds of the viewer. The scene in question depicts Kirk Douglas looking into a bar/restaurant of some sort in base camp. Inside the bar a large troop of roudy, dirty, horny soldiers. They are present to be entertained by a German singer. (Fun Fact: The actress who plays the singer is Kubricks future wife) She is visibly terrified of singing in front of these soldiers who continuously heckle and disrespect her on stage. The moment of pure civility comes as she begins to sing in her foreign tongue and the entire feel of the room screeches to a complete stop. The solders who weee shown in the previous shots as writing off this singer were now shown shedding tears at the beauty of her song and even humming along with her. Douglas’s character watches on and is sharply informed that his soldiers (most of whom are shown in the Bar) are needed on the front lines. Douglas knowing that means many of them will not return lets his men stay and listen for a little longer. This ending is significantly AWEsome due to the preconceived notions of American soldiers and how even they can be brought to tears at the beauty of something as common as music.
In short, civility is achieved in this film as people’s lives are torn down. Wrongful deaths turn to martyrs in the long run exposing higher-ups for who they really are and what THEY stand for. Hope can be veiwed in this film as a buffer for the violence on screen. From the court case to the LONG excecution sequence to the ending there are minute pecies of hope felt, hoping that our protagonists will catch a break or maybe someone can live happily in this universe. But that’s what war movies should be. Not awesome as in “WOW that was a crazy explosion, how cool!”. But AWEsome as in “………” silence, because of the sheer disgust of what you’re watching.
War movies based on true events or based in reality are meant to pay respect, not to be “cool”. Paths of Glory does the right thing here and creates a story around this terrible real event and uses hope in the way that people can experience it during these times. Perhaps it may simply be false.
The FilmSpot 