Slideshow
PATHS OF GLORY
U.S., 1957
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou
Based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb
Approx. 86 min. 35mm.
WWI colonel Kirk Douglas gets the order to take “The Anthill,” as icily smiling chateau-bound generals Adolphe Menjou and George Macready play the General Staff office politics two-step. But, after the ensuing bloodbath, it’s time for heads to roll. Shot in Belgium after French authorities nixed it — the original novel was based on the officially “mythical” mass mutinies of 1917 — this is one of the most ruthlessly anti-war films ever made, with Kubrick’s telephoto-lensed, side-tracking shooting of the assault perhaps the screen’s most authentic treatment of trench warfare.
Reviews
“One of the most powerful movies ever made…Could not be more timely.”
– A. O. Scott
“The film by which Stanley Kubrick entered the ranks of great directors, never to leave them.”
– Roger Ebert
“The truest movie about war ever made.”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out (New York)
“A brilliant tale of macabre futility and horror in the trenches. It is arguably the best film about the first world war, and still has a reasonable claim to being Stanley Kubrick’s best film.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian