Paths of Glory

A gut wrenching experience. This scathing indictment of military culture remains sadly relevant in a world where too many are willing to feed the machinery of war in all of its bestiality for the sake of slogans, hatred and personal gain. Kirk Douglas gives a terrific performance as the one man in a position of responsibility in the whole French army who actually acts like he has a soul, while Adolphe Menjou and George Macready embody the corruption of generals safe behind lines. Director Stanley Kubrick presents a film full of gripping scenes, including intense battle sequences that prefigure Saving Private Ryan by 40 years, courtroom drama as sharp as A Few Good Men, and a harrowing sequence in which a firing squad serves as a form of passion play, one that cannot help but inspire pity and disgust in equal measures. War may be, as one writer put it, a force that gives us meaning, but its secondary effects simply drip with meaninglessness and villainy. Glory’s got nothing to do with it.