The opening scene in “Paths of Glory” should appear in a dictionary next to the word “Machiavellian.” It is World War I and a French military official, Major General Georges Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), has been given an impossible assignment. His superiors, who are grossly out of touch with the realities of battle, have ordered him to retake a key hill to turn the tide against Germany, which currently holds it. If Broulard does as he is told, he will personally lead thousands of innocent men to die merely to prove a strategic point to his higher ups. If he tries to buck them, he will be insubordinate and jeopardize his own career.
Realizing that he is in a “heads I win/tails you lose” situation, Broulard instead manages to keep the coin standing on its side. He manipulates an underling, Brigadier General Paul Mireau (George Macready), into accepting responsibility for the success or failure of the doomed mission. Mireau mouths the same moral objections that must have flashed through Broulard’s head, but rationalizes his way past them by ignoring common sense (including points he made moments earlier). By the time the two men have finished talking, Broulard has effectively absolved himself of responsibility while convincing Mireau that he was the one who took the initiative.
It is a brilliantly constructed scene, which like the rest of the film is directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written by Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson. Based on a novel by Humphrey Cobb (which is, in turn, loosely based on a real event), “Paths of Glory” tells the story of three French soldiers who are court-martialed for refusing to proceed with the suicidal attack. While I won’t spoil the ending, suffice to say that the meat of the film is in the intellectual and emotional journey undertaken by their defense attorney and commanding officer, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas). His understanding of the absurdity of their situation allows “Paths of Glory” to emerge as a sophisticated analysis. Early in the story he quotes Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
“Paths of Glory” plumbs precisely why that is the case. It posits that, even though the three hapless men are being charged with cowardice, the true cowards are people with power who cloister themselves in luxury and force others to die for them. They benefit from a military, economic and political order which uses nationalism as a rationalization for their inhuman and cruel actions. This type of rationalization, articulated by both its perpetrators and its victims, is little different from the one used by Mireau to further his ambitions. Patriotism is, in the end, little more or less than swearing loyalty to whichever groups happen to be elite enough to control society. The lives, dignity and welfare of ordinary people thereby become inconsequential.
Of what value, then, is life? The film offers a poignant answer in its closing scene. Kubrick’s future wife Christiane, credited here as Susanne Christian, plays a captive German girl who entrances French soldiers at an inn with a folk song. Technically they are supposed to return to the front, but an officer told to inform them of this decides to give them a few more minutes of fun. It won’t amount to much, but it allows him to exert what little power he can and grants them a bit more joy in a world determined to make them suffer.
“Paths of Glory” is, like any great work of art, also capable of making the suffering of this life a little easier. For those who like to contemplate politics and philosophy through well-written narrative drama, it is a welcome distraction.