Kubrick's Paths of Glory

Part one: The Verdict

Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas)  removes his cap and addresses the court-martial judges. The trial has been a mockery of justice.

First, there had been no reading of the charges against the three men on trial for cowardice; second, the army prosecutor offered no witnesses; third, the defense was denied motions to enter the accused men's records of valor; finally, no stenographic record of the trial was being kept.

Three men had been arbitrarily chosen to face these charges: one by lot; another singled out as a social misfit; the third railroaded by his cowardly Lieutenant. Throughout the trial, the court was neither interested in the past records of the men nor their visual experiences (the fact that nobody saw one soldier reach the enemy position).

This kangaroo tribunal had limited Dax, one of France's foremost lawyers, to the barest facts. Did the division reach the German fortification, the Ant Hill? Did the attackers reach the German wire? Did the soldiers even leave the trenches? Dax can only feebly appeal to the humanity of this military court.

Thus, along with Colonel Dax, we share the deepest disgust for the French military leadership and concur with the opening words of the defense's summation:

There are times I wish I wasn't a member of the human race and this is one of them. 

We need no argument. Our visual experience has told us that there was no case against Private Ferol (Timothy Carey), Private Arnaud (Joseph Turkel), and Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker). They're merely scapegoats for a botched civilization.

Dax speaks for us. He believes in the power of words to affect sentiments; the sentiments of the military court. He's a successful lawyer and understands courts. Formal charges, a written record of the proceedings, calling witnesses to the character of the defendants: these are buffers against injustice. The common soldier's buffer. Our buffer.

Dax holds a mirror to the court for it to see the irrational process creating this mockery of justice. When he finishes, the stone-faced head judge (Peter Capell, who also narrates the film's opening moments) stands and retires the court so that it can deliberate.

Fade to the next scene. A scene key to understanding Paths of Glory's (1957) exacting strategy. Key to recognizing Stanley Kubrick's overall cinematic intentions.

A bearded, heavy-set sergeant speaks up and down to a line of six men. He is telling them they have a mission. If the men mess up, there'll be hell to pay. Dignitaries will be present as well as the press. They'd just better not screw up. Fifteen, maybe thirty seconds pass before the audience realizes that this is the firing squad for Ferol, Arnaud, and Paris.

The scene itself, not the judges returning to the court, delivers the guilty verdict. Consequently, we are deprived reaction shots of the three men, deprived of the piercing disgust on Dax's brow. The absence of a verdict subtly toys with our expectation for a process, even for our own outraged response at the injustice of the process. After doubt and hesitation, after hoping against all our realistic instincts, we slowly understand the men have been found guilty.

By leaving out the verdict, Kubrick creates an unconscious cognition in the audience. For we know why the verdict was skipped: there was never a doubt they'd be found not guilty.

No! That there should never have been the possibility of a doubt. We should have felt the full extent of the mind, resolve, and power of French military justice here.

Kubrick will subsequently reinforce our new understanding of the operations of power, not so we necessarily sympathize with it, but neither that we instantly condemn it. He will reveal why those in power seem to remain there forever—in Paths of Glory and every film he made thereafter.

In retrospect, we can imagine the 27-year old director playing on a different level than his 1950's audiences and critics. He will baffle and infuriate the movie establishment and complacent audiences until his eyes shut for the final time.