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FLOYD'S FILMS
"Paths to Glory"
Floyd
Lawrence's Review
Paths
Of Glory” staring Kirk Douglas on Thursday July 26th at the
Roadhouse Theatre For Contemporary Art, 145 West 11th Street Erie Pa.
In
Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" war is viewed in terms of power.
This mesmerizing, urgent film about a true episode in World War I combines the
idea that class differences are more important than national differences with
the cannon-fodder theory of war, the theory that soldiers are merely pawns in
the hands of generals who play at war is if it were a game of chess. The result
of this amazing film has been the emergence of one of the great talents in
contemporary cinema, the master whose greatest work was yet to come.
The
futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit
commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a
glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an
impossible attack.
A path of Glory (1957) is a masterful, unsentimental, classic anti-war film about
World War I. It was 28 year-old Stanley Kubrick's fourth feature-length film (Kubrick
served as its director and co-writer with Calder Willingham (screenwriter for Little
Big Man (1970)) and blacklisted crime novelist Jim Thompson), but it was his
first major success, following after his first amateurish feature Fear and
Desire (1953) (subsequently removed from circulation and screenings by
Kubrick himself), Killer's Kiss (1955), and MGM's low budget The
Killing (1956). [Kubrick's work with actor Kirk Douglas in this film led to
his choice as a replacement director for Anthony Mann for Spartacus (1960), following
a falling out between Douglas and Mann.] Kubrick's film was added to the Library
of Congress National
Film Registry in 1992.
Juxtaposed in interesting fashion, this low-budget, independent production with a
distinctly European flavor premiered one week after the release of David
Lean's Best Picture-winning, CinemaScopic war epic blockbuster, The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) from Columbia Pictures. This
stark, slightly stagey, 87-minute black and white film, shot on location in
Germany with crisp B/W photography (by George Krause) with a budget less than $1
million, is as compelling and harsh an indictment and criticism of war as Lewis
Milestone's award-winning, anti-war classic All
Quiet On The Western Front (1930), adapted from Erich Maria
Remarque's novel.
The title of the film, actually ironic and inappropriate since war is not a 'path of
glory', was suggested by line 36 in 18th century English romantic poet Thomas
Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Paths Of Glory is considered one of Kubrick's best films.
This one night only special event will take place at 7:30pm to be followed by a
question and answer session hosted by Floyd Lawrence and his co-host Peggy Brace
and a wine and cheese reception.
For more information or V.I.P. reservations please call the Roadhouse Theatre box
office between the hours of 2:00pm and 6:00pm Tuesday through Saturday at
814-456-5656
©
Great Lakes Film Association
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