Kirk Douglas discovers that war is indeed hell in PATHS OF GLORY (courtesty Photofest)
PATHS OF GLORY (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Thursday, March 21, 12:25 & 7:25
Series runs March 20-28
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
Stanley Kubrick’s harrowing Paths of Glory, based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb, is quite simply the best English-language antiwar film ever made. Kirk Douglas stars as Colonel Dax, a French military man who disagrees with his superiors’ insistence on sending his men into certain annihilation in order to take a worthless hill during World War I. Dax’s verbal battles with Generals Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) and Mireau (George Macready) are unforgettable, as are the final scenes, in which three random men are chosen to pay the price for what the generals call cowardice. Filmed in stunning black and white, Paths of Glory puts you right on the front lines of the folly of war. Kubrick, who wrote the unrelenting script with Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson, also made the best film about the cold war (Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), the Roman slave revolt (Spartacus), and, arguably, the Vietnam War (Full Metal Jacket). Paths of Glory, which is one of the most emotional, powerful stories ever put on celluloid, can be seen March 21 as part of the IFC Center series “The Films of Stanley Kubrick,” which runs March 20-28 and includes every one of the director’s feature works as well as A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a collaboration with Steven Spielberg, all shown in advance of the March 29 theatrical release of Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, a documentary that delves into the many metamysteries surrounding The Shining.