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Movie Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to help focus your thoughts for your responses and get you thinking about what you are watching. You can respond to any of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Note that I suggest you examine the prompts before watching the film.

Remember that you must complete at least five of the eight scheduled movie posts during the semester, and you will benefit from completing more.
Paths of Glory (1957), directed by Stanley Kubrick; screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, and Jim Thompson, adapted from the novel by Humphrey Cobb; Starring Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, George Macready, Wayne Morris, and Adolphe Menjou

Paths of Glory defies easy conventions of genre. It is a war film, of course, but one in which we never see an enemy soldier, even in the battle for the “Anthill” scene. It is a courtroom drama, but one in which the verdict has been decided before the trial begins, the brilliant defense attorney is consistently denied permission to be brilliant, and the trial itself takes up little screen time. It has dramatic elements, tragic elements, and — like just about all Kubrick films — even occasional moments of black (exceedingly black) humor. How would you describe this film to a friend who asked you “What kind of film is it?”

Does Paths of Glory have a villain? If so, who is it? And if more than one, who is the most villainous of the villains?

One clear theme of this film is the Social Darwinist idea, prevalent at the time (and I should emphasize that it has no real connection to Darwin except that it is based on Herbert Spencer’s misunderstanding and misapplication of Origin of Species), that society was filled with “undesirables.” Consider the attitude General Mireau displays toward the men under his command, especially contrasted with his initial description of them to General Broulard.

The scene that ends the film has no connection to the rest of the film’s plot. Except for Kirk Douglas, who is only an observer to the scene, to my recollection not one character in it has even appeared earlier in the film. Why does Kubick end this film with this scene? (Notable bit of trivia: the singer, Susanne Christian, became Christiane Kubrick the next year, and they remained married until his death.)
 
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