I've read some of the last comments and all I can say is that I think most of you missed the point in this film. No offense to everybody, but I've never regarded this movie as an antiwar movie or something like that. The fact, that my interpretation is not corresponding with most of the others lies in the simple truth that 50% of work is done by the "author" and the rest is done by the audience.
Kubrick used his films as little pieces of the great image of mankind. In all his movies one can see one or multiple depictions of individuals or groups and their feelings and actions, which are not only typical for the protagonists, and antagonists, but also for the viewer.
In the Paths Of Glory this special feeling is perhaps the most ordinary of all: hope.
From the beginning there is no hope in this movie. The battle is lost before it even started. Those three poor creatures are sentenced to death before even the trial had started. And still the audience hopes for a happy end, that the general may stop the execution in the last second. But nothing happens. At this point the viewer is as hopeless as the figures in the movie. The following breakfast scene leaves everybody in a state of paralization, nothing changes.
And then at the end. this helpless and beautiful girl begins to sing a German folk song, which none of the present soldiers knows what it's all about. But the mood of the mob changes away from hate and anger and they all begin to cry like babies. In this very moment hope is reborn and comes back to the battlefield of feelings as the glorious winner. This is when we regain our hope.
Many people wrote, that the last scene didn't fit in the film at all. I would say, that without this scene the movie would have never become the classic it is now. Of course the filming and actor performances are brilliant, but this specialty of the last scene makes this movie unforgettable.
Kubrick used his films as little pieces of the great image of mankind. In all his movies one can see one or multiple depictions of individuals or groups and their feelings and actions, which are not only typical for the protagonists, and antagonists, but also for the viewer.
In the Paths Of Glory this special feeling is perhaps the most ordinary of all: hope.
From the beginning there is no hope in this movie. The battle is lost before it even started. Those three poor creatures are sentenced to death before even the trial had started. And still the audience hopes for a happy end, that the general may stop the execution in the last second. But nothing happens. At this point the viewer is as hopeless as the figures in the movie. The following breakfast scene leaves everybody in a state of paralization, nothing changes.
And then at the end. this helpless and beautiful girl begins to sing a German folk song, which none of the present soldiers knows what it's all about. But the mood of the mob changes away from hate and anger and they all begin to cry like babies. In this very moment hope is reborn and comes back to the battlefield of feelings as the glorious winner. This is when we regain our hope.
Many people wrote, that the last scene didn't fit in the film at all. I would say, that without this scene the movie would have never become the classic it is now. Of course the filming and actor performances are brilliant, but this specialty of the last scene makes this movie unforgettable.