“You've spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality.”– Gen. Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) to Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas)
Paths of Glory, which debuted as an amazing-looking Criterion DVD/Blu-ray a couple of weeks ago, is one Stanley Kubrick film that even those sad few who don’t like Stanley Kubrick films can get behind. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the one most often cited is that Paths represents one of Kubrick’s more humanistic films, as opposed to allegedly cold (and to some even misanthropic or sadistic) works like 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange. “Humanistic” is a loaded word, of course, but it certainly applies to Paths: It’d be hard for someone who believes Kubrick’s work to be cold to really say the same for this film, since it’s got some of the most emotionally wrenching scenes ever committed to celluloid.
