In Paths of Glory, Col. Dax is the righteous, indignant military lawyer who defends three innocent French soldiers being tried on trumped up charges of cowardice. In truth, the three soldiers are merely scapegoats of the upper brass and are ultimately put to death to cover over the shame and selfishness of top generals. Dax is outraged, having begged the tribunal to have some sense of shame, to behave humanely, to show mercy and clemency.
In the final scene, Dax has just departed the execution of the convicted soldiers, one of whom suffered from a skull fracture and had to be propped up on a stretcher and slapped awake before being shot. While Dax believes in the dignity of man, he has just seen the nobility behaving like animals. Dax himself is accused by a general of only angling for the three soldiers’ release in order to advance his own career, though Dax denies it with a shout and an oath. The pitiful soldiers he tried to save were brave, but they were condemned by men of power.
The final scene occurs in a bar near the site of the execution. None of the men in the bar are named characters. They are just as much strangers to us as to Dax, who pauses outside the bar.
At the 0:24 mark, we see Dax respond to the men’s whooping when a beautiful German hostage is brought out onto the stage. Looking at the ground, Dax wonders just how awful the tribunal actually was. While the three soldiers executed weren’t guilty of cowardice, had they been alive, they would have likely been in the bar hollering and leering at the girl like everyone else. Maybe there is no such thing as an innocent man. Dax sighs. As a colonel, he might walk into the bar and disrupt the spectacle, tell the privates to act like men. Would it do any good?
“Talk in a civilized language!” roars one soldier (0:47) after the girl timidly says “Good day” in German. It’s an ironic command given how uncivilized the behavior of the crowd is. In addition to whistling and shouting, the men are also laughing and nearly hysterical. The German girl is in tears, though. Her tragedy is their comedy. The sad end of her day is the happy end of their own day. The audience has coercive power over the girl, and there is something inherently funny about coercive power.
When the barkeep tells the girl to sing a song, Kubrick cuts around the room quickly. At 1:18, Kubrick shows us the entire crowd, and between 1:20 and 1:23, we are shown four individual faces in rapid succession. When the girl begins singing, though, the editing slows down and we are shown the individual faces again, but this time the camera lingers on them for two or three times as long. The song has begun to pacify the men, and so the frenetic pace of the editing slows as the gaze of the men moves from carnality to contemplation.
The men begin humming along at 2:25 as the young blond soldier swallows hard, as though preparing himself for something awful. The survey of faces continues, and the men look increasingly worried until the 2:42 mark, when an older soldier appears mortified, ashamed. At the 2:54 mark, we return to the young girl who has taken note of the men’s tears, and she regains her confidence, nodding her head to the audience to encourage them.
As the audience gazes at the helpless girl, the imagination of each soldier wanders off. The think of their wives, sisters and daughters. If a German girl could be plucked from her home and set before a room full of cat-calling brutes, the same could happen to a girl they knew. The young blond soldier weeps because the girl is not the enemy, but his own girlfriend, disgraced by jeers. She is no longer a German girl, but a girl, and then no longer a girl, but a human being among other human beings. The soldiers begin to cry not on behalf of the girl, but as the girl. Sympathy is an act of imitation, and every act of imitation is an act of becoming. When the scene begins, at the 0:17 mark, Kubrick pulls back suddenly from a single face, but at 3:30, he slowly draws into a single face. As the audience, we may have judged the men as hastily and brutally as they initially judged the girl. But as the audience lingers on the girl, we linger on the audience. The audience is no longer a mishmash of faces. Rather, each of the brute’s faces becomes more distinct, and in becoming more distinct, ceases to be a brute.
At 3:45 the scene cuts back to Dax, still listening outside. He looks down again, perhaps a little ashamed of himself for the hasty accusations he made in his heart against those jeering inside. Man is dignified, though he often forgets this. The same upper brass who condemned innocent men to die are not beyond the reach of the German girl’s song.
18 Comments
Nice analysis, thank you!
Hi,
It’d be a great analysis if Kubrick were this simple-minded director Hollywood tried to put in a box many times over.
I agree with the camera work, brilliant. One thing that was skipped in the review is crucial to understand the whole scene and the movie.
The young German girl, who obviously can’t “sing like a bird” sings the first thing that she can, a folk song “ Der Treue Husar”,(the faithful hussar) a classic song used as lullaby on both side of the river Rhine. A sing with a tragic end. Kubrick’s choice of song is key here: on the first level, Kubrick tells us, like Joshua is saying, the brutes are softened by the song, brings them back to a time of warmth and humanity. On the higher level, Kubrick shows the culture and nurturing common to both German and French hence, the absurdity of fighting a war between brothers. A brilliant end, to a great political movie.
Thanks for writing this.
Excellent analysis! It’s also worth noting that Kubrick used Christiane Kubrick (his wife from 1958 until his death in 1999) to play the role of the innocent German singer.
According to the Wiki on the film, the two met on the set and were married subsequent to the film’s completion. I have read elsewhere, however, that Kubrick was dating her when he chose to employ her in the film.
From hostility to irony to empathy: this scene puts the cap on Kubrick’s exposure of war ideology
Could you elaborate on what you meant by this?
a very good review i just needed this…i was guessing something like this but your solid review explained and proved it totally.
i guess it was the peak of the movie and the noblest part of it.
Beautifully concise and precise, as moving as the film. BUT, what is the name of the song she sings?
The song is titled The Faithful Hussar…a folksong about a soldier that returns to his love, only after she becomes mortally ill
Wow. How did you do that? I’ve had eyes but you gave me sight. I’m so moved by your words. I’m swimming in thought. Thank you.
I agree with a lot of the analysis, but you do take liberty with imputing the thoughts of the soldiers in the last scene, based upon their facial expressions. Given that the song’s words describe the folk tale of a young hussar whose young love has taken fatally ill while he is away, and he cannot be by her side until she has passed, it is more likely that instead of imagining their distant loves plucked as was the songstress, they instead imagine themselves suffering the same fate as the Hussar’s. Either imputation cannot be known, but one cannot ignore the context of the song’s lyrics. One might argue that the soldiers knew nothing of the lyrics , given they were sung in German and they French , and they obviously did not know the lyrics since they only hummed along. A poignant irony if nothing else.
A second point: Dax was not their defense council, he was their commanding officer. He made the specific request of the commanding general that he be allowed to defend them— a highly unusual and noble request. The normal course was that he be the one to prefer (send forward) charges of cowardice before the enemy, and the general would convene a court martial to try them,. A commander would never be allowed or expected to defend his own soldiers, but since Dax bitterly opposed the court martial but could not stop it, he did the honorable thing in defending them before the court. The distinction is important because in that final scene, he listens from outside not to soldiers he dies not know, but in fact soldiers he knew intimately. He was their commander, knew them by face and name ( unlike the general in the opening scene) and had just the day before led them in battle. His knowledge of them makes their initial reaction to the songstress all the more painful to him, and more telling still his reaction inthe last shot when he directs the sergeant to give them a few more minutes before ordering them back to the front
Have to agree with J B MGuan, Dax certainly knew the soldiers in the tavern well. The soldiers were clearly affected by the song that was sung more than the presence of the girl herself, and the fact that they were able to hum along despite not knowing the lyrics demonstrates their familiarity with the tune and perhaps it’s meaning. They may well have heard the tune carried over the battlefield from the German trenches in the quiet of the night.
the movie was such a balance of innocence and brutality and the closing scene was moving. Huzzah Mr Kubrick!
Sensitive and intelligent reading.:)
Thanks for this analysis! I watched this film last night with my teenage kids, one studying WWI, the other taking Philosophy. Your review helped me put the ending in context.
[…] This reviewer does an interesting job of relating the scene. […]
I appreciate everyone’s contributions and comments. Very interesting and helpful.