Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory (1957)
IMDB #50 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/]

The Gist:
Okay, I'm going to have to amend my statement in terms of Stanley Kubrick. He is apparently hit or miss for me. I honestly felt this was one of the best war films I'd ever seen, and it was so succinct almost to the point of putting me off but not quite. To see a Kubrick film that isn't self indulgent was weird (don't get me wrong I often like self-indulgence in films when it serves the story well, which it often does). Anyway, this started out in World War I with a foolish General trying to take a hill that is impossible to take, then trying to fire artillery on his own men who are refusing to leave the trenches since everyone is getting mowed down, then having to make an example of three privates chosen more or less at random, then a badass colonel played by Kirk Douglas defending them to no avail, they get sentenced to death, and it goes on from there. In my mind, at the end of this film there is the single best moment in any war film ever (maybe...at least top three). Anyway, near the end of the film Douglas is clearly losing his faith in humanity and he passes by a bar. Inside, there's a bunch of drunk riled up men in some bar where an entertainer of sorts pulls up a German woman who doesn't know a word of english. They all jeer at her, whistle at her, rudely objectify her, and someone shouts "learn a civilized language!". This is the sort of debasement that happens to make your enemy someone you can kill, to make them somehow less human then you are. Anyway the performer says that she hasn't much talent but she does have a "golden voice" and the crowd yells for her to sing in a brutish sort of way. She starts singing, but the men are so loud she can be heard, they yell "louder, louder". She sings louder. The crowd becomes quiet. Then its just her singing, and it seems to be a song they know. The men, gradually subdued, begin humming along with her singing the German words. All at once you see the illusions that the men have clung to distance themselves from the Germans dissolve and break away. The Colonel, seeing this, seems to find some small hint of hope to be had. Even writing this part out here gives me goose bumps, which makes me think it might be one of my favorite scenes of any movie.