Welcome to war week at the Rolling Picture!! It started last week unofficially with 'Au revoir les enfants' but is in full swing this week as we move into the trenches of the First World War and the French army. This is an early Kubrick film from 1957starring Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax leading 701st Battalion in 1916. It looks at the court-martial handed out to three soldiers who were part of a regiment that didn't leave the trenches whilst under heavy fire and continue in a suicidal attack on a German position called the ''Anthill''. The superior offices who ordered the attack, from there cushy headquarters behind the lines, believed they were guilty of cowardice.
The film was heavily criticized on release by active and former soldiers especially those connected with the French military who said it showed them in a bad light. Contrary to reports at the time it was not banned in France but the release was delayed by a few years. I can see why military personnel wouldn't like the topics addressed in the film but the film was loosely based on 4 French soldiers executed during the First World War. I think it would be incredibly naive to think this only happened in the French army during the wars.
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| Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax who attempts to defend the three men |
Had I not known before I watched this movie that Stanley Kubrick was the director I would never have guessed it was his work based on some of his later works that I am much more familiar. Although there is one scene, before the troops are due to ''go over the top'' of the Trenches and advance on the enemy, where there is little sound and the camera slowly moves through the trench to pick up the scared mood of the soldiers and the calm before the storm so to speak.
Early in the film it is evident that the top ranking officers are not genuinely interested in the soldiers who fight in the trenches. Brigadier General Paul Mireau (George Macready with a real facial scar from a serious car accident) is taking a walk through the trenches asking generic questions to soldiers as he goes, he then arrogantly says that these walks are crucial for troops morale trying to show his own self-importance. At the end of this walk he speaks to a man suffering so badly from shell-shock that he struggles to reply other than just repeating what is being said to him. The man is shown no sympathy after being smacked in the face and then ordered to leave his regiment so he doesn't contaminate the other men as ''there is no such thing as shell-shock". The first actual scene in the movie shows Mireau meeting with Major General George Broulard (played with great pomposity by Adolphe Menjou) saying that taking the Anthill is impossible but then realises that a success on such an impossible mission could see him promoted. The furthering of character's own careers is often put before the lives of the soldiers in the trenches with Colonel Dax being the only person to act against this. In one instance Mireau says he will have Dax furloughed for disagreeing with his attack on the ''Anthill'' if he is not up to the fight anymore, abusing his power for his own personal gain.
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| Private Ferol with Father Dupree |
My only criticism of the movie is the lack of character development, in many cases the films plot moves too quickly for you to learn enough about who people are and why they are like that. Colonel Dax is very much a side line character till the second half of the film and we don't really understand why he is different from everyone else in power?
3/4 a look at the ugly side of power during a time of war and still relevant today.
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