Paths of Glory Symmetries

Taking place in France in the middle of the First World War, but filmed in Germany, Paths of Glory opens on a monumental palace (1), the luxurious building serving as headquarters for the French generals. The most arbitrary and inhuman decisions are made here, sometimes out of pure ambition, like the offensive, which was doomed in advance, against an impregnable German position, or the unjust court martial wrongly accusing three soldiers, chosen at random, of cowardice and sentencing them to be shot "as an example". This refined 18th-century edifice, radiant with light, is therefore the scene of the worst intrigues. Its immaculate whiteness contrasts with the mud and darkness of the trenches and the ravaged battlefield: two contrasting universes that the film alternates cruelly.

The execution of the soldiers takes place precisely in front of the elegant castle, over muffled drum rolls. The long, narrow monument looms in the background, the framing and wide angle accentuating its colossal size. The symmetrical architecture is echoed by the central path and side paths in perfect geometry. The vanishing points and contrast of black and white participate in the harmonious composition of the image. The disciplined troops, lined up in total symmetry on either side of the main path, and the firing squad, consisting of two rows of soldiers deployed across its width facing the camera, contribute to the effect of confinement and the feeling of implacable death. The reverse angle of this shot, on the three condemned men flanked by soldiers seen from the back and ready to fire, obeys the same ineluctable symmetry.

The highly precise displacements of the hundreds of German extras portraying French soldiers, or poilus, in Paths of Glory, like the framing choices, already bear witness to the young filmmaker's fascination with symmetrical composition, further accentuated here by military order.