The art form of film and television simply would not exist without cinematography— and some stand above others when it comes to this inspiring art form. So please, join us in sharing your favorite moments of cinematic beauty!
Clip
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
I know the trench shot gets most of the attention when talking about the cinematography of this film, but I’ve always admired the shots in the battle sequence. Instead of doing something overhead (like War and peace or Waterloo) Kubrick opts to go almost perpendicular to the advancing line, which creates an amazing background that feels much larger than its true size. It’s hard to see if you’re on mobile but there’s a lot going back there. The scene plays much larger than it’s budget as Paths of Glory cost slightly less than $1 million and just about broke even. Waterloo was a reported $25 million dollar budget.
Due to having three years' military training, around 600 German police officers were used as extras for soldiers. The last scenes filmed were those that take place on the battlefield. For the construction of the battlefield, Kubrick hired 5,000 square yards (0.4 hectares) of land from a local farmer. It took Kubrick a month to set up the filming of the assault, arranging props and tearing up the field to look like a war zone. For the filming of the battle sequence, the battlefield was divided into five regions where explosive charges were specifically placed. This made it easier for Kubrick to film the dying of extras as he split the extras into five groups, one for each of the regions, and each man would die in his own zone by an explosion that was near him.
Although Kubrick's previous film The Killing had failed at the box office, it had managed to land on several critical top-ten lists for the year. Dore Schary, then head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, liked the film and hired Kubrick and Harris to develop film stories from MGM's slush pile of scripts and purchased novels.
Kubrick once said of his decision to make a war film: "One of the attractions of a war or crime story is that it provides an almost unique opportunity to contrast an individual or our contemporary society with a solid framework of accepted value, which the audience becomes fully aware of, and which can be used as a counterpoint to a human, individual, emotional situation. Further, war acts as a kind of hothouse for forced, quick breeding of attitudes and feelings. Attitudes crystallise and come out into the open. Conflict is natural, when it would in a less critical situation have to be introduced almost as a contrivance, and would thus appear forced or, even worse, false."
Production took place entirely in Bavaria, Germany, especially at the Schleissheim Palace near Munich. Timothy Carey was fired during production. He was reportedly extremely difficult to work with, even to the extent of faking his own kidnapping, holding up the whole production. He was replaced in the scenes remaining to be shot with a double.
An early critical test of Kubrick's obsession with control on the set came during the making of Paths of Glory. As recalled by Kirk Douglas:
He made the veteran actor Adolphe Menjou do the same scene 17 times. "That was my best reading." Menjou announced. "I think we can break for lunch now." It was well past the usual lunch time but Kubrick said he wanted another take. Menjou went into an absolute fury. In front of Douglas and the entire crew he blasted off on what he claimed was Kubrick's dubious parentage and made several other unprintable references to Kubrick's relative greenness in the art of directing actors. Kubrick merely listened calmly and after Menjou had spluttered to an uncomplimentary conclusion said quietly: "All right, let's try the scene once more." With utter docility, Menjou went back to work. "Stanley instinctively knew what to do," Douglas says.
The only female character in the film, the woman who sings "The Faithful Hussar", is portrayed by German actress Christiane Harlan (credited in the film as Susanne Christian). She and Kubrick later married; the couple remained together until his death in 1999. It was on set that they originally had met.
Notes from wikipedia