1. The Final Casualty Of War In Stanley Kubrick's Paths Of Glory
Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film about the First World War is an indictment of the uncompromising bureaucracy of military command as well as merciless statement about human nature. The plot centers around Kirk Douglas's character, who nobly plays a French military officer and lawyer with his natural American accent. After he refuses to lead his men through the trenches and across enemy lines (which would be a suicide mission) a few of his men are summarily subjected to a firing squad. The movie revolves around his legal attempt to disrupt the system and save the lives of the soldiers that were randomly selected to be killed, and the dancing chess match that is the power struggle for officers in the French army is disconcerting to say the least. What Kubrick finds troublesome about the war is not the actual death: obviously killing soldiers isn't viewed positively on the field of battle, but it is the loss of the value of human life in the officer class of the army that is truly the scourge of the war. The musical scene that deserves the top spot on this list is at the very end of the movie, but it isn't necessarily a spoiler for people who haven't seen the rest of the film. The French soldiers gather in a saloon before being sent off once again to the front lines. The men whistle and catcall as the bar owner trots out a German woman (Kubrick's real-life wife) who clearly does not want to be there. Tears roll down her face as she begins to singand the men who were once so eager to see her as a sexual object recognize the sad beauty of the song. The singer isn't given a back story but it is safe to assume that she, like the soldiers, has become a prisoner of the war in a symbolic sense. Their own loss of innocence is channeled through her, and they begin to hum along with her and several soldiers begin to cry. Kubrick would forgo these big emotional scenes in his later work, but the power of the shared voices in the bar at the end of Paths of Glory echoes loudly for anyone who has seen the film.