After joining MGM, the two directors of the Harris Kubrick Company actively looked for themes for the filming. The two of them liked literature and hoped to find writers to cooperate with. In the end, the two reached an agreement to shoot a film based on war. themed videos. So Kubrick remembered a novel "Paths of Glory" written by Humphrey Cobb that he read as a boy.
Stanley Kubrick and his collaborator Harris gleefully told Dole Shari, then president of MGM. But Shari didn't have much interest in Path of Glory, telling Kubrick, "As long as it's a novel in MGM's library, we can discuss whichever you want to make."
Kubrick found a novel by Stephen Zweig in his library, "The Unlockable Secret," as his first film with MGM, and Shari agreed to give them forty weeks. Writing the screenplay and spending $75,000. The last time Kubrick asked writer Jim Thompson to turn the novel "Break in Two" into the film "The Killing." So Kubrick found a famous writer Calder Willingham to adapt the work, but Willingham was writing the script for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and the time was very urgent.
The accident happened suddenly, Shari was fired for various reasons, and the new president told Kubrick and Harris that the contract could be stopped. It turns out that the new president found out that the Harris Kubrick Company was secretly adapting "Paths of Glory" at night. In order to get the investment, Kubrick used his genius to promote the film. He came to United Artists and was told that United Artists would not consider accepting the film unless the script was rewritten or a star joined the show. At this time, Willingham changed the script written by Kubrick and Thompson significantly, but Marx of United Artists was still not satisfied, claiming that even if it was filmed, it would be banned from being released in France. Just when Kubrick was at a loss, the favor of a Hollywood superstar turned things around.
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas in 1956 was famously held in Hollywood, a pair of dimples on either side of his chin was his hallmark, and he was nominated for three Oscars, among which he played the painter Vincent van Gogh in 1956's Longing for Life. Douglas, who was in his forties, soon met with Kubrick, 28, and Kubrick spoke out about the current predicament that no company was willing to take on the film, Douglas said.
Stanley, I don't think this movie will make any money at all, but we have to line up.
Gregory Peck was also praised for the script of "Path of Glory", but unfortunately there was no time to shoot because of the appointment. The final cast is Kirk Douglas. His agent is Ray Stark. He was the agent of the famous Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hurt, and also worked with Marilyn Monroe and Richard Burton. He put forward harsh conditions on Kubrick and Harris, and Douglas was paid 35 $10,000, you need to provide first-class accommodation, and you must sign a contract with Douglas' Bryan company to shoot five films, at least two of which will star Douglas. Kubrick hesitated, but agreed.
Under Douglas' coercion and inducement, Lianmei agreed to shoot "Road to Glory", and everyone went to Munich, Germany to shoot the film. But when Douglas arrived, he found that the script was completely different from the version he had seen before (changed by Kubrick and Thompson): the character dialogue became violent, the ending was happy, the death penalty of the three soldiers was changed to 30 days in prison, Colonel Dax and The villain Colonel Russo shook hands and made peace. Kubrick explained that he was there for the market, for the money. Douglas was furious, and Kubrick decided to follow the original.
start shooting
1. Richard Anderson recalled that Kubrick read a lot of Immanuel Kant's books at home, and he liked to smoke while reading. He rushed to Germany to direct the dialogue and play the key role of Colonel Ben Auburn. In this film, Kubrick talked to almost all the actors individually, but Anderson was an exception, Kubrick trusted this veteran actor very much.
2. Kubrick put his love of chess into the scene design of this film. Looking down at the courtroom, you will find that the floor is a large chessboard. When chess is shot above, the three figures standing there are like three pawns in chess.
3. Kubrick admired the smooth movement of the camera in films such as "The Earring of the Countess" by Max Orpheus, and he inherited this technique, adding his own interpretation, full of the tragedy of fate. When General Brular lured General Miró to attack Mount Ante, he had even planned a route for the camera to move.
4 When shooting the war scene, Harris Kubrick hired nearly 800 German police officers to play French soldiers, because in the early 1950s, German police officers had undergone three years of strict militarized training. Kubrick was very satisfied with the performance of his German colleagues on the set. He chose German photographer Georg Krauss as the cameraman. Four years ago, he played the role in Elijah Kazan's "Man on a Rope". photography.
5. The filming location was in the famous Bavarian studio, but Kubrick needed a huge open space to make the empty no-man's land in the film, and it took two weeks to find a farm. Art directors Ludwig Reber and Kubrick had extremely high requirements on the historical authenticity of the film, so Walden Fels, a famous European expert on World War I, served as the film's technical consultant.
6. Stuntman Erwin Lange went to great lengths to get the special effects Kubrick wanted, using a ton of dynamite in the first week of filming.
7. Kubrick used bright tones and wide-angle shots of the interior of the castle where the officers were located, in stark contrast to the dull, gray shots of soldiers on the battlefield.
8. Adolfo Mengio, who played General Miró, started his career in 1914 and was 68 years old when the film was filmed, the age of retirement. In 1923 he starred in Chaplin's "A Woman in Paris". Later, in front of the media, he commented on Kubrick:
It was the great director Charles Chaplin who started my acting career, and Stanley is the most Chaplin-like person I've ever met - they all think that actors are always right and they are always wrong.
9. Christina Susannah, the woman who sings at the end of the film, would later become Kubrick's third wife and life partner.
10. The scene where the three soldiers eat their last meal, the actor Timothy Carey acted in a strange way, always doing some gestures and expressions that were not in the script, Kubrick could only order a retake over and over again, the three There were 68 shots of individuals eating ducks.
11. The shot of three soldiers discussing their fate in prison was shot in the morning, and it was not finished until the end of the day. Overtime is not allowed in Germany. Harris reminded Kubrick that it was time for get off work. Kubrick almost never got angry, but at this time he made an exception. shooting of the scene.
12 The number of soldiers singing in the tavern needs to be enough, so Kubrick chose those soldiers who died in the patrol mission to join the show. Through makeup, these captured soldiers appeared in the tavern and sang with other soldiers. The previous image has been very different.
- Excerpted from "A Space Odyssey: The Biography of Kubrick"
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