Plot Synopsis (continued)
The
decision of the tribunal is as expected - the men are declared guilty,
and sentenced to be shot at dawn (7 o'clock). In their dark prison
cell, the three convicted prisoners talk about their fate, as they
are served their last meal on an immense tray. The repast is a duck
dinner "compliments of General Mireau"
but without utensils - they have been forbidden knives and forks. They
are unable to eat their last dinner anyway. Ferol thinks of escape.
Arnaud puts his faith in Colonel Dax, possibly for a last-minute reprieve.
Paris wonders if they have friends among the guards.
Corporal Paris spots a cockroach:
See that cockroach? Tomorrow morning we'll be dead
and it'll be alive. It will have more contact with my wife and
child than I will. I'll be nothing, and it'll be alive.
Ferol crushes the cockroach and adds:
Now you've got the edge on him.
A door slams and a priest (Emile Meyer) enters and
helps the men prepare themselves for their death sentence, comforting
them: "Have faith in your Creator - Death comes to us all." Uncontrollably,
Ferol weeps and whines in the face of death, and Paris gives the
priest a letter for his wife, and begins to give his confession.
However, Arnaud - an athiest, who has been drinking, criticizes the
sanctimonious priest: "That's really deep! Death comes to us
all." Holding up his whiskey bottle, he combatively declares: "This
is my religion," and struggles with the priest and the others.
To subdue him after he has attacked the priest, Paris
punches Arnaud, striking his head on the wall and sending him to
the stone floor unconscious with a fractured skull. The doctor examines
Arnaud, explaining that with his serious injury, he may not live
through the night or may be unconscious the next day. He suggests
that he should be pinched awake during the execution - "the
general wants him to be conscious."
Dax summons Lieutenant Roget to his quarters and orders
the reluctant officer the assignment of supervising the firing squad
- a job which requires putting a bullet in each prisoner's head afterwards: "...You've
got the job. It's all yours." Only hours before the scheduled
execution, Dax is awakened and given information by Captain Rousseau,
the artillery officer during the attack who was ordered by Mireau
to fire on the retreating French. The additional material may have
some bearing on the court-martial.
The film cuts to the chateau and the ballroom where
the court-martial case was held. A dress officers' ball is in progress
that evening with light chamber music playing. Dax asks to see General
Broulard to report the new information he has just learned. The general
leaves the ball to meet with Dax in the book-lined library. Broulard
concedes that the records of casualties show that Dax's men did prove
themselves. Dax asks how the men can be executed if that is true.
Broulard replies that the execution will still proceed, with beneficial
results:
Maybe the attack against the Ant Hill was impossible.
Perhaps it was an error of judgment on our part. On the other hand,
if your men had been a little more daring, you might have taken
it. Who knows? Why should we have to bear more criticism and failure
than we have to?...These executions will be a perfect tonic for
the entire division. There are few things more fundamentally encouraging
and stimulating than seeing someone else die...You see,
Colonel, troops are like children. Just as a child wants his father
to be firm, troops crave discipline. And one way to maintain discipline
is to shoot a man now and then.
Dax will not let the comments drop - he is shocked
at what he has heard. Opening the door, General Broulard attempts
to return to the party. Dax mentions that he has irrefutable proof
- in the form of sworn statements by the men who witnessed General
Mireau ordering his own battery commander to shell his own position
during the attack. The door slams shut upon his hearing of the faux
pas. General Broulard remains inside and asks: "What has all
this got to do with the charge against the condemned prisoners?" Dax
implies that the execution would not proceed if all the pressure
groups knew Mireau's actions to fire on his own men:
What would your, er, newspapers and your politicians
do with that?...you are in a difficult position. Too much has happened.
Someone's got to be hurt. The only question is who. General Mireau's
assault on the Ant Hill failed. His order to fire on his own troops
was refused. But his attempt to murder three innocent men to protect
his own reputation will be prevented by the General's staff.
Broulard accuses Dax of blackmail, but then excuses
himself, explaining how he has been rude to his guests too long.
Unresponsive, Broulard does not indicate what he will do - will he
pardon the men and mercifully stay their execution in time?
In the next scene, the morning of the execution is
signaled by the crowing of a rooster. Regimented ranks of guard soldiers
approach and enter the prisoners' room. Arnaud is strapped unconscious
on a stretcher, Ferol continues to pray and kneel with a priest,
and Paris is soberly silent and looks stoically resigned to his fate.
As they are preparing to be escorted to their place of execution,
Paris is offered a final drink. He remarks: "I haven't had one
sexual thought since the court-martial. It's pretty extraordinary,
isn't it?" And then he bursts into tears, breaking down and
pleading for his life. He is encouraged by the rigid sergeant to
pull himself together and not reveal his cowardice:
There will be a lot of dignitaries, newspapermen
out there. You've got a wife and family. How do you want to be
remembered?...Many of us will be joining you before this war is
over.
Paris simply replies: "I don't want to die."
Troops are assembled before the chateau, with officers
in full dress uniforms. In the tense, 7-minute firing squad scene,
drums monotonously sound in the background as the prisoners are marched
between lines of soldiers to the open area near the chateau, where
three stakes are set up. The upright execution stakes grow larger
and larger as the men and the camera approach. (Arnaud is carried
unconscious and tied on a stretcher.) Inconsolable, Ferol whines,
sobs, moans, clutches his rosary, and hangs on to the priest, asking: "What
do I have to die for, Father?...I'm scared, I'm scared." The
men are tied to the stakes, and Lieutenant Roget offers them blindfolds.
Caskets wait in an open cart to the side. The words of the indictment
and official execution are nervously read by Major Saint-Auban. Generals
Broulard and Mireau stand nearby, as do other dignitaries to witness
the final judgment. The firing squad raises its weapons (the ominous
drum roll stops), readies, aims (with the commands: "Ready,
Aim") - birds twitter - and then fires at the command to "Fire" -
filmed subjectively from behind the firing squad. The victims momentarily
twitch and then collapse dead.
The film makes a quick cut to a high-angle view of
the High Command breakfast table of Mireau and Broulard, where they
eat croissants and exult in the dignified sacrifice - and ironically
discuss 'bad taste'!:
Mireau: I'm awfully glad you could be there, George.
This sort of thing is always rather grim but this one had a kind
of splendor to it, don't you think?
Broulard: I have never seen an affair of this sort handled any better.
Mireau: The men died wonderfully! There's always that chance
that one of them will do something that will leave everyone with
a bad taste. This time, you couldn't ask for better.
Dax joins their company, and is congratulated by the
manner in which his men died. Then suddenly, Broulard - the dissimulating
instigator of the entire travesty - remarks offhandedly to Mireau
that he knows of his order to fire on his own men during the Ant
Hill attack. He indicates that it was Dax who informed him. He knows
that he is setting up Mireau to be the disgraced scapegoat for the
entire affair - the fourth execution. Broulard informs him
cheerfully and smoothly that he must submit to an inquiry for his
incompetence:
"There'll have to be an inquiry."
After being exposed, Mireau is enraged at him before
striding out: "You're making me the goat. The only completely
innocent man in this whole affair. I have only one last thing to
say to you, George. The man you stabbed in the back is a soldier." Defeated
and lacking honor, Mireau exits from their presence.
Turning to Dax, Broulard smiles, shrugs and sighs: "Well,
it had to be done. France cannot afford to have fools guiding her
military destiny." He then smiles and offers Dax, with congratulations,
General Mireau's vacated command. After all, he has cynically assumed
that Dax had selfishly wanted the promotion from the start:
Come, come, Colonel Dax. Don't overdo the surprise.
You've been after the job from the start. We all know that, my
boy.
But Broulard has mistaken Dax's integrity. Infuriated
and in contempt, Dax replies that he has seen through the politicking
and is not interested in furthering his own fortunes: "I may
be many things, sir. But I am not your boy." The corrupt general
is hurt: "It would be a pity to lose your promotion before you
get it - a promotion you have so very carefully planned for." Dax
refuses the promotion, telling him what he can do with it. This forces
Broulard to command Dax to apologize: "Colonel Dax, you will
apologize at once or you shall be placed under arrest!" Dax
then apologizes, but berates him for his moral degeneracy:
I apologize for not being entirely honest with you.
I apologize for not revealing my true feelings. I apologize, sir,
for not telling you sooner that you're a degenerate, sadistic old
man. AND YOU CAN GO TO HELL BEFORE I APOLOGIZE TO YOU NOW OR EVER
AGAIN.
The general realizes he has misjudged and misinterpreted
Dax, who has shown real humanity for his soldiers. Broulard cooly
explains his reasoning for the soldiers' execution and for Mireau's
inquiry:
Colonel Dax, you're a disappointment to me. You've
spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality.
You really did want to save those men, and you were not angling
for Mireau's command. You are an idealist - and I pity you as I
would the village idiot. We're fighting a war, Dax, a war that
we've got to win. Those men didn't fight, so they were shot. You
bring charges against General Mireau, so I insist that he answer
them.
And then he innocently appeals: "Wherein have
I done wrong?" Dax gasps and replies bluntly and quietly: "Because
you don't know the answer to that question, I pity you." Dax
walks back to his post alone.
In the final memorable sequence of the film, Dax wanders
in the streets of the town towards his quarters. He hears lecherous,
cat-call whistling and shouting in a nearby tavern, where men from
his troops are getting drunk for
"a little diversion" (according to the master of ceremonies
tavern keeper) following the execution. He stands outside in
the doorway, witnessing the coaxing of a frightened, fragile, teary-eyed
and innocent German blonde girl (Susanne Christian in the credits,
actually Christiane Harlan, director Kubrick's future third and last
wife). She may be a prisoner, or a refugee who is forced to sing a
song in front of rowdy soldiers who are cat-calling, hooting, and laughing
at her.
The girl is introduced by the tavern keeper as "our
latest acquisition from the enemy...from Germany, the land of the
Hun!" She is "a little pearl washed ashore by the tide
of war" who has "a little natural talent" (he gestures
over her physical curves) and "she can sing like a bird - she
has a throat of gold." Dax recognizes companions of the executed
men and is disappointed by their apparent lustful callousness shortly
following the death of their own comrades. In front of the raucous
troops, the timid and fragile young girl - with tears on her cheeks
- begins to sing a ballad - in German. [It is a universally-known
folk song of love in war, called "The Faithful Soldier"
- (La Treue Hussar (Fr.) or Der treue Hussar (Ger.)).]
It is a simple, sweet song that is inaudible until the audience quiets
down and listens intently and respectfully to her plaintive voice.
Soon, hers is the only voice in the tavern:
(loosely translated, in part)
A faithful soldier, without fear,
He loved his girl for one whole year,
For one whole year and longer yet,
His love for her, he'd ne'er forget.
This youth to foreign land did roam,
While his true love, fell ill at home.
Sick unto death, she no one heard.
Three days and nights she spoke no word.
And when the youth received the news,
That his dear love, her life may lose,
He left his place and all he had,
To see his love, went this young lad...
He took her in his arms to hold,
She was not warm, forever cold.
Oh quick, oh quick, bring light to me,
Else my love dies, no one will see...
Pallbearers we need two times three,
Six farmhands they are so heavy.
It must be six of soldiers brave,
To carry my love to her grave.
A long black coat, I must now wear.
A sorrow great, is what I bear.
A sorrow great and so much more,
My grief it will end nevermore.
The soldiers - for once affected and showing some regard
for human life - join her and hum along with their faces drawn to
her. The human feelings in the song transcend the language barriers
- some of the French soldiers may know the tune of their enemy's
song, and some may even know the words. One of the youngest recruits
in the audience has tears flowing down his cheeks. The song evokes
memories of their youth, their homes, and their loves in a world
they may never see again. There is still a hint of their common humanity
and sensitivity in the men despite the misery and depravity of war.
Suddenly, Dax, who has been watching and listening
impassively, receives a message from another officer with orders
to return his unit immediately to the front's trenches - little has
changed in the war. Still in charge, Broulard has transferred Dax
and his men back to the front. To give his men the "short" rest
they were promised but never fully received following the assault
on Ant Hill, Dax replies, with the film's last line:
Well, give the men a few minutes more, Sergeant.
The sound of drums and military music playing the "Soldier
Boy" song rise in volume and drown out the sound of the folk
song, as Dax returns to his quarters down the street. |