War is a concept that Stanley Kubrick is fascinated and repulsed by. Through Kubrick's movies, one can tell he believes that war is an expansive effort that ends up benefiting nobody and usually destroying everything. Two of his most famous works as a filmmaker,
Dr. Strangelove and
Full Metal Jacket, differ heavily in tone but share a common thread of exploring this perspective by going to the ground-level of combat and examining how it impacts people on a profound level. His fascination with this topic is apparent in even one of his earliest works as a filmmaker,
Paths of Glory. This 1957 feature was Kubrick's fourth directorial effort and it kicked off Kubrick's examination and condemnation of the concept of war with utterly fascinating results.
