'Call to Arms' - Rodin
Designed in 1879 for a competition to commemorate the French dead in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, but not chosen , it was finally erected in 1916 as a memorial to the fallen of Verdun. The idea to post it came to me after just watching Stanly Kubrick's breakthrough film 'Paths of Glory'; "the film is magnificent," say one very good review, paraphrasing a WWI French general, "but it certainly is not war."
Kubrick might have ... produced something of great value--a film of the stature of Breaker Morant or To Kill A Mockingbird.But he didn't. Instead, he spent all his time sending his message, and a fine opportunity was largely wasted. What might have been a tour de force of the human heart became, instead, a rather pointless, contrived tale of petty ambition.LINKS: What price propaganda? - Robert Barr Smith
The French army deserved much better than it got. So did the actors. So did the public.
Breaker Morant - review by PC