Maryland Film Festival Blog

Book Signing w/ David Simon to Follow Screening of Rare 35mm Print of Kubrick’s Classic

Saturday, September 25, 7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 Mount Royal Avenue

TICKETS: $10
Call 410.752.8083 to order in advance.

Maryland Film Festival is thrilled to announce that on Saturday, September 25, David Simon (creator of HBO’s  acclaimed series “The Wire,” and “Treme”) will host a screening of one of his favorite films, Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 classic film Paths of Glory. This unforgettable anti-war film was adapted from Humphrey Cobb’s 1935 novel Paths of Glory, just reissued by Penguin Classics with a brand-new introduction by Simon; Simon will also sign copies of the book after the film screening.

Loosely based on a true story, Cobb’s chilling story of injustice follows French soldiers during World War I. Forced to attack an impenetrable German position, the casualties are high, and in the aftermath several French troops are put on trial for cowardice, scapegoated by the officers and institutions that sent them into combat. Kubrick’s riveting film adaptation (co-written with legendary hardboiled author Jim Thompson) stars Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, and cult favorite Timothy Carey.

Paths of Glory – both the film and the novel – were major influences on David Simon in creating and writing “The Wire.” As he told The Baltimore Sun’s Michael Sragow, “When I was writing an institutional dynamic, I was thinking of the guys in Cobb’s book.” Further, Simon has called Kubrick’s adaptation “the most important political film of the 20th century… a favorite film [even] before I knew the book.”

Maryland Film Festival will screen PATHS OF GLORY at MICA’s Brown Center (1301 W. Mount Royal Ave.) at 7pm Saturday, September 25th, with David Simon introducing the film and answering questions from the audience after the screening. Additionally, copies of the new Penguin Classics edition of Humphrey Cobb’s novel (with Simon’s new introduction) will be on sale, alongside Simon’s own works, with Simon available to sign your copies. Tickets will be $10 and can be purchased by calling 410.752.8083.

For more information, read Michael Sragow’s piece on Simon and Paths of Glory (the novel and the film).