All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Hailed as one of the best pictures of all time as well as the very best anti-war picture in history All Quiet on the Western Front sets a standard that all war films that would follow. The film adaptation of German author Arich Maria Remarque's anti war novel would unravel on the screen on an epically emotional scale that would place at as one of the premiere pictures of its time garnering the acclaims from people throughout the world and throughout time.

The story follows a band of schoolmates who have been preached to that they should sacrifice their lives to save the fatherland of German during the Great War, enlisting as soldiers, going through boot-camp, being thrusted into the riggers of war as green-footed soldiers, and through a matter of a few short years watch as each other are dissolved by the wounds of war, including psychological breakdowns, psychical ailments, and even the loss to death, learning that what they are fighting for is not the same things the people back home think they are fighting for. Not as a noble, glorified sacrifice for their homeland, but rather sent as lambs to the slaughter. The film questions the ideas of how war is perceived by the soldiers as compared to the public who don't have to see the gruesome front lines. We watch in this war epic boys grow up, mainly that of the main character Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres), in a short time become a weathered soldiers jaded by the world. We watch as survival become the only thing important in life and how that which they held so dear in life before loses its significance, including pride, family, and love. In the end we are left with tragedy of reaching for the innocence of what Paul once had only to fall to the cold, hard facts of what war does to a young man, ending in the ultimate sacrifice.

Directed by Russian born filmmaker Lewis Milestone, we are presented with some of the most powerful and real images in film from the first half of the twentieth century. His overall construction of the picture is awe-inspiring and truly epic putting the audience in the middle of the action in a World War I German company marching through Europe. Milestone would win his second Academy Award for best directing, and is well deserving of the prize. The editing is masterful as well, but there sadly was no award for that at that time. Along with the skillful cinematography of Arthur Edeson who would move the camera with unparalleled swooping shots you are drwan into the massive scale of the picture in attempt to not just put you in the middle of a battle but the middle of an entire war, enticing you to become as emotionally involved with the happenings as the characters themselves. This skill with the camerawork would garner an Oscar nomination for Edeson.

The anti-war sentiments of the film are subtle at first but glaring by the time the film concludes with the sad end of Paul. Beginning with glorified armies marching through a celebratory crowd of on lookers to the gruesome end, the film teaches how different war is in the minds of those that fight opposed to those that don't. The anti-war ideas is summed up very nicely in a scene in the middle of the picture where the soldiers are gathered around chatting as they rest with a hot meal. The soldier named Katczinsky ("Kat" for short) played wonderfully by character actor Louis Wolheim, the most weathered and tough minded soldier in the group, tells his fellow soldiers that a war should be fought by the kings and their cabinets in a roped off field where they fight in their underwear with clubs while the people watch. The scene conveys how they, the soldiers, have no quarrels with the men they fight with, but they do purely because politicians disagree, so now these men must kill each other to prove which group of politicians are more correct.

The feeling of the movie can be felt equally by anyone who watches the picture. In fact you forget that while watching the film that the characters are German soldiers. Despite the fact that the actors speak in American English with no accents at all we see the war from a German perspective, but the prospective of the war is pointless as it is not about the side the men fight on, but the reason that they fight and how they disagree on that reason. If it were not for the uniforms, and the fact they were called Germans, you could forget they were on the "other side" of WWI. The men could have easily been portrayed as Americans, English, or French for the moral would have been the same. The movie preaches that war is hell and their is no glory in fighting a war for something you don't believe in. These men's lives were ruined for fallowing an idea that was not theirs. They would lose everything for nothing. The film is powerful and chilling up to the moment it closes on the shot of a cemetery with the ghostly images of marching soldiers that have died as they look back as if they wish they could take back what they got themselves into. The film has been quoted as a film that should be shown in all countries in all languages every year until the word "war" is removed from the dictionary. That is the the kind of film you get with this picture.

The motion picture itself would reach great heights in history. It would win the Oscar for best picture at the 3rd Academy Awards in 1930 and receive a nomination for best writing. All time honors would be bestowed upon it as well with the picture being preserved in the National Film Registry in 1990 and be named the 54th best picture of all time in AFI's top 100 list in 1997, as well as the 7th best epic picture. The test of time has stood well for this picture as it is seen as an obivious influence for the genre of war films inspiring enven the likes of Steven Spielberg with his own war epic Saving Private Ryan. That is an amazing thought considering the film was made a little over a decade after WWI and a decade before WWII. The war genre is best known for WWII dramas, but this WWI film is what started it all. The Great War was still very fresh in the minds of all that watched this picture and would be difficult for many to watch as the wounds were not yet healed from such a world event. The picture would be banned in several counties in upcoming years as time marched towards a second climax of war. This was mainly true in Europe as Hitler came to power and he disliked the anti-German and anti-war massages of the film.

As a film that shook the world All Quiet on the Western Front can be felt still to this day as the world in conflict on issues many people do not agree upon. As a motion picture it stands against the tests of time as a piece of preserved history and a look into the world of WWI Europe and the feelings that followed. A true classic of classics, a picture that should not be missed and a film well ahead of its time. This is the picture that all war films would be tested against as we move in to the future of filmmaking.