IMDB title: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/
“This story is neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shell, were destroyed by the war”…Thus begins one of the most influential war movies of all time – so influential that, years after its release, it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for World War II. Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s book and directed by Lewis Milestone, “All quiet on the Western Front” won two Academy Awards - for the Best Motion Picture and Best Director - in the year 1930.
“All quiet on the Western Front” relates the story of young German recruits in World War I, as they pass from idealism to disillusionment. A classroom lecture inspires the group of young men led by Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres), to enlist in the army, eager to serve the fatherland. As their teacher says, “To be foremost in battle is a virtue not to be despised”. However, their induction into the “2nd Company” at the front is far from cheerful. Stomachs cringe for every morsel of food, whenever it comes by. The fear of death lingers in the trenches as deadly shells whiz past. One by one, they fall by the wayside – Kropp, Behn, Kemmerick, Mueller, Albert – either into the jaws of death or losing their mind in the absolute madness of “the war to end all wars”. As what he expected to be a “short war” stretches on for four years, the passion of fighting for the country turns to frustration, and finally to despair for Baumer, leading to a fatal conclusion.
The movie digresses from the proverbial “good v bad” theme. There are no stereotype “enemies” out here. Rather, it paints the picture of a war that nobody wanted. Trapped in a crater with the enemy soldier he has killed, Baumer echoes these very sentiments: “You’re just a man like me. We only wanted to live! If we threw away this uniform, we can be like brothers!” For those of us brought up on the steady diet of the technically brilliant present day war movies, “All quiet…” has all the drawbacks of black & white movies of a bygone era – over-dramatization of emotional sequences, the editing that sometimes tends to make the scenes a bit too long, and not to mention the least, the complete absence of a background score (a deliberate ploy by Milestone).
Lew Ayres gives a convincing performance as the young protagonist, Paul Baumer, though at times he goes overboard with the portrayal. This was his stepping stone into an illustrated career that would stretch well into the late nineteen eighties. However, it is Louis Wolheim as the cynical Corporal “Kat” Katczinsky – the 2nd Company’s ‘canteen’ – who holds the movie together. His sardonic wit lights up the whole film. His prophetic statement – “the war won’t be over until they get me” – ironically comes true when he is felled by a shell during the last days of the Great War.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” is a collection of now-famous cinematic moments: The first meeting of the young recruits and the veteran soldiers, Baumer’s anguish as he lies in the crater with the soldier he has killed, his pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates, and that final moment, when the enemy soldier fixes Baumer in the crosshairs of the rifle, as he reaches his hand out for that fatal butterfly…
Far away in the hills of Kohima, in an immaculate cemetery, lie the graves of the Indian Army soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign of World War II. On a monument at the foot of the cemetery, one can find the poem:
“This story is neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shell, were destroyed by the war”…Thus begins one of the most influential war movies of all time – so influential that, years after its release, it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for World War II. Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s book and directed by Lewis Milestone, “All quiet on the Western Front” won two Academy Awards - for the Best Motion Picture and Best Director - in the year 1930.“All quiet on the Western Front” relates the story of young German recruits in World War I, as they pass from idealism to disillusionment. A classroom lecture inspires the group of young men led by Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres), to enlist in the army, eager to serve the fatherland. As their teacher says, “To be foremost in battle is a virtue not to be despised”. However, their induction into the “2nd Company” at the front is far from cheerful. Stomachs cringe for every morsel of food, whenever it comes by. The fear of death lingers in the trenches as deadly shells whiz past. One by one, they fall by the wayside – Kropp, Behn, Kemmerick, Mueller, Albert – either into the jaws of death or losing their mind in the absolute madness of “the war to end all wars”. As what he expected to be a “short war” stretches on for four years, the passion of fighting for the country turns to frustration, and finally to despair for Baumer, leading to a fatal conclusion.
The movie digresses from the proverbial “good v bad” theme. There are no stereotype “enemies” out here. Rather, it paints the picture of a war that nobody wanted. Trapped in a crater with the enemy soldier he has killed, Baumer echoes these very sentiments: “You’re just a man like me. We only wanted to live! If we threw away this uniform, we can be like brothers!” For those of us brought up on the steady diet of the technically brilliant present day war movies, “All quiet…” has all the drawbacks of black & white movies of a bygone era – over-dramatization of emotional sequences, the editing that sometimes tends to make the scenes a bit too long, and not to mention the least, the complete absence of a background score (a deliberate ploy by Milestone).
Lew Ayres gives a convincing performance as the young protagonist, Paul Baumer, though at times he goes overboard with the portrayal. This was his stepping stone into an illustrated career that would stretch well into the late nineteen eighties. However, it is Louis Wolheim as the cynical Corporal “Kat” Katczinsky – the 2nd Company’s ‘canteen’ – who holds the movie together. His sardonic wit lights up the whole film. His prophetic statement – “the war won’t be over until they get me” – ironically comes true when he is felled by a shell during the last days of the Great War.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” is a collection of now-famous cinematic moments: The first meeting of the young recruits and the veteran soldiers, Baumer’s anguish as he lies in the crater with the soldier he has killed, his pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates, and that final moment, when the enemy soldier fixes Baumer in the crosshairs of the rifle, as he reaches his hand out for that fatal butterfly…
Far away in the hills of Kohima, in an immaculate cemetery, lie the graves of the Indian Army soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign of World War II. On a monument at the foot of the cemetery, one can find the poem:
When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today
This is a story of a lost generation – of young men, who gave their today for no tomorrow. There is rarely any glory in war…only the stark reality of death! As Paul Baumer says, “We live in the trenches out there. We fight. We try not to be killed. Sometimes we are…that’s all!”
-The Klansman
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