ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT - WINNER in 1931

All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal - 130min)
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Starring Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, and John Wray
Genre: War, Drama, History

This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

Trivia: During the film's German release, the Nazis (not yet in power) interrupted screenings by shouting martial slogans and releasing rats into the theaters.

Also won: Best Director (Lewis Milestone)

SEE OUR TAKES BELOW!

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): Shira's Take

Wow. Okay. First thing that I think must be said is that this movie is clearly not only still relevant, but also still haunting. A good example: a shot in the first big front-line battle scene has an enemy fighter (Frenchman? Englishman?) grasping the fence, about to get into the German trenches, when a bomb goes off, and all that remains when the smoke clears is his hands, still grasping the fence. This movie is about half made up of incredible, powerful, gut-wrenching scenes. Still, I found the scenes in between long and at times boring. I also had trouble following characters, which didn't seem so important in the end when they all ended up either dead or back home with amputated legs. One very noteworthy detail about this movie is that the protagonists are the Germans. The German efforts seemed so much more fruitless because I knew all the while that they would lose, and many of those not killed in the war would end up starving to death in impoverished post-war Germany. Eitan pointed out that all the actors were very American and their dialogues were written very American as well. This was brilliant; the only times I remembered that the boys I was rooting for were German was when I saw their Pickelhaubes. For a movie in which I didn't know most of the characters' names, All Quiet on the Western Front had some of the most incredible ensemble character development I've seen. Notes to myself: Maybe I saw this movie when I was significantly younger, and it is why I have such a strange fear of butterflies. 9/10

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): Eitan's Take

This is undoubtedly one of the best anti-war movies ever made, as well as one of the superlative war stories ever committed to film. I would contend that it is also one of the best films ever made. Tracing the lives of half a dozen German teenage boys from their bloodthirsty school days to their deaths (most of them) and their utter disillusionment in the face of horror, All Quiet on the Western Front is unflinching, brutal, disturbing, somber, and very, very powerful. Certain scenes will come back to me for a long time to come: a patient and mournful interlude where a German soldier spends the night in a muddy pit with a French soldier he has just stabbed and killed, a horrifying shot of two blown-off arms still clutching onto a barbed-wire fence, and main character Paul's weary wanderings through a life back home where he clearly does not fit.

All Quiet on the Western Front is directed with a sort of angry grace. With no attention to formal plot structure, we lose track of the time our protagonists have spent in the war -- then, we are thrown out of the trenches and pummeled with a merciless, shocking battle sequence with ambitious cinematography and an aura of true sadness that you just can't feel outside of the context of watching such a wasteful and worthless war. The movie is not hopeful, but it is thoughtful and perceptive about how to portray the gradual extermination -- both physical and emotional -- of the young men we follow. By the time Paul shows up in his old classroom, with his old warmongering teacher, the bright-eyed students he sees in the classroom look like infants... and then we remember that he was no younger when he wandered into the war. Additionally, it was interesting to note that all the actors portraying German soldiers speak with the aw-shucks affect of 20th century American boys; this was no doubt on purpose, to remind us that the Germans were human too, and no different from the Americans and Brits they fought against.

A beautiful, powerful, sobering -- and absurdly well made -- film with an anti-war message to last through the ages. It isn't perfect, but it's essential watching for anyone who wants to see war cinema at its finest. 9/10

P.S. The mastery and potency of this film makes last year's winner (The Broadway Melody) look like phony kid stuff.