All Quiet On The Western Front (titled In The West Nothing New in German) is a novel written by German author Erich Maria Remarque, a veteran of World War I. First published in a German newspaper in late 1928, the story was published as a book in January 1929. The book details the mental and physical tolls World War I (called The Great War before World War II) took on a small group of German soldiers. The book was a hit and was swiftly adapted into a 1930 American film that not only won the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture, but remains one of the most enduring and powerful war films ever made. With a German adaptation of the film set to be released in October 2022 (the film is Germany’s submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film), now seems like a good time to take a look back at the 1930 version and see why it remains so powerful almost a century later.
The Story
Distributed by Universal Studios
The story of All Quiet On The Western Front follows a young German named Paul Bäumer, whose entire class signs up for service in the Imperial German Army shortly after World War I breaks out. They are encouraged to enlist after listening to the speeches of their teacher, Kantorek, a strong supporter of the war, though he does not enlist himself. However, it soon becomes clear to Paul and his classmates that the romantic portrayal of warfare that Kantorek espoused couldn’t be further from the truth. The officer assigned to train them, who Paul knows as his postman, is a harsh taskmaster, delighting in punishing Paul and his friends.
When Paul and his friends finally arrive at the front, they find hell on Earth. Soldiers haven’t eaten for days. Offensives only gain as much land as the average soccer field, only to be taken back shortly after. The battles Paul and his friends take place in aren’t named, but all Paul and his friends can think about is surviving the next day, which not all of them do. The emotional and physical tolls the war takes on Paul start to disconnect him from humanity. Even a visit home shows Paul how disconnected the townspeople are since they behave like there isn’t a war going on at all. In October 1918, one month before the Armistice would be signed, Paul is killed on a surprising peaceful day; a day for which the army report for it contains only a single sentence: “All quiet on the western front.”
The Film
The 1930 film was directed by Lewis Milestone and stars Lew Ayres as Paul, a role which would catapult him to stardom. Thousands of actual World War I veterans would serve as extras or advisors for the film. Sound may have been in its infancy when the film came out, but it is used to devastating effectiveness in the film. The rumblings, whistles of incoming artillery, and gunfire feel so real. You genuinely feel like you’re stuck in the trenches with the soldiers. The battle scenes are filmed with an intensity that can proudly stand alongside Saving Private Ryan’s classic D-Day sequence as one of the most harrowing shots of combat ever filmed. Bombs go off. Men in foxholes aren’t there anymore, with all we see being hands-on barbed wire. A scene of machine gunners firing cuts to a panning shot of numerous men falling to the gunfire. Cut back to the machine gunners, cut back to another panning shot of even more men dying. There’s no blood or guts. This was filmed in 1930, after all, but we don’t need it. Just seeing countless men fall in such huge numbers gets the point across with powerful effectiveness.
The actors themselves are also wonderful. Lew Ayres’ performance is incredible. One of his best scenes comes when Paul is visiting his hometown and Kantorek brings him in front of his class, asking him to talk about how glamorous it is to serve the Fatherland. Instead, Paul tells the class the true horrors of war and gets called a coward for it. Ayres’ face does so much. Although he was in his early twenties, he speaks and even looks a little like a man twice that age, perfectly capturing the draining toll the war has taken on him. The film’s final scene, Paul’s hand reaching out for a butterfly as he’s killed by a sniper, is unforgettable. The final image is even more powerful: a graveyard of fallen soldiers with the film’s characters superimposed over it.
Legacy
DreamWorks Pictures
All Quiet On The Western Front has rightfully earned its position as one of the most powerful war films ever made. Many war films after it have asked “what exactly are we fighting for?” or captured the insanity of warfare; but few have done so as effectively as this one. World War I was a messy conflict, with neither side knowing really what they were truly fighting for. Germany didn’t even have a solid list of war goals at the outbreak of the conflict and wouldn’t have a set list for almost the entire war. Knowing this, it’s absurdly easy to see why the whole “what are we fighting for?” message rang as powerfully as it did. While the message may be timeless, the cinematic techniques used in this film can be seen as influences on later films. Steven Spielberg actually cited All Quiet On The Western Front as a major influence when he was filming Saving Private Ryan.
With a powerful antiwar message, possibly the most powerful of any film ever made; brilliant cinematic techniques that influenced future films, and wide selection of accolades, ranging from Oscar wins to placements on the American Film Institute’s list of best American films, 1930’s All Quiet On The Western Front stands strong as a war film that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.
