All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

The screenplay was written by Edward Berger with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell. It is the first German film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel about World War I, which was published in 1928, three years after it was written in German. The initial screen version of the book was the 1930 American film directed by Lewis Milestone, an early sound masterpiece that won Oscars for best picture and director (Milestone), among others; it also lost a best adapted writing nomination (George Abbott).

This movie came out at a time when movies could still be considered potential deterrents to future wars, even if this notion did not last very long. (Remarque called “All Quiet” more an effort to tell the truth than promote peace.) A second adaptation followed in 1979 directed by Delbert Mann and starring Richard Thomas, who had played John Boy on TV’s “The Waltons”; it was reviewed by Andrew Sarris as “dreary.”

This third rendering and that word is chosen carefully may have no more impact than its predecessor or even its precursor on most people, but Germany put up what it had to offer for consideration by the academy.

At two-and-a-half hours, this version runs as long as its Hollywood predecessor while adding in quite a bit more incident. It skips over some early portions of the novel and first movie in which young German students are inspired/judged/badgered into signing up for battle so they can save the fatherland under an ardent super-patriot professor. Instead we join our heroes at their final destination: Paul Baumer (Felix Kammerer) has been given a uniform several sizes too big because it belonged to someone who died.

The story of young Bäumer as he tries to survive and grapples with his first kill while still searching for fellowship in an impossible situation is the spine of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and it plods along accordingly, never much deviating from its path. Berger also adds material. There’s a parallel narrative in which the real life German vice chancellor Matthias Erzberger attempts to negotiate peace with the French and others; this does not exist anywhere else but in Berger’s movie.

So why include it? I can think of a few reasons offhand: first, perhaps to show that during World War I there really were some “good Germans,” which as far as I can tell doesn’t matter one way or another here since we’re presumably meant at least somewhat to identify with Paul, who is after all a German soldier; second, some of the French delegates’ refusal to compromise will recall for many viewers/readers the Armistice agreement’s imposition of years long humiliation on Germany, eventually leading to Hitler; third and this is pure speculation maybe Erzberger’s storyline is meant to create suspense: will the Armistice take effect before something terrible happens to characters we’ve grown attached to? (Assuming one has grown attached, which was not my experience.)

But that’s not all. Late in this film there’s a scene when Paul and his older army buddy Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) go steal a goose (to eat) from a French farm and run into conflict with a dead-eyed French boy. I won’t say what happens next. What I will say is that besides committing the sin of putting the same Bach choral prelude in its soundtrack that Tarkovsky used for “Solaris,” it seems very invested in making French farm boys look bad, so much so that you can’t help but wonder: what exactly were Germans doing in France, again?

I have to admit, it all struck me as more funny than anything else. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

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