{"id":2115,"date":"2018-11-01T09:23:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T13:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/?p=2115"},"modified":"2018-11-01T09:23:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T13:23:02","slug":"all-quiet-on-the-western-front-truth-authenticity-and-universality-in-wwi-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2018\/11\/01\/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-truth-authenticity-and-universality-in-wwi-films\/","title":{"rendered":"All Quiet on the Western Front: Truth, Authenticity, and Universality in WWI Films"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWelcome to the first post of our new blog series\u00a0WWI on Film: 11 Films for the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice<\/em>. From now until November 11th, we’ll be highlighting movies about WWI from our collection. We’ll be discussing common themes throughout the movies, attributes that make each of these films stand out, as well as our own personal thoughts and feelings and we watch the films. Our first selection is\u00a0All Quiet on the Western Front\u00a0<\/em>(DVD 853)<\/p>\n

\n

When Carl Laemmle, the head of Hollywood\u2019s Universal Studios, traveled to Germany to buy the rights to Eric Maria Remarque\u2019s best-selling All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em>, he can\u2019t have been sure of success. In 1929, Remarque\u2019s candid, unflinching novel about the horrors of the First World War had become an overnight sensation, not only in his native Germany but the world over. Remarque, a veteran himself, was highly skeptical that his book could be faithfully adapted for the silver screen, and had no interest in added romance or valor. Somehow, though, Laemmle convinced Remarque to sell him the film rights, though not without an unusual stipulation in the contract. Remarque insisted that Universal adapt the book without and \u201csignificant alterations or additions.\u201d[i]<\/a> The film was not to be a glamorous war movie. There would be no embellishment. Universal was not to stray far Remarque\u2019s own truth about the war.<\/p>\n

Remarque\u2019s truth ended up being more universal than Laemmle could have imagined.\"\"<\/p>\n

The film follows Paul Baumer, a young German man. At the outbreak of the war, he eagerly enlists, egged on by his nationalist schoolmaster, Kantorek. In the very first scene of the film, Kantorek uses all methods of persuasion to convince his pupils to enlist. He begins with passive-aggressive suggestion (\u201cis a little experience such a bad thing for a boy?\u201d), but ends with nationalistic fervor: \u201cit is sweet and fitting to die for your country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony of the situation\u2014that the older Kantorek will never be called on to die for his country\u2014doesn\u2019t occur to Paul until it is too late. The Army doesn\u2019t view Paul and his classmates as Gold Youth, but rather as insignificant foot soldiers. Their drill sergeant is sadistic, and their training does little to prepare them for the horrors of trench warfare. Once they get to the front, there\u2019s never enough to eat, and even the army cooks are more concerned with numbers and regulations than the actual well-being of the troops.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s most pressing daily conflict isn\u2019t the Triple Alliance versus the Triple Entente. Rather, it is the enlisted soldiers\u2014Paul and his comrades\u2014against the army. His daily battles for food, for relief, or even for compassionate treatment at the hospital, all seem hopeless. This sense of disillusionment begins early in the movie, when Paul and his comrades fail to find a reason for why <\/em>they\u2019re fighting in the first place. The causes of the war are a mystery to them, and they can\u2019t grasp why they\u2019re fighting if \u201cwe didn\u2019t want it, the English didn\u2019t want it.\u201d<\/p>\n

By focusing on the day-to-day experiences of a common soldier, and ignoring the political machinations, Universal Studios created a film that appealed to almost everyone touched by the war. When the movie was released in 1930, frustration with army bureaucracy, the horrors of trench warfare, a loss of innocence, and a lack of a moral or clear motivation to fight, united men more than nationality divided them. Paul and his friends could have been American, French, or British instead of German.\u00a0All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em> was a film that, ultimately, advocated peace by showing the pointlessness of war.<\/p>\n

——-<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Jerold Simmons, \u201cFilm and International Politics: The Banning of All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany and Austria, 1930-1931,\u201d The Historian<\/em> 52, no. 1 (November 1989): 41-42, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24447602.<\/p>\n

 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first post of our new blog series\u00a0WWI on Film: 11 Films for the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice. From now until November 11th, we’ll be highlighting movies about WWI from our collection. We’ll be discussing common themes throughout the movies, attributes that make each of these films stand out, as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wwi-on-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}