All Quiet on the Western Front 1930

The anti-war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque was required reading at school. Despite the fact that I could recall many details, I decided to reread the book and watch the previous adaptations for the first time in preparation for the 2022 film. The 1930 version was released only two years after the book, and even World War I was still relatively recent at the time. The fact that not just some historical material was adapted here but a current event makes the whole thing even more interesting. Due to the year of release, obviously, the later experiences of World War II could not have had any influence on the film.

What is noticeable right from the start is that director Lewis Milestone decided to tell the story chronologically. This is one of the few deviations from the novel that I disliked. You follow the protagonist, Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres), and his classmates, who volunteer for the war and go through basic training. All of this is taking a tad too long for my liking. But once we get to the front, everything moves quickly. It also looks spectacular. This is especially true given the year the film was made. There are certainly only a few more than 90-year-old films that are still so easy to watch today. On the western front, Paul and his comrades finally meet other key characters from the novel, including Stanislaus Katczinski (Louis Wolheim), Bäumer's closest friend in the novel and all adaptations. Wolheim's interpretation of the character is perfect. He plays the role almost exactly as I imagined it while reading.

The actual staging of trench warfare is appropriately claustrophobic. You get a very good sense of how pointless this war was. It was a dulling experience for the soldiers involved. For them, life was really only about the next meal or the next fight at that point. Again and again, comrades die one after another. With increasing pragmatism, the protagonists accept their fate. The longer the war lasted, the clearer it became that a "lost generation" was fighting there, with no idea why. But they were well aware that the "enemy" in the opposing trenches was no different. The tone of the book is perfectly captured. The film also still works with a modern eye—it's one of the most important movies of all time.