The Problem With All Quiet On The Western Front (2022)
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- čas přidán 10. 05. 2023
- All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) feels like it's missing something. That’s not to say that it's a bad anti-war film, but that the zoomed out perspective overlooks a key part of the soldier's experience. Since we spend more time with characters like General Friedrichs and Matthias Erzburger, we lose sight of the dissociation suffered by Paul Bäumer and his comrades as they are transformed from patriotic civilians into traumatised veterans who are disillusioned with the idea of dying for their country. This theme is illustrated much more clearly in the 1930 and 1979 adaptations of Erich Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front. This video explains how the 2022 film misses the point.
//Sources//
Englander, D. (1994). Soldiering and Identity: Reflections on the Great War. War in History, 1(3), 300-318.
Herwig, H.H. (2014). The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Fussell, P. (1975). The Great War and modern memory. New York, Oxford University Press.
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I wanted to love this movie so bad. But the ending absolutely wrecked it for me, personally. The book's ending is so powerful and heart wrenching. We spend the whole book with Paul as he slowly disassociates from his youth. We watch him kill. We watch him lose his best friends. We feel his soul leaving his traumatized youthful body. He soldiers on, breaking slowly. And "He fell in October of 1918, on a day so quiet and still, that the army action report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the western front..."
He dies a month before the war ends, and his death is meaningless. This boy we grew to know and care about falls, and it simply doesn't matter to the machine that keeps grinding boys like him and his friends without so much as a shrug. When I first read it it broke me. For me, I really found I resented the ending of the new movie. Him ramboing his way through the french soldiers is silly to me. Paul isn't supposed to go out in a heroic last stand. He dies on a quiet day, with no ceremony or fanfare, our only solace as the reader is that "his face wore an expression of calm. As if almost glad the end had finally come."
Sorry for the rant. But this is one of the most powerful books I've read. And I wanted them to capture Remarque's meaning, and it didn't quite do it for me.
I really love your analysis. You make really great observations, and I seriously appreciate your insights!
Couldn't agree more.
I agree. In my opinion, Pauls death should have been somewhat unexpected. Maybe a stray bullet or a bombardment where we thought he was safe. It would have given Pauls death a stronger sense of meaninglessness and that wars are random and based on luck. Instead the movie portrays Pauls death in a heroic final stand which is only supporting Kantoreks point that it is worth dying for one's country. Maybe it would be cool if the movie ended with Pauls gear and equipment being recycled just like in the opening scene. That way Pauls life would merely be depicted as a small cog in a giant war industry.
There's another layer to the title and the notion of "All quiet on the western front". The original German phrase is "Im Westen nichts neues", which literally translates to "Nothing new in the West". In German, this itself carries the additional connotation that nothing has really changed - not merely that the Western front is literally quiet all the time. If I recall my high school German teacher correctly, this was meant as an allusion to the unchanging nature of war. The eternal day-in, day-out of the frontline infantry man.
I honestly disagree.
His death is meaningless, not heroic. What are you talking about.
He mindlessly throws himself into the fight, accepting his fate as part of the war machine. Despite the war being almost over. And then, he gets stabbed from behind. Just like that. Only for the war to end mere seconds later and the soldiers stopping the fighting like someone just declared the end of a rehearsal. And he gets to see that. He faces the absolutely cruel meaninglessness of it all just before his last breath.
To me, he dies like an action hero, killing like an action star, and protecting a terrified young soldier. If you don't think that's hero's death, that's where we're going to disagree. The film resorts to action tropes like "we both have to go for the same gun," a the fake out near death with the drowning, and even the literal "last second death." Those are all pretty standard action tropes that to me, undermine Remarque's message, and represents a major deviation from the book. Even the mission they were sent on, to seize and hold ground minutes before the war ended paints a picture perilously close to a patriotic young man giving his life in the last seconds of the war for his comrades and his country's command.
The book ended like it did for a reason. He dies a month before the war is over, not at the very last second. We are told he likely died almost instantly as "he could not have suffered for long," and that "his face wears an expression of calm, as if almost glad the end had finally come." The film had to give us a visceral action sequence that was a tonal shift away from the book, and honestly even the first part of the movie. @@Casshio
"We could be brothers. But they don't want us to know that" such a sad but true statement 😥
"...but they never want us to know that, do they?" In my opinion the exact quote has an even more compelling stress on the intentional treacherous lying the masses are exposed to in order to lead them to their mutual destruction for the gain of the few at the top. but i can be mistaken, i'm not a native english speaker.
Why would anyone want to be brothers with fascist invaders, again?
There's no mythical illuminati world government making people war to feed a blood god or something.
Every war had an aggressor. Germany in this case. This story is LITERAL German propaganda trying to equate the German invaders with defenders. Because writer didn't like people hating him and his friends for killing millions.
so, this doesn't about our war
Damn Brits, am I right? (Edward VII did all he could to set up WW1)
@@charmyzard are you really blaming ww1 on someone who died before it started and isn't franz ferdinand?
I really preferred the '79 version honestly. Even if it was somewhat corny. From what I remember the battles had no music and it was just the blaring sound of machine-like gunfire and artillery, which is better imo. Even specific scenes like him in the crater with the French soldier and the ending are better in the previous versions. Thank you for this analysis dude!
I actually watched that version from before watching the most recent one. Both are good, but the former is slightly better, even though it was quite 70's from the way it was done 😂
I was shocked they left out the return home in the Netflix version. It's such a defining point of Paul's character
@@YaBoiBaxter2024 I watched it in that order too on accident. Thinking I was watching the new one I watched half of the 70's version on amazon prime. When I returned home to finish it and clicked on the Netflix version I was very confused. One of these days I need to watch the original one from the 30's.
There wasn’t any sound in the battle scenes of the 1930 version either.
@@joebidengaming6329my favorite for sure
The issue is that it wasn’t All Quiet on the Western Front. It was a WWI movie that had some characters with the same names as in All Quiet.
I was beyond pissed when they didn’t show the home leave and just had Kat talk about it. You can’t have All Quiet without that sequence, it is the crux of the whole story.
Also leaving out the boot camp scenes was stupid. That was a major part of the book.
Precisely! It was an interesting examination of industrial warfare and the alienation of troops from the decisions that decide their lives… but it wasn’t “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Each generation has their interpretation of great literary works. Vietnam impacted the last major adaptation and the rise of dispersed conflict and remote warfare may well have impacted this latest version of the story.
@@CaptHiltz
Exactly-that’s when the first illusions are shattered, the first inklings that war is not the camping trip the boys thought it would be. Cutting that out would be like cutting out the home leave sequence…wait
@@BeatlesUS99
I don’t even think this qualifies as an adaptation, it is too divorced from the source material and central themes-or, at least, takes the themes of All Quiet but applies them in the opposite direction.
they left everything out.
For me it just looks like the 2022 film doesn't have the guts to tell the people that the civilians in WW1 were part of the problem, that the war they "fought" was based on pointless and fake rivalries, that the civilians acted more like spectators watching as their friends and family members died and refused to listen to them, the people that enlisted kids for the war, or how they believed that their sacrifice was meaningful, that peace agreements were actions of cowards, that they needed to win the war or else.
I think a lot of media takes the easy way out by saying “Completely evil people in power cause every bad thing” and ignoring the nuances of it all.
@@hansshekelstein9450 And in a WW1 setting the whole lions led by donkeys stuff is just so cliche
I think the 2022 version is quite fitting.. it is in many ways a view on the Great War with documentation of its time but as a reimagination through the lense of our time - there are things that are forgotten and that we no longer comprehend - it does well in showing the industrial scale of the war (to the point that I got goosebumps and sad thinking about how terrifying it must have been in the trenches and what our ancestors/family went through).. but it fails to capture the psychological aspect fully and it falls short in capturing the societal friction between civilian and military life and how German soldiers were unable to reintegrate into the post-war society as a result often joining militias instead.. the 72 version makes very clear that Paul’s ‘home’ is the trench and that he died there before he ever died physically (he can’t draw any reality outside of dead bodies and war).. instead the new film focuses way too much on Versailles and the leadership (as we do in our history classes) rather than the civilian-military dichotomy that led to so much frustration among returning soldiers
Excellent comment!
It doesn't have the guts because it's made by modern gutless people. They, as it seems, changed what would have reminded them of the shortcomings, falsehoods and hypocrisies in their own character today.
It's made by "Putin bad" and "ship weapons and meat" to Ukraine people. People who shun you and call you the modern media equivalent of "unpatriotic" if you are against all of that but also other issues of modern politics. The kind that thought it would be great to have concentration camps for unvaxxed not that long ago.
It's not surprising, they changed it so it wouldn't make a certain kind of people uncomfortable and angry.
I loved the 1979 one. The biggest things missing for me was the scene where Paul went back to Germany expecting a hero’s welcome only to find a ghost town with people indifferent and miserable. Also, the boot camp scenes were great, I loved the part where they pick on their old officer when he finally made it to the front. And his death too. It’s an oddly peaceful death. Sudden, gives the feeling he can finally rest after all the horror and loss. Kind of romanticises death.
I admire your viewpoint, but I don't think the ending romanticises death. Rather, I think it shows how tragic the war (and the damage to their generation) has become if the only peace they could find in their short life is the moment before they die. The movie didn't say "good for him, Paul's dead and he has escaped war", it basically said "he's a husk of his former youthful self, and he will die chasing the last glimpse of beauty he has seen in his years of war." In a word, tragic.
@@RaveDecoy242 I didn’t mean like he wanted to die, but dying may just be Better than continuing to live through all that, with the physical and mental scars. A quick death was better than a drawn out one.
I thought the way they showed Paul’s death highlighted how pointless the war was
If I was dealing with trench warfare in WWI I would feel like death was a relief too 😬 war is hell.
The 1979 ending didnt romanticize the death i dont think atleast in comparison to the new one. He finds himself drawing like he used to, and because of his expression of individuality that the machine had worked to strip him of he's shot straight through the head, his drawing gets crumpled and muddy, and he drops headfirst into the mud. His death didnt have a meaning, it wasn't all that peaceful, and the war still goes on.
What I missed in all movies, but what was an obvious conclusion in the book, was the moment when they entered an abandoned British trench, and found an abundance of canned food that the British had left behind. Much of it had 'made in the USA' written on it.
In the book, it was clear to Paul and all his comrades that Germany had lost the war.
If the Allies would simply abandon such treasures, they realised they had no chance of winning.
The fact that Germany had lost WW1 and that everyone fighting it knew it, was very much made clear in the book.
That was the main reason the Nazis banned the book. It told the truth about the 'stab in the back' myth that got Hitler elected.
doesn't make sense, why did most soldiers and the army staff support him then?
the book was banned because of its defeatist mentality.
(versailles treaty was harsh precisely because the germans wouldn't fight it, even turkey fought back(and won), while the vastly more powerful german leadership were like women)
@Jack-he8jv Because he told them a lie they wanted to hear. The lie that they hadn't lost the war, but were stabbed in the back by politicians.
The truth is that Erich Ludendorf demanded from the politicians that they negotiate an armistice, because the western front was about to break.
Germany had lost the war. It had run out of soldiers, out of food, they were ripping pipes out of the streets, confiscated church bells, all to make ammo out of.
It was the military who asked the politicians to negotiate a truce. After the war, they conveniently flipped this around, and the stab in the back legend was born.
If Ludendorf thought Germany could still win, why ask for an armistice?
That is what doesn't make sense.
@@Jack-he8jv first of all: "They were like women" is probably the dumbest take on WWI I have ever heard.
and, welp, you might disagree with op's take, and tbh saying it was banned for one reason and one reason alone is probably stupid (not that he did), but please re-watch the video where you just commented below - it did explain this part pretty well imho. It was the mentality of us vs. them. The mentality of those civilians making us fight a war without wanting to understand the reality of it. This feeling then transpired after the war (as the video explained). It is possible to read this throughout the literature, it is obvious in most diaries of the time, etc.
Soldiers supported Hitler for the same reason people support neo-fascists nowadays - he gave them easy answers. "If only the homefront helped you more. If only you got more heroic treatment. If only the military could stay the most important factor of the state" (which was obviously not allowed due to the Treaty of Versailles). All of this is grounded in stupid group-level identification. And, once again, what the original version DID illustrate greatly, it worked both ways - it is after all, unfortunately, human nature.
As someone working in science, I also cannot stress this enough: WWI and WWII taught humanity so much about psychology. So many great theories were developed based on it. And you can see the described mechanisms work everywhere. Especially in your comment :)
@@Jack-he8jvdefeatist mentality? No, it showed reality. A reality that Hitler didn't want the public to know. Germany was fighting a futile war that even the soldiers knew long before the generals and public ever did.
Hitler was elected because of the Great Depression, the myth was merely useful propaganda
I only saw the 1930s adaptation once at 15, and the scenes where he goes home stuck with me for the rest of my life. The 2022 version is visually amazing, but it feels hollow. Whereas the 1930s version is so grim but emotional that it forever taught a grade 10 history class that the enemy in war are humans too. They aren't the monsters the propaganda make them out to be. We need to see things from their perspective to understand the conflict. It broadened my very young mind and taught me to see everything from multiple points of view. There's no way a history teacher can show the 2022 version to his class.
Precisely my thoughts
It's ironic seeing now what we are being fed about evil Russians. We never learn. You'd think typical Russian eats newborn babies on breakfast.
my history teacher showed the 2022 version to our class and it made it's point very well
@@Batman-ys2qy isn't it rated R?
yeah@@ToudaHell
This was exactly my problem with the 2022 movie. If you changed the title no one would ever know it was All Quiet.
I texted a friend that exact thought when I was about halfway through watching the film.
If you had to judge the film ln it's own merit then?
It's a good point. It's rather like a different film.
@@noahmay7708 As it's own film it's still good. I still enjoyed it but strictly as an adaptation of the source material I found it lacking.
@@xpendabullhonestly I felt the same way it felt lacking and hollow. But I thought about it but instead of being hollow and lacking from an entertainment perspective it was meant to make you feel that way, war left a lot of soldiers hollow, empty, defeated, without purpose or rationality.
The worst part about the 2022 movie is how it completely fumbled its message by making every single French character an inhumane murderer (or an аsshoIe if they can't be a murderer, like Foch). The whole point of that scene in the crater with the dying Frenchman was to show that the soldiers from either side were both just scared young men with no reason to fight beyond "even if you don't kiII him, do you trust that the guy on the other trench won't kiII you?", a sort of "prisoner's dilemma".
The movie throws it all out the window by making even a French fuсking child more of a cold blooded kiIIer than the average German soldier. "Why are we fighting the French? Oh yeah, because they might as well be literal demons".
Contrary to a lot of people, I also didn't like the ending. The point of the ending in the book is that in war, death just happens. No epic fight, no going out in a blaze of glory. Paul just dies and his death is so insignificant, the report of the day he died simply states that all was quiet on the western front.
YES. The movie pissed me off with how much they were dehumanising the French, but also too when they raided the trench and went into the kitchen sorta area they did shoot potential French prisoners because those soldiers didn’t aim their weapons I don’t think.
Also the unrealistic part was how many older Germans there was, many looked 25-33 or so, which yes there was of course those ages, but they missing out on those that lied about their age 15-17 year olds. The battle scenes are just screaming men, but never the fact that you will also hear them crying and screaming for their mothers. A detail so forgotten. And that goes for both sides too. But of course too the dehumanising on the French. Germans used gas a lot on their unsuspecting victims at times. I don’t get why so scared to show that both sides did horrific things but that others were humane and equally as scared and didn’t want to kill.
I recall a moment from a CZcams video of a ww1 German veteran talking about his experience, he said. “I was at my bayonet ready and the French corporal was also at his bayonet ready. But if he put his hand out I would have shook it and we would have been the best of friends, and I wanted to be his friend .” I know for a fact he would have not liked the 2022 movie.
I didn't get the impression that the movie dehumanized the French, just that all of their interactions were in the heat of the battle and nobody comes out of that looking good. Teleporting demon farmer's child...that was stupid and not only that it had no point, it undermines the message, along with the ending.
While I liked the movie, I definitely didn't enjoy the last 20 minutes.
what are you talking about? yeah it's a little silly the kid hunted down kat but that wasn't to make the kid seem monstrous, he was defending his home and property from occupying soldiers. They were stealing food that the family probably needed just as badly, Kat and Paul were obviously the ones doing something wrong there even though it was out of desperation. you just don't see the French's pain the way you do the germans because it's about a german soldier. That was the purpose of the crater scene, the french became humanized to Paul in that moment because it was the only kill he had time to reflect on. The french killed some germans trying to surrender, but americans do that in Saving Private Ryan and no one says that movie makes us look like monsters. And we're clearly meant to understand that it's something the germans do too. I also think interpreting Paul's death as a blaze of glory is kinda weird even though i do agree the original ending is better. He wanted to go home, he looked like he knew he was gonna die, he only went because he was forced to, and in the end he crawled his way outside just to see the sun one more time. Nothing about that or anything in the movie felt glorious to me.
I honestly don’t get your point about the French child. These two German soldiers had constantly been stealing from his father and getting away with it. The two Germans are the bad guys from his point of view, and in a sense in our point of view as well, unless you think repeatedly robbing poor farmers is ok. So the kid finally stood up for his family (in an admittedly foolish way that could have easily gotten himself killed), but I didn’t get the sense that Kat was even mad about it, because how could he be?
As for the French soldiers themselves as I recall they weren’t at all any more “bad” than the Germans. It was pretty immediately apparent that neither side ever planned to take prisoners, and it showed that being done by the French and Germans an equal-ish amount of times as I recall. I don’t think there was a single surrendering soldier in the entire movie that wasn’t immediately gunned down lol.
@@thevenator3955 Let me just recall the scene. Two grown men sprinted out of the yard and kept running for a while full sprint. When they stopped, kid was there to shoot him. Hence, demon kid, with teleportation skills.
But all kidding aside, that scene and the ending undermines the message of the movie/book. You may follow them through the book, but they are not the main characters. They are just points of view, one of the thousands. Death can come to them at any point of time, and it's besides the point how. In the book, chapter starts while Kat is carried. You don't know what happened and how he got shot, he just did.
And the book ends with few sentences of how Paul was killed in a more or less non eventful day. There was no last march till the clock runs out. He wasn't seconds away from surviving, he never stood a chance.
I agree that the 1930 and 1979 versions are more true to the spirit of the novel. One of the worst offences of the 2022 version is the "one last attack" before the armistice. This is at odds with actual history as well as not part of the novel, though it does oddly allow Paul to actually see the end of the war while dying from it.
The 1930 version is incredible for so many reasons. One is that it was made so long ago, when so many film techniques were new. Another is that in just 15 months the novel was published in German, translated into English, the screenplay was written for the film, then filmed, edited, and released! And director Lewis Milestone was only 35 years old. Furthermore, the 1930 film deviates from the novel by adding the "butterfly" ending, which is simply brilliant and extremely poignant. The final view of the enthusiastic young soldiers superimposed over a graveyard is chilling, memorable, and gets the intended message across.
All other versions after 1930 can refer back to this film for inspiration, but the 1930 film was the pioneer. That it still stands the test of time is incredible.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. 2738 men died in the last day of the war.
@@derekeastman7771 it was the French who attacked German trenches on the final day.
The 1930 version, to me, stands as the greatest horror film of all time, purely because of how realistic the battle scenes are. Seeing as it was only 12 years after the war, the film looks like the old actual and re-enacted film reels from 1914-18 and largely due to a lot of the scenes were crafted by people who were there. That hands on the wire for example, was suggested by someone who witnessed that during their time on the front.
A lot of the participants were probably veterans.@@gatsbygoodwood2575
There actually were assaults on the final day of the war by Allied troops..
The first version was made within 15 years of the World War. It was fresh in everyone's mind. My mom remembered how the future General MacArthur hosed down and burned the camps of the Bonus Marchers, the Veterans of the war who had been promised a substantial post war financial bonus by the Wilson administration and which they never got, part of the reason Hoover was hated and blamed for the Depression. But it was the unkeepable false promises that they made to keep the soldiers fighting.
I may be mistaken but I think the promise to the WWI veterans of the bonus was made in 1924 some time after President Wilson had left office. But the onset of the Great Depression interfered with payment of the bonus.
@@rbf100 It wasn't that the bonuses weren't being paid on time, they weren't due to be paid until 1945. The Bonus Army wanted the government to pay the bonuses early in reflection of the hardships the veterans were going through in the Great Depression, and the Hoover administration refused to do so.
how old are you?
@@DasPoop2012 His age is probably higher than your IQ.
@@brucetucker4847think about what you said? ehats the purpose of paying a war bonus over 2 decades after the war ended? Yhe soldiers had to live now at the time.
The worst thing about trauma is that it estranges you not just from the people around you but from yourself. If you recall from the book, young Paul is full of dreams and curiosity. By the time of his death all that is gone, buried under layer after layer of trauma.
Trauma makes the world a cold and distant thing.
I feel like the people who made the 2022 version wanted to make a different movie but weren't allowed to
I completely agree, this movie should have not been on All Quet on the western front, rather it should have tackled the Vietnam War, The Korean War, or The Afghanistan war, but alas, All quiet sells better, and it is very unlikely it would have been done if under any other name.
The project was very much driven by a desire to make AQOWF, but the problem was they were enamored with their own ideas about it and didn't have a very nuanced understanding of what the book was actually saying.
Unironically i had the same experience after returning from Ukraine, we were having dinner in a restaurant and one of my non-combat friends corrected *me* in my statements about the conditions on the frontline. All in the year 2022.
you comfortable with getting more into detail with this ? Id love to hear more about it
Kinda missed the point there, didn't you?@@Nighthawk2702
@@Nighthawk2702as would I
@@vazeuax vatnik detected
That part in the book felt so authentic. Paul being corrected on how the war was "actually going" by older men who were never anywhere near the front. You could feel Remarque was perplexed by such an outlandish behavior.
Welcome back.
There is definitely a major disconnect from the first two movies. This new one loses important elements while introducing new ones that fail to have any impact. Baumer's friends are not really "Personalized" so that when they die, it is much less traumatic. Basically "Redshirts" from Star Trek.
Absolutely. Baumer spends long minutes weeping and blubbering about one friend killed in a trench, and all I could think was - who was he? I couldn't remember his name and he had, like, two lines of dialogue to that point. Why would I care? Film-makers take so many shortcuts now that have no emotional payoff - and audiences are increasingly too distracted to sit through a proper story to get to the payoff.
@@HandGrenadeDivisionI remember when the film first came out and criticising the film was basically heresy, I argued with my friend on this exact point about character development, I told him to name one singular character from the movie and he failed to do so which just proves that there was no emotional connections made at all. Yet some self proclaimed intellectuals have argued with me that it is part of the genius of the film instead of just plain lazy writing that uses the most overused and well known stereotypes of WW1 such as over enthusiastic youth and so on to appear deep and gratify the audience.
For someone who liked the movie and nearly cried on some points I thought it was well made and personal
It’s not the names that matter it’s the people who they are p
The closest they get is Ludwig I think his name is the guy with glasses
For those interested, I also highly recommend Remarque's sequal to All Quiet: The Road Back. It follows the survivors after the war and delves even deeper in the themes discussed here. Excellent analysis of a somewhat disappointing film adaptation
Though it’s more of a spiritual successor as no charachter is caried over (they all dead)
@@sergeantsharkseant atleast some are being mentioned in the road back by fellow survivors, during flashbacks / ptsd sequences
I've been recommending "The Road Back" and "Three Comrades" for years. I was starting to think I was the last person alive who'd read them.
@@sergeantsharkseant Tjaden’s in the book, isn’t he?
@@throbbingfellow1136 don’t know
I actually like the 1979 tv version of it. Yeah it was pretty cheesy sometimes, but it really is the best adaptation of it considering how it was made and what it included. This version left out A LOT of stuff.
I watched both a long time ago, and remember that they were both quite good.
I’ve yet to see the 1930 version, and the same for the one which came out recently. (The 1979 version is the *only* one I’ve seen thus far)
I’d like to see both, *and* read the book, but need to repair/replace the DVD player first for the films…
The Netflix film did not truly resemble the actual story. Granted, it was good at portraying the horrors of the war, and the attitudes of many commanders. But the book really aimed at showing what it did to the soldier. Paul comes home and cannot connect with anyone. The old man in the pub, for instance, arguing with Paul about the war Paul is fighting in. The interaction between Paul and the French soldier was nowhere near as personal as it was in the book.
True. Calling the 2022 movie an adaptation is honestly a disservice to the book and older movies. The 2022 feels more like an hommage to the book.
@@KitteridgeStudios It is only a hommage if it is respectful and affectionate towards the original. This movie isn't. All it is is a testament to the arrogant presumption of the writers and director to be able to improve upon a timeless masterpiece. Hint: They failed miserably.
@@Muschelschubs3r A lot of people including me really liked it, so I wouldn't say they failed
@@Muschelschubs3r where are you getting this arrogance from the filmmakers from?! Seems like projection on your part
Personally I think the conversation with the general and his assistant at dinner was a really critical part of this movie. Part of the reason the home front thought it was so honorable to fight and die for your country was that before 1914 war was fundamentally different. His father and grandfather fought in highly consequential wars that forged the German Empire and the stories of those men elevating their country are what the citizens thought their boys were doing from 1914-1918. They had no clue the horror of mechanized, industrial war. That is why the general clinging onto those memories and sending more men to die for the same honor his father fought for really sticks out to me.
For the soldiers of 1864, 1866, 1870 till 71, the war was not less horrible. But those wars were shorter and therefore with fewer casualties, and what is the most important, they were won.
@@schurlbirkenbach1995 people often say "the old era were horrible too" but let's be real. In the old wars you moved around a lot, only fought a battle once in a blue moon, and had almost zero chance (statistically of dying randomly from constant artillery fire on the same position weeks on end.
World war 1 really was a new war with new horrors.
@@Winaska I doubt, that the 30 years war in Germany or the Gothic wars in Italy at the end of the Roman empire were less horrible. Till today you can find archeological evidence of villages, which were abandoned in those days and never resettled.
@@schurlbirkenbach1995 the type of constant combat that world war one soldiers lived with was unknown outside of siege warfare in any previous era. that was my point. civilian experiences are more fluid and varied throughout history. But if you or I had a choice: fight in world war one or in the Napoleonic wars, we'd jump at the chance to fight in a war where we only get shot at one day out of 100 instead of 365
My father and I both enjoyed the book and we went into the movie enthusiastically but ended up extremely disappointed. The movie really began to flop during the later half. The absent of Visiting home segmernt, Kat's idiotic death at the hand of a child because he stole a goddamn goose and especially Paul's death in the movie. I cringe so hard at the end of how they handle my boys.
If All Quiet on the Western Front ends with a Rambo-style action sequence, then that’s not All Quiet on the Western Front.
@@warlordofbritannia It's literally in the title too
The deaths being pointless and idiotic is the point.
@@derekeastman7771
Really? What’s the point of Paul dying in an entirely ahistorical death charge? And Kat getting killed by a kid?
In the actual All Quiet, Kat’s death means the last bit of the world that Paul could relate to is gone, there’s nothing left to live for. His own death (in the movie) is a bittersweet moment, him recklessly exposing his body just to feel a little bit of the good in this evil world-and as the book so poignantly concludes, this death of a character who we have come to understand on such an intimate level is so insignificant to greater events that the German official report of that day could say “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Remember how that’s the name of the story-“All Quiet”? Dying in such a melodramatic and inaccurate manner is simply insulting to the actual themes of the work and all its fans.
@@warlordofbritannia I believe he was refering to Kat's death which is still pointless and idiotic in the movie but it deviated from the anti-war message of the book a bit.
Where as Kat could have added to the list of nameless soldiers killed on the battlefield, he was wounded and carried back by Paul who didnt realized until he reached the medic that Kat had already been pierced through the head by a stray shrapnel on the way back, its almost like an inevitable death, no matter how good u did, a stray shrapnel can get you at any time.
In the movie, He and Paul went to steal goose eggs from a farmstead, they didnt flee very far before enjoying their plunder, Kat went to have private pee pee even though he could have done it straight infront of Paul and it wouldnt be any different cuz their were soldiers. He got ganked by a kid who managed to grab the family gun and sneak out without his family noticing.
Now both were pointless, 1 was idiotic but which one was more anti-war to you?
I was disappointed they did not include the scene in which Paul returns to the school. It was very powerful in the original movie and had an important message that we should always be skeptical of state education. IMHO this was the most significant scene in the original movie.
The whole sequence of his home leave is the crux of the film, without that contrast you (ironically) just have pointless suffering for 90 minutes.
@@warlordofbritannia So.. showing us the B-plot wasn't a contrast?
I thought I was alone in this opinion when I watched this movie with my friends. My friends had never read the book or served in the military, and they were confused why I was so pissed off at the remake. The hatred towards civilians is not only prominent in the book, but it's a topic very very rarely covered in war movies. It's usually glossed over if directly addressed at all. It's an uncomfortable topic, which I assume is why they removed it from the movie and instead gave us the unnecessary B plot line. Thank you for making this video.
As a WWI buff thanks for this. I still like the 2022 film immensely and would watch it again. But the original film and book really showed how Paul has changed and will never be the same again. I remember watching it as a teenager (I am American) and reading the book and I couldn't believe I felt bad for a German. The enemy. It really made me realize that the First World War had no winners just losers. No one was good, everyone was evil, and the poor soldiers and sailors just wanted to go home. Cheers from Nebraska, USA, Navy vet.
I suspect that it is true for many wars, not WWI only.
Yeah, there was no bad Vs. good in WW1. My ancestors fought on the side of the Central Powers, I obviously wish they had won, but no one but the really desperate wishes for the loser of WW2 to have won.
>It made me realize that the First World had no winners just losers
And you call yourself a WW1 buff.
There were absolutely clear winners in the Great War. Serbia and Romania gained huge amount of land, Czechoslovakia and Poland came to existence, Finland became independant, Japan gained land and influence in the Pacific and China, Communists came to power in Russia, Ireland achieved autonomy, women across the world gained the right to vote. Hell, your nation's rise to global power and military hegemony started with this war, American.
You better hope Pershing doesn't come back from the dead and slap you for these words.
(No one was good, everyone was evil) that’s war in a nutshell I feel for so long both world wars are seen as these great acts of good triumphing over evil and there was rightful reasons to fight. No there never was a good guy and there never will be. War shows no mercy or favor to anyone. As a wise man once said (as long as their is man their is war.)
If you don't mind me asking what side did they fight for? My ancestors were Irish Immigrants in America so they didn't fight in the War.@@Medvelelet
Finally, this film is getting the criticism it deserves
Thank god
I mean sure. But There is absolutely no denying that it's good for people to see. I know for a fact the average Netflix watching population ain't gonna watch the 1930 version. Or 79 for that matter. I have 0 issue with Netflix making another version that isn't EXACTLY true to the book or the actual history if it gets them to watch it. It's a TRUE anti war film. And it's in GERMAN. Plenty to pick from each movie. I'd stfu honestly😂😂😂
@@lubskipunch8706 don’t get me wrong it’s a good film, but I hate that it’s called All Quiet on the western front when it’s very clearly nothing like the book
@@Baileaf11 that's completely fair
@@lubskipunch8706dumbed down version for the modern dumb people.
I audiolistened to the book in preparation of the much anticipated release of the the 2022 version. This video perfectly articulates everything I felt, one thing I'd add to your point is that the book compounds the isolation felt by having physical comrades depicted in close proximity to one another such as the bombings of the bunker, the diving into pits during gas, and Paul's fight with the Frenchman, but ultimately needing detachment.
The hubris of the screenwriters and producers to think they could improve on a timeless masterpiece. Like a masterpiece of canvas or stone, anything you do to it other than lightly clean it can only detract from it.
Well said.
I’d bet my left leg the film makers didn’t want to adapt All Quiet, it was just used for name recognition/to get greenlit.
And sometimes, even lightly cleaning such works is too far.
The story of our times. Great YT comment.
"Modernized"
Brilliant book and I enjoyed the movie but hated how they changed the ending. The ending of the book was so poignant that the main character that we had become so attached to died on a random day and his death seen as so meaningless that all that was reported was “all quiet on the western front”
It's even more compelling in the original German, I think: "Im Westen nichts Neues," literally "Nothing new in the West" but essentially saying "nothing worth mentioning".
I really like this analysis. As a fan of the book and this movie, I do understand a lot of the frustration regarding the way the 2022 version deviated. But one part I felt this version captured amazingly was the scene in the crater where he kills the french soldier. Unlike the monologuing in the 1930s "we could have been friends if..." The 2022 version shows rather than tells what Paul is thinking without him muttering more than just a few words. They definitely did that spectacularly in my opinion
The "return home" arc is a must have. Also, too much emphasis on battles, too few on dialogue behind the lines. The ending is Hollywoodian... specially the death at the hands of the boy.
The peace treaty arc is supposed to tell us that all the fighting is useless, because the war is lost. In the book, they realize the war is lost (I don't remember any hints about armistice) because of lack of supplies, uniforms and material, and the fresh troops are sent to the front with no training, just to get killed instantly.
I guess I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the book before.
Worse, they realize that the war is lost when they discover American canned meats in a French dugout. It's so wonderfully subtle in how the book tells the reader that way that a new player has entered the field, one the exhausted Germans cannot hope to defeat with the forces that are left. He even describes the Americans as "plummy", well-fed and motivated guys who aren't yet as mentally exhausted as the Europeans are.
I served as a soldier for 36 years. Nobody can know what it is like to be a soldier until they serve as one. Once you serve you will live with it for the rest of your life. There is no way to escape it or run away from it.
THANK YOU. Finally someone else understands why this new film just doesn't work.
Main issue for me was the 2022 movie drifted off into WW1 meta (e.g. the politics of ending the war), which was never the point of the book. The book is firmly grounded in humanizing the suffering of individuals caught up in the horrors of the Western Front. Remarque's follow up book, 'The Road Back' follows the travails of the troops trying to re-intergrate into society bearing the wounds of their service at the front. Also a great book.
Despite the name, it was not All Quiet on the Western Front. I felt like I had been invited to see Lord of the Rings, and then spent two hours watching Gandalf and Frodo fight storm-troopers through Hogwarts. It was probably a well made movie, but I could never get past the fact that they pretended it was something it wasn't just to get me to watch it.
Thank you for an outstanding video essay. Your insight and articulation were wonderful and helped clarify to me why the 2022 movie just didn't ring as true as it could/should have, despite some great acting and story-telling. The side stories and lack thereof were its weakness.
I love this video! the 2022 adaption never sat right with me, and you were able to perfectly put into words why.
THANK YOU! I thought I was crazy for seeing all the glowing reviews of this film and feeling like one of the only people disappointed with it. I too felt that the film was severely hurt by the removal of the civilian scenes as well as how it portrayed Paul’s and Kat’s deaths. Kat dying to some random vengeful kid and Paul going out in a completely made up final charge felt incredibly contrived. The film already set up the fact that many German units were mutinying, but they want me to believe that the regiment would follow suicide orders that close to the end? If anything it should have been the French doing that because that’s what actually happened.
Its a fantastic movie... But it isn't a fantastic adaption. I'd call it poor even. It feels like the characters names are just added onto a different script.
His death is the best example of that. In this film, its a gripping hand-to-hand fight with a French officer, ending in a tragic stab to the back... It has no meaning. Its just an action scene. In the book, he simply stands up, enamoured by the beauty of nature he once loved as a child, and is shot by a sniper... He's brutalised and beaten by the war, and what gets him killed is it isn't complete brutalisation.
@@tedparkinson2033its not the same story, change the name and its fantastic
I switched the new version off when the time jump came and it became clear to me that they had no interest in adapting the book faithfully. I went back a month later and finished watching it.
It's an exercise in form over substance. The 1930's version reigns supreme over it.
@@Quotenwagnerianer1930s one might be a better adaptation but the 2022 version is still the better movie
The 1930 version will always be my favorite. I think the fact that so many WWI veterans worked on the film gave it an authenticity that no later adaptation can match.
Being the only one who has read the book out of my friends, I have had so many debates with them, talking about how it was disappointing to me, because these aspects weren’t shown in the movie. I’m actually so happy someone else is saying the exact way I feel.
I read the book when I was in Jr. High School in the 60s and was really stunned by it. I also saw the 1930s film, parts of which were film in the area where I was living at that time. Between the three films, I thought the 1930s film was closer to the book than the other two and the charging scenes of soldiers was really horrific. One thing should be mention, in the 1930s films many of the extras in the battle scenes were veterans, both American and German of the conflict.
The German title is "Nothing New on the Western Front", with the connotation of "Nothing out of the ordinary" or "Business as usual on the Western Front".
It was very much not quiet, lots of people died. But that was a day like any other.
The worst thing is at the end of that movie you don't understand why it is called "all quiet on the western front" in the first place.
I like your analysis and totally agree. The movie misses the point.
I highly recommend watching All Quiet on the Western front 1979. It's worth a watch just for Ernest Borgnine
I watched the 1930 version as a six year old with my grandfather. In 1930 my six year old future grandfather was taken to the cinema to watch it by his WWI veteran father. He told me that there were lots of veterans there with their sons, and no kids played war games after the film.
After getting two films that follow the book perfectly, I was perfectly happy with a different telling. It could have probably gone by a different title though.
I think Arkady Babchenko's A Soldier's War in Chechnya hits on many of the same points as All quiet on the Western Front, especially the last story about how veterans were treated once back in civilian society.
I couldn't believe he didn't go on leave in the remake. That was like the whole point of the book.
Ive seen this too many times with modern filmmaking - they simply miss the point. That’s not to say the 2022 vers is not a bad WW1 film, it’s great. It’s just not a good or faithful interpretation of what is a truly masterful, intrapersonal telling of squad life novel.
I'm surprised there was no mention of the ending of the 2022 movie vs novel.
I think it should be taken into account that today's cinematic capabilities are much greater than they were in the past, and as a consequence the focus of storytelling has shifted as well. Older movies perhaps had to derive their emotional engagement and how they transport a message from a wider variety of techniques than today's, which almost by necessity made them touch a wider array of topics, especially when making a film of a novel. Today's films are narrower in their storytelling, but use visuals to greater effect I think, which aids the messages of a film in its own way. More things can be left unsaid, they are shown instead. But some things that cannot be shown are left out as a consequence. So it's perhaps not completely fair to lump them all together. Each film (or work of art, for that matter) is a child of its time, and should be judged as such imho.
Brilliantly put
I disagree. This is a classic case of using the wrong toolset for the job. The film insisted on using all the visual techniques even though they were inappropriate. A good modern film only uses the techniques that are appropriate. It's like shooting toasted bread in an attempt to spread butter on it because guns are more modern and generally more efficient inventions than knives. No one stopped to think if they should do it or not. Because of the evolution of film in modern times, modern films have fewer valid justifications to have flawed storytelling.
@doigt6590 👍👍👍
Actually, not all the techniques were inappropriate. I think that they should have used the same techniques, but instead stuck closer to the main character and story. And of course, I would like to point out how amazing the original commenter’s comment is.
This is the biggest blind spot for the haters
Also absolutely amazing video covering 3 movies so informative, editing is top notch and great narration voice how do you only have 30k subs man 🤙
A lot of interesting videos have been coming up for me lately. I'm new to your channel but do whatch several history channels, covering many eras. I remember briefly touching on All Quiet at school, but it was only a side note. This has been such an interesting comparison and you have a real gift for storytelling.
The 79' version certainly hit the sweet spot between these films. It's a damn masterpiece
I think the 1930 version is less accessible emotionally for modern audiences because the acting, camera work, and so forth are extremely dated - movies back then tended to be shot and edited with the intention of making them look like stage plays, while modern movies and particularly war movies tend a lot more to verisimilitude and the old movies look stilted and staged to a modern viewer.
I liked the 79 version apart from the ending. Getting shot while drawing the dove of peace was a bit too on the nose
One of the worst things that the new movie does is follow the proceedings of the Armistice and make it seem like the war is about to end.
Even from a historical perspective, it is incredibly offensive how they portrayed the German government suddenly deciding to end the war because a certain number of soldiers were killed, in fact the way the movie shows the proceedings is actually a post-WW1 myth created by the Nazis to blame the civilian government for why the Germans lost WW1, something the movie perpetuates by never showing the slowly degrading conditions the audience is exposed to in the novel and previous movies by skipping major scenes like the training, the leave back home, and the students in the same position as Paul in the beginning.
In short the movie kinda spits in the face of the original intent of the book and instead only reinforces the misconceptions it was created to combat and ultimately led to an even greater and more pointless war.
This was a very well done video. Good job!
Rather than saying this one is wrong or that one is right (adaptations), I'm just thankful we have them all to compare.
I watched it a couple weeks ago, it left something to be desired by comparison with the 1979 film that I watched many years ago (I haven't seen the 1930 film but would like to). This one I thought was lacking in terms of exploring deeper themes like the earlier films.
I did appreciate that it had a distinct anti-war sentiment and showed the gruesome brutality and depraved nature of the war in such grim detail. The opening scene with the uniforms was a great hook to start out the movie.
Unfortunately the plot was just too unfocused and inconsistent with all the outside subplots that didn't add much or really tie back in to the main plot thematically, and the dialogue was lackluster at times. Ultimately I was dissapointed, but still glad I watched it.
I hope you see the 1930 film soon. You will love it forever.
The 1930 early talkie (once you make allowance for the older cinema style and b&w film) is hauntingly unforgettable. Not least the butterfly on a leaf final scene--and the final montage after that. It was actually one of the few early talkies that was simultaneously made as a silent film--the Criterion Collection edition includes that version, too.
I saw the 2022 film a few months ago, and I now finished re-reading the book (I had somewhat read it in school years ago). Your analysis has made me think of the book more and the different focuses of the 2022 film, differences which I too took note of when reading. I am going to watch the 1930 film, as it seem to be a much closer adaptation to the book. Great video essay.
The 1979, which too is a very good adaptation of the book, is here on youtube for free, should you wish to see it.
I couldn’t get into this. I loved the book for its quiet horror and subtle homoeroticism, for the contrast between the pretensions and anxieties of the homefront and the grinding evils of the trenches. The movie gave me fake french tanks and flamethrower soldiers and a nothing b-plot about peace negotiations.
Hey! First off, I just want to say I'm a huge fan of your channel. You guys do an amazing job breaking down movie clips, and I find it really insightful. I'm actually working on an essay about them, and I was wondering if you could share some insights on where you source the clips for your videos. It would be incredibly helpful for my research. Thanks a bunch! 🎬
Glad my World History teacher showed me the original a few years before this came out. Watching this with my friends I couldn't help but keep comparing the two.
While this one's ending was well done (I never personally knew about the "last minute battle", so seeing it in film and then looking it up to read the actual event was certainly an experience.), I still prefer the original, the quiet almost peaceful mood and atmosphere with Paul finally, FINALLY taking a moment to remember his innocence with his art...only to be cut short by a enemy sniper. It just hits that mark and still haunts me to this day.
I respect and enjoyed the new film. But I encourage others to watch the original and compare with version you like more. If nothing else, they both will defintely reinforce the point of how meaningless the entire war was (in terms of life lost and potential futures squashed for so many talented youths)
I'm amazed that this movie looks so good, and they didn't bother making sure the actor displayed gun recoil. Immediately takes you out of the film.
Exceptional work
So happy this video exists. I think the 2022 was good but there’s main thematic elements missing the full purpose of the source material.
... there are* elements missing ...
You perfectly articulated my unclear impressions of why it bothered me. Great video, you really understood the how the warm characterization of paul and his comerades in the beginning made the tragedy of war so much more devastating. An element that dies in the replicated dunkirk vibe of the 2022 remake
I have not read the book, or watched the other adaptions of All Quiet On The Western Front so my perspective is perhaps different as I am not able to compare it. I found this to be a really powerful film, I don't think I have ever seen a war film that was truly anti-war until I saw this. People like to point towards films like American sniper or 1917, but both have the hero being brave and saving the day. All Quiet On The Western Front by contrast truly shows what a horrible existence life in the trenches was for millions of men, it shows how pointless the death was and how the men really were just tiny cogs in a very large killing machine controlled by disconnected mad men.
It would be better if it was not trying to be a retelling of the book and previous two movies. It misses a lot of the spirit of the book that the other two capture. The 2022 version is a solid WWI movie, but it's not a good All Quiet on the Western Front movie.
It's a good film but it's just using characters from all quiet ,the 79 film and 1930s one are memorable
What a fantastic analysis. As someone who knew of the previous film adaptations but had only seen the new one this puts things into a greater perspective. I think that all of the versions are important in their own ways. However I will agree that the previous adaptations did a better job at portraying the conflict from a more common perspective rather than that written on the history books. Most men involved with the conflict weren't there when the peace treaty was signed, or when the military leaders themselves made decisions for the lives of millions.
It would be nice to see our species learn from the subject that most people fall asleep to during class. I understand why that happens, the faults of the educational systems generally teaching the subject in a less interesting and engaging way and most people's general grasp of history's actual importance.
Learning from our mistakes is one of the key elements in improving our selves as a species yet most people don't seem to give a dang about it. I understand that the matters in our personal lives probably don't get us all that interested when it comes to learning about some of the most horrific events in human history but I'd argue that people shouldn't be afraid to confront reality.
I studied the war and Remarque's novel intimately for my Bachelor's.
Let me just say you did a fantastic job with this video. I knew immediately upon hearing you quote Paul Fussell's book that you are very well researched. Keep up the fantastic work :)
From what I recall the 30's film made quite a few changes, although small, they where not in the book, the director and producers allowed this as the changes where from actual ww1 veterans that made up the actors, and background actors, the one of the top of my head is the hands hanging onto the barbed wire, a french machine gunner remarked recalling a gy getting blown up by a shell and all that remained was his hands.
We need a storm of steel movie not more all quiet on the western front . That is the biggest problem with this movie
Storm of Steel is actually real. All Quiet on the Western Front is antiwar propaganda.
The ‘22 version felt so empty without the return home and the ending. It’s like they took the best parts of the book out to replace it with generic ‘war is bad’ social commentary. Hollywood cannot create anymore.
Good video. I just wan to add that Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est" is one of the finest poems written in the English language and the best encapsulation of the horror of modern war that I've ever seen.
I love how you used RTW1 settlement overview ambient sounds in this.
I enjoyed your video and agree with most of the points you've made. I loved the 2022 version but not really in comparison to the previous ones. What I mean is, in 2022 there have not been many good war movies for awhile (1917 had some good moments but overall was a bit wacky). I think I enjoyed it so much because it was a war movie that did an excellent job showing the chaos and overall negativity of combat. It may not be the best version but it was a much needed departure from the usual cheesy/proud war movie that comes around every year or so.
As someone deeply familiar with the raw portrayal of war in the original “All Quiet on the Western Front” novel and its earlier film adaptations, I approached the 2022 version with high hopes. Unfortunately, it left me deeply disappointed.
The film rushes us into action scenes without adequately introducing the characters, a move that undercuts the potential for deeper emotional impact despite the commendable cinematography. The 2022 version, despite having very graphical scenes, didn't hit as hard as the earlier ones due to poor character development.. Also, something was off, making it feel less authentic.
Thank you Jake. I am a child of the GWOT, I signed on the dotted line in 2008 and swore my oath to the country. I cannot tell you how much I despise civilian discourse, they will do anything other than just love their fellow human. They will choose to hate because of gender, race and sexuality instead of appreciating what many of my friends died for. I cannot tell you how much I truly hate most left wing and most right wing politicians as the preach to me about identity and seek to make me hate my brothers and sisters.
I know you haven't solved anything today, but I feel like a scarred digger millennial is less lonely for a moment.
The scene of the gas attack of the 1979 version was not depicting the German soldier being too slow to put on his gasmask: He took of his mask too early and then fell into a bomb crater still filled with poison gas.
He was okay taking off his gas mask, but unlike the others he hadn't learned that chlorine gas is heavier than air so it persisted at a lethal concentration in the trenches and craters after the air higher up was safe to breathe.
In the 2022 movie I'm guessing the gas that killed them was phosgene because, unlike chlorine, phosgene is invisible, doesn't have much of an odor, and isn't unpleasant to breathe, but once you've breathed enough of it in it will inevitably turn your lungs to bloody soup hours later. Really wicked stuff.
‘79 is far superior. You should cover the book storm of steel by Ernst junger. It gives another very interesting perspective to the war
arguably it's quite similar, except Junger does believe that war is glorious and when he thought he was going to die he felt extremely happy and like he had fulfilled his destiny
Amazing essay. Thanks
They liked the PowerPoint presentation so much they turned it into the movie.
I hate this trend of making a new movie with the same title as the old one and yet making it fundamentally different. They wouldn't even have needed to change anything about the movie itself, just given it a different name and let it stand side-by-side with the previous movies, to complement each other with wider perspectices, rather than trying to replace them.
The combat scenes were the most realistic I've ever seen. This new version is a great interpretation. As are the others. Each captures the essence of innocence lost, as well as the cost of war. Each has its own nuances and this is a great addition to the title.
Thanks for articulating the problems I felt with the 2022 version, despite enjoying it overall.
I've read the book and watched all three (I think there are only three) film adaptations. I recommend you do the same.
They're all good. They all have something worthwhile for you to hear.
My favorite part of the book is at the beginning when Paul says how, although we made fun of our fathers' generation, deep down we respected and looked up to them. Yet, they led us so badly astray that in the end we felt betrayed by them.
This is very close to my feelings as a veteran of the Bush-era invasion and occupation of Iraq. I've had quite a while to think on that one and I cannot escape the conclusion that it was a colossal blunder. The trust that I placed in my leaders when I enlisted was betrayed by their bad judgement and people I served with paid with their lives.
Having watched all 3 film adaptations and read the book, I firmly believe that if the changes you discussed weren't made in the 2022 version it could very well have been a real masterpiece. Visually it's stunning, the acting is great, and the crater scene is every bit as gut-wrenching as I'd expect. But it's missing quite a bit. I will say that every adaptation, as well as the book, miss out on a few significant factors in the decline of the German war machine, such as mutinies among the navy, growing political turmoil across the country, and the impact of blockades, but those omissions are understandable since it's supposed to be Paul's story, not Germany's. That's the biggest mistake of the new version; it tries to tell Germany's story instead of Paul's, and while there's an avenue for that (they were way too kind to German High Command and the politicians negotiating the armistice imo), it's not this book.
The book wasn't anti war. In the movie they get too much on the anti war theme while in the book all it was telling was the story of the men who were destroyed by the war. Edit the movie was ok but 1930 and 1979 were better on their portrayal.
Excellent analysis. World War One has been an obsession of mine for decades and I heard nothing in your analysis that contradicted anything I ever read. And of all the WW1 novels, Remarque's book is probably the most romantic. I wish more people teaching about the literature of the Great War exposed student to Graves' "Goodbye To All That" or March's "Company K".
Great video and valid points. The classic All quiet on the Western Front from the 1930s is one of my all time favourites, while the 2022 Version was so hard to watch, unfortunaltely. At some point I am doing a video about this or better these movies too, but having a closer look to their history, especially of that from the 1930s.
I’m glad this movie was re done again. It may not be perfect, your analysis is excellent, but, it keeps the message fresh for a new generation of viewers and will foster a new generation to read the book and explore its themes. The message of the book, war, trauma, grief, are timeless. And, we need the reminder.
The thing is, I haven't read the book or seen the earlier adaptations. If I had, I probably would've seen the 2022 film the way you saw it. You bring up excellent points and you really made me want to read the book, but I still think that the 2022 film is a good one if you don't expect it to be loyal for the book! It must be seen as an independent work of art
Same here. I'm actually surprised I never read the book.... but I haven't. It might a different field altogether, but I really loved the first Conon movie with Arnold. Reading the Robert E Howard books later, THESE are the real stories, so awesome! If I had read the books first, I'd likely would have been POed to no end with the movie. Instead I can enjoy both.
this is true of most things. You can't judge a movie based on the book, they are separate pieces of work. I love the LOTR movies, but if i try to compare them to the books they lack the depth of complexity, because you can't do the depth and complexity of books in a 3 hour movie.
My grandfather William was born in 1887. Italian front, Alpini Fiamme Verdi. From Isonzo to Piave, Caporetto, Vidor, Solstizio in first wave bayonet assaults. The hell on earth. He was a survivor. Rip. MV
My opinion on why you require the "zoomed out" approach as it were, is because we are now too well aware of PTSD etc. In the 30' and even as late as the 90s we were not really taking this seriously. We get it. The watchers of the series get it. The Director gets it. What is lost... after a generation brought up on the war on terror, remote killings and CNN/BBC sanitized War reporting, the true horror of the first and second world wars needs repeating (unfortunately). We don't need the subtlety here.... we need the horror. Now, as we see similar warfare being borne out in Ukraine, the fact that the big nation state warfare was essentially removed from doctrine is being shown up. This is the right series, at the right time and done in the right way.
From a historical point of view, you also have to remember that war on the scale of WW1 had never been fathomed by past generations. The biggest wars Europe had endured before then were the Napoleonic wars which were literally 100 years in the past. No one understood the level of destruction that belt-fed machine guns and nonstop artillery barrages could bring. I mean, France literally was still doing Calvary charges on horses when WW1 began because they had no idea how outdated such a type of attack would be.
This isn’t to say that war has never not been devastating on the minds of bodies of soldiers, but that the civilians literally could not understand the depths of horror their soldiers were experiencing.
Good analysis. The separation between the image and reality is particularly strong in war. But in principle it is a general problem that we also find elsewhere. A really interesting topic. I haven't seen the new film yet, but the more I learn, the less I want to.
I've never been in war but i was constriped. It felt horrible that we were expected to die for our country, it felt even more complicated when i never even when to school in singapore. I used to be into modelling tanks but overtime it turned into bitterness towards it as it reminded of the expendibilty of us. I got into the railway because at the end of the day it was close enough to how i was trained but my purpose, it wasnt to kill or to capture but to bring people home or to let people explore the state.
Isso é realmente sombrio
o fato que mesmo depois de todo aquele inferno,
vocÊ chega em casa, e olha as pessoas sendo cegas por tudo que os soldados tiverão que passar.
Que pena que não teve isso no filme.
mas os filmes e o livro são muito bons!
I agree with your critic about the movie.
I like AQOTWF 2022 portrays for its brutality and violence on the frontline, but it misses on the commentary/aspect of the home front.
Still, all of the adaptations are great and excel in its own ways.
💯
The scene where his friend realizes how badly he's wounded and decides to kill himself with a fork he gives him. The other soldiers take his food while Paul is in shock. Jesus that was powerful
I also think it's a good movie, but with a few serious flaws. Less brutal than the book, too.
The 2022 version of this movie didn't show the camaraderie and pain of loss of losing each friend slowly, one by one, the pain Paul suffered from going back home on leave and seeing his family. He never got to leave, and all of his classmates were killed immediately when they all got there. For as low budget as the 1979 version was, it was still superior.
Thank you.
I read the book and saw the 1979 movie version when I was younger and despite looking forward to the 2022 movie I felt it did not capture the soul of the Remarque's work and could not understand the praise for the movie.
Also, the other versions are from US, so I love to watch a German version
To be fair I never saw the original movie but I think that the 2020 movie is grate I often here the critic that the movie sets Germans as the good guys but I think the movie was the best movie I ever saw that shows the horror of war the disconnection of the officials and the soliders is true but ithink the point is still clear by the rest.