The 2022 version of "No War on the Western Front" is the third film version in film history based on the novel of the same name created by German writer Remarque, and the only one that puts the German in the director's chair.
Why emphasize that this is a novel written by a German writer and the first time a German director has been directed?
Because the original book was first serialized in newspapers in 1928 and published the next year, and it was in this year (1929) that the world's economic crisis began, German politics and economics were also a mess, and the mustache took the opportunity to pay incompetence with reparations for defeat in the First World War, and promised to let every German family have milk and bread on the table and get more and more votes...
Just the year after the novel's publication, in 1930, it was produced in the United States and directed by Russian director Lewis Myerston, bringing the story to the big screen for the first time in black and white.
Compared with the visual effects of today's war blockbusters, this black-and-white film more than 90 years ago naturally has no audiovisual advantages, and even has a sense of memorizing lines in dialogue, but it still cannot hide the appeal of this movie. The first war scene in the film can definitely be called a textbook war scene, even if it is a black and white film, you can feel the blood and shock.
The best thing about this war drama is that there is no element of heroism, and there is no distinction between good and evil. Let every audience look at the cruelty of war from the most objective perspective. The German government instigated a large number of young students to join the army. However, when the nineteen-year-old protagonist Paul and his classmates really walked on the Western Front, as the first shell exploded, the tragic war also instantly withdrew the soldiers' "human" attributes, making them a war machine that only knew how to charge.
To see a person rush up, how to kill left and right, how to avoid bullets, one shot at a time, this is not called war; Watching a group of people rush up, swept down by rows of Maxim heavy machine guns, and their lives are like ants, this is war.
As tanks, poison gas, airplanes and other latest technologies entered the human arsenal one after another, after a series of fierce battles known as "meat grinders", the First World War ended at a heavy cost of more than 10 million soldiers.
Especially the treatment at the end of the film, the protagonist Paul reached out from the trench to catch a butterfly and was hit by a French sniper, and the camera only shot a close-up of his hand gradually immoving, full of tension, making this shot a classic in film history.
At the same time, it also won the best picture and best director awards at the third Oscars. So much so that the 1930 version of No War on the Western Front is one of the few early sound films still enjoyed by contemporary audiences.
Lewis Myerston
And the mustache, who was busy on stage at this time, simply ignored this anti-war novel and adapted anti-war film about young Germans going to World War I a decade ago. Therefore, he did not learn the lesson of the blood of countless young lives left in the muddy trenches before they could bloom during the First World War.
Later, "No War on the Western Front" was banned and burned, the film was banned, and the German people once again fell into a collective war frenzy. The original author, Remarque, went into exile in Switzerland and then immigrated to the United States.
Remarque
When the remake of this work is 34 years after the end of World War II, this time it is still produced in the United States, and the American director Delbert Mann, who previously won the Oscar for Best Director and the Cannes Palme d'Or for "A Gentleman's Good".
Delbert Mann
The second edition of "The Western Front" in 1979 was already a color film, and the color also made the film more shocking in showing the huge consumption of life by war, and batch after batch of new soldiers became smaller and smaller, and their faces became whiter and whiter...
In general, the 1930 version is closer to the original, and the 1979 version is more exciting, because the ending treatment of the former is too classic, and the latter still uses the mood that Paul did not have in the original book, Paul catching a butterfly and being hit by a bullet, and adding rendering.
At the end of this movie, Paul saw a lark on a branch in the trench, he took the paper and drew it, and stood up while drawing, but when he was out of his mind, he was shot by the French, and in an instant he fell, the painting in his hand was soaked in muddy water, and the shot was a close-up of the lark he painted, and the tension was still full.
And echoes the beginning of the film, the last lesson before the war. He was drawing larks outside the window in his classroom, and at this moment, everything came to an abrupt end, Paul died, and the armistice was only a week away, and the German newspaper headline was "No war on the Western Front".
What does "no war" mean? In the film is the final shot, declaring the end of the war? It probably also indicates that the war has not stopped there, because the subside of the First World War has not been exchanged for a long period of peace, and the people who have experienced the war have only gained a short respite, and World War II is in the near future.
"No war" may just be an expectation. 104 years after the end of World War I and 77 years after the end of World War II, it is finally the Germans' turn to tell this story.
This version of the movie has a rating of 8.6, higher than the 8.3 of the 79 version, and lower than the 8.9 of the 30 version, which is just stuck in the middle. In fact, this also reflects the problems of the film, fortunately, the visual effects, the first few static shots of the film, the distant mountains and forests, the canopy of the trees shot on the back, the battlefield shot from the top, the composition is very beautiful. But the German creators' self-expression seems to be lacking in depth, or strangely angled.
For example, the soldiers in the 2020 version of "Western Front" are not portrayed enough, and they seem to be in a hurry to become a military medal, needless to say, this is a tribute to "Saving Private Ryan", strange;
There is also the change of the location of Paul and Carter stealing geese from the regimental headquarters of the 30th edition of the German army to the farmers in France, so that the protagonist instantly changes from a "hero" to a "hairy thief", strange!
At worst, they abandoned the dramatic design of the first two editions, allowing Paul to fall under the enemy's bayonet, walk out of the tunnel at the end of his life, look up at the sky, and close his eyes in a corner of the trench to death. Compared with the end of the previous two versions, this version is too specific and lacks artistic conception.
In short, the three versions of the story are exactly the same, slowly unfolding from the first perspective of a young soldier Paul, starting from high school, the principal who loves the motherland, the father who is keen on glory, the passionate classmates, everything tells you how glorious it is to fight for the country, and how vulnerable the two countries next door are...
But after you actually go to the battlefield, you find that your former classmates have fallen one after another. Slowly, Paul takes the audience to discover that if we can sit down with the enemy on the other side, we can talk about politics, history, and grievances. You may find that we like to listen to the same song, like the same type of girl, like to eat the same taste of meals, like to drink the same brand of beer. We all hope - there is no war on the Western Front!