I'll probably be flamed for this, but why is this movie so highly rated. I dig the fact that it talks about a sensitive and important issue. The cinematography, is done nice for its time, but aside from that what the hell does this movie have? My god sound is so weak that it's annoying, you can barely understand what these guys are saying. I give it 5 out of 10.
shareyer nuts
shareIts rated so high because people dont agree with your opinion.
shareThis movie is great because of its realism. There aren't any action stars gunning down wave after wave of enemy soldiers and cracking one liners, or some meaningless love story which pushes the war into the background. It has also been able to withstand the test of time an compete with the newer movies which have the benefit of technology going for them.
shareGive the sound a break, this movie was made just when "talkies" were becoming the norm. This movie was also taken from a classic novel and it also shows the Great War from the German perspective, which was (is) rare.
shareActually the Great War from any perspective is quite rare in movies. Filmmakers tend to consentrate on the sequal
shareThe sound is weak?
That's really the only criticism you can come up with?
Wow.
Have American moviegoers really been so conditioned by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay that they think a movie can't be good unless it blows out your eardrums with a bunch of gratuitous explosions?
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I agree with the OP.
I watched this film for a history & film course, & I didn't find it to be that great.
The cinematography is amazing (as the OP said) & I found that aspect very impressive. While I too thought the sound wasn't great, I didn't fault the film for that because of its era. The real weakness of this film (in my opinion) was that I felt the dialog was somewhat weak & the acting was ridiculous at some points.
I'll admit that I began this film prejudiced against it because I'm extremely annoyed by films set in another country (e.g. Germany) where the dialogue is completely in English (sans a few German patriotic songs within the film) when they should be speaking a foreign language (German, in this film's case).
If they were going for true realism, I would think Universal could have easily found competent actors able to speak German.
To put my feelings for this film in perspective, for my course we watched both this film & "La Grande Illusion" (1937) for the same week (focusing on WWI). I was extremely impressed by all aspects of "La Grande Illusion" & would easily place it in my top 10 films of all time, but in comparison I thought this film was simply overrated.
This is all just my opinion.
Why ?
Errr perhaps cos it was made in 1930 and is still better & more realistic than about 98% of war films made in the 80 years since then
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" No Ace. Just You "
Oh, I have no problem with the realism at all; as I said, the cinematography during the battle scenes was great.
My issues with the film were the acting & the dialog. I felt (again, this is only an opinion) that the dialog was weak & the acting laughable was at some points.
My only other issue is that they chose to make this film in English; I can never take any film seriously that does that (e.g. has the characters speaking English regardless of the fact they should be speaking German).
I've never understood this kind of criticism. The movie was made for an English speaking audience. Would you really rather have read subtitles throughout the film?
Anyway, the film is supposed to be a universal anti-war commentary. The fact that it involved German soldiers in World War I is merely incidental. If you think it's supposed to some sort of hyper-accurate war documentary, you completely missed the point of the film.
Actually, using your line of reasoning, I guess the book it's based on never should have been translated to English. In fact, no book should ever be translated into a language other than its original to preserve the "realism," right?
And I guess all the Star Wars movies should have been entirely in a made-up alien language. After all, what are the chances that there were being speaking English in a galaxy far, far away?
And Braveheart was set before the modern English language even existed. The English nobility at that time spoke medieval French and the Scots would have been speaking Scottish Gaelic, I suppose.
Have made similar complaints against those movies?
I say anybody who believes the characters should have spoken German ought to be thankful that they didn't make them speak English with German accents. It's an American film that was targeted at English speaking audiences. Of course we have to view it with the assumption that we are listening it through a 'translation filter' so to speak. Anybody watching this would be aware that in-universe they are speaking in German. However, I say that making it entirely in German with subtitles would have hurt the film's impact. In having an English script they establish something which is often lost in WW2 era films produced by the Allied powers. They convey that the Germans were three dimensional human beings who were more like us than our propaganda-influenced mindsets care to admit even in modern cinema.
As for the complaints for the acting, while there exist several films where that particular department could be regarded tighter with good justification, solid actors were chosen where they were most important. Scenes such as the foxhole scene with the dying French soldier and the monologue in the classroom will probably be burned into my memory for a long time. If you want to detract from a film for it's acting to a point where a rating lower than a 7 is justified, there exist thousands of films more deserving of your criticism than this.
"I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe"
I have to agree with you. I've seen every Oscar-winning "Best Picture", and, to be perfectly honest, this is just another film that people love to overrate. Sure, the meaning behind it is powerful, but let's not overlook the cornucopia of poorly-executed cinematic techniques, of which sound design is just one. The acting is, at times, cringe-worthy, the pacing is erratic, the dialogue is exaggerated, and the story is contrived. On the other hand, the tone is appropriately harrowing, the cinematography is aesthetically engaging, and certain aspects of the mise-en-scène are rather impressive, for its time. All I mean to say is: let's not give this film more praise than it's due simply because it a) was released in 1930, b) appeals to the common man's aversion to war, or c) triggers nostalgic sentiments in the viewer. All Quiet On The Western Front is fair-to-middling, at best.
shareFour questions:
So by your standard, every film released prior to about 1935 is "fair-to-middling," right? How obtuse. No film from 1930 has good sound, and almost all of them have "cringe-worthy" acting (it's only cringe-worthy because you've been bred in a post-Brando world, but whatever) and "exaggerated" dialogue.
What do you mean by the story being contrived? Almost every scene comes from a well-renowned 300-page novel. It's condensed a bit and they changed Tjaden's character a tad. Other than that, they copied the basic frame straight from the book.
How do you figure the "common man" has an aversion to war? What do you mean by "common man," exactly?
How can something "trigger nostalgic sentiments" in viewers who did not live through the time period or experience anything of what's being shown?
Sometimes it takes getting older to realize you did not have the maturity to understand some things, this is one of them. This movie is great if you can understand it from the context of when it was made, and how well it holds up today.
There are many movies that 'I' don't get, but it is not always the movie.
It would help me to take your comment more seriously if you could provide evidence for your opinions. Would you be kind enough to explain what it is that makes this film so mature?
shareI guess the simplest way to respond to you is to answer each of your questions one at a time:
1) First off, I'm not sure where you're getting 1935 from, considering that my comment noted the year 1930, but regardless, I would encourage you to investigate the history of world cinema before making such a misguided claim as "No film from 1930 has good sound, and almost all of them have 'cringe-worthy' acting." Such assertions only suggest a lack of knowledge concerning film history, and in no way do they bolster your argument.
For starters, 1929 marked the third year of commercially successful sync-sound filmmaking in Hollywood and boasted a title that collected two Academy Awards, one for “Best Actress in a Leading Role” and the other for “Best Picture.” I’m speaking, of course, of The Broadway Melody, a movie that manages to showcase the expressive platform of vaudeville by setting song and dance routines against the enduring backdrop of romance. While I'm obviously not one to blindly agree with popular opinion, in the case of this film, I must say that its acclaim is indeed substantiated. On another note, had you known that Alfred Hitchcock's career did not actually begin in the late 1950s, like most "movie buffs" of today seem to think? Indeed, he was arguably an even more adept storyteller in his early years than in the second half of his career, as evidenced by the early talkie Blackmail (1929), which demonstrates not only Hitchcock's ability to bring sound to an art-form previously devoid of such technology, but also his ability to skillfully interweave action and sound to build suspense and create one of the most classic mystery films of the 1920s. And who can forget Fritz Lang's masterpiece M (1931), which set the precedent for nearly all conventions of modern day sound design, while simultaneously showcasing Peter Lorre's legendary onscreen criminal persona! If you’ve not seen this film, then you should honestly reserve all sound-related comments until you've done so.
2) Contrived: "too obviously the result of forethought and planning; not spontaneous or natural; artificial; labored" (Webster's New World College Dictionary; American Heritage Dictionary 4). This story is forced; there is no neutrality or ambiguity to it. We are being spoon-fed anti-war sentiments, with absolutely no partiality or consideration for the need to participate in war.
3) By "common man," I mean to say "most people", as in: most people would say that war is terrible. I don’t believe that I need to belabor this point. Instead, I’ll rest the validity of my claim against the pretext that you will not be able to name even just three pro-war films made within the last one hundred years.
4) It is not uncommon for viewers that have gone to war, or who have loved-ones that have gone to war, to praise war films because they feel a sense of honor concerning their service (I chose to label this sentiment "nostalgia"). My comment states that "the meaning behind [All Quiet On The Western Front] is powerful," and it specifically calls attention to the film’s “poorly-executed cinematic techniques.” Taking a course in film analysis can help one better distinguish between film style and the social-historical implications of film genre.
Having reread your comment, I cannot say that I felt completely unfazed by your tone. Yet, I'm fairly certain that I did not need to elaborate further on these points in order for you to understand what I'm saying. All of your questions could have been answered by simply: 1) researching film history; and 2) using the dictionary. But, I could be wrong ...
You're an idiot.
shareEnough of this "it has a great message crap." Everybody knows that, but we are judging a film, not a message alone. The movie is great, but not im my top 100. The acting is bad, the script is not that amazing. Plus, the characters just seem unrealistic. Overall, the film just cannot measure up to a film like "Paths of Glory" or "The Bridge on the river Kwai." They have just as important of a message. Oh! they also are flawless examples of great filmaking.
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