MovieChat Forums > All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Discussion > Hamfisted antiwar propaganda

Hamfisted antiwar propaganda

posted 2 years ago by SlackerInc (1101)
9 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong: the screenwriter had his heart in the right place. No sane person would defend World War I as an honorable war, or anything other than a horrific meat grinder that swallowed up a whole generation of young men. But I would have loved to see a bit more subtlety in the lines he wrote for the actors to recite.

As an example, here are three consecutive unedited lines of didactic dialogue from the film:

"You see, when you jumped in here you were my enemy and I was afraid of you. But you're just a man like me, and I killed you. Forgive me, comrade." 🤦‍♂️

Like, yeah: we GET it. We're all brothers under the different-colored uniforms, and war is bad, mmkay? Seems like there was a total lack of faith in audiences to figure it out if they just showed that war is hell and left it at that.

Really good action setpieces and production design though. It feels like they really went for authenticity, unlike with the dialogue.

[–] moviechatterer (15583) 2 years ago

soooo what you saying? wars are good apart from that one ?
which were the fun healthy wars?
the "honorable" ones as you put it

you say "antiwar propaganda" like war is something to be strived towards!

[–] SlackerInc (1101) 2 years ago

Did you miss where I said the screenwriter had his heart in the right place? I just want more sophisticated writing. Every single time someone writes a movie as a polemic, no matter how good the cause, I balk at being hit by the sledgehammer of their good intentions.

[–] jriley555 (8118) 2 years ago

Actually, you didn't get it. In the context of its time, this was a foundational film, in terms of production values, also in terms of realism. It expressed the mood of the age, disgust at the staggering death, on a scale that had never been seen.

Acting as an art was still working its way out of the theatrical norms, which relied upon broad gesture. It was also a far less ironic time.

The film has to be judged in its own context. It is a masterpiece.

[–] SlackerInc (1101) 2 years ago

I mean, "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) and "Earth" (1930) were much more sophisticated. Sure, those were foreign films, but when you're down to having to add the caveats that it's well-written for an American film of the time, maybe we should just say American movies weren't that well written yet at that point. (That had changed in a big way by the time "Citizen Kane" and "Double Indemnity" came out a decade later.)

[–] FilmBuff (7234) 2 years ago

You've handpicked two films that are considered among the best of their time as proof that foreign films were better than American films of the era. You've also chosen two silent films from the final days of the silent era and matched them up against one of the earliest talkies. All Quiet on the Western Front is every bit the equal of the two films you mention, and if the spoken dialogue is clunky by 2022 standards, that's in part because it's nearly 100 years old, but primarily because talking pictures were new, and filmmakers had not yet figured out what worked as spoken dialogue.

[–] SlackerInc (1101) 2 years ago

I mean, they had theatrical plays as a guiding principle. Even to this day, there's a lot of overlap between the theatre and cinema. And I can point to plays from before 1931 that have much better dialogue than in "All Quiet". Not to mention the literature that was out there from James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, etc.

I just sharply disagree that this talkie is the equal of the two silent films I mentioned. Those are two of my favorite films of all time, and "All Quiet"...is not.

[–] TheArgentinian (7062) 2 years ago

Trying to impose modern "balanced" views on a film from 1930. What a moron.

Wait until you see American propaganda films made during WW2.

[–] SlackerInc (1101) 2 years ago

Yeah, I've seen them. Am I supposed to think they're good, just because that was common at the time? There's stuff that's common, and popular, today that I know isn't any good.

[–] TheArgentinian (7062) 2 years ago

Yes, they are great films regardless of being propaganda.

Better knowledgeable people in the language of cinema will tell you why if you watch this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Came_Back_(TV_series)