Not long after Erich Maria Remarque published his seminal anti-war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, an American film adaptation won the Oscar for best picture.
In 1979, there was another screen adaptation, this time a two-and-a-half hour made-for-TV movie on US network CBS.
In the almost 100 years since Remarque wrote the story of fictional German soldier Paul Baumer, a tale of the cruelty of war and of innocence lost, no German version had been made.
Filmmaker Edward Berger wanted to change that. He wanted to create a film in which there were no heroes, only pointless, ugly death.
“You can’t tell a hero story,” he told news.com.au. “How could you? Germans have a very shameful and guilt-laden history of war.
“What happens is just another loss of life, no matter which side it’s on. Let’s say, in an American war film, you could kill the enemy and it’s a good thing. But in a German war film, that obviously can’t be, and it shouldn’t be in any war film.
“But Germans have inherited nothing but great shame and guilt, and a sense of responsibility towards history. Whereas Americans or British can look at a war, at that part of history, with a certain sense of honour and pride. That’s the difference.”
Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front is an unsentimental and raw depiction of the utter inhumanity of World War I. It’s both an expansive epic and an intimate personal story.
It tracks the journey of Paul, a 17-year-old boy swept up in the nationalistic fervour of false promises of glory and victory, only to be thrust in the murderous reality of the trenches. Every young body is disposable, exploited to wage a war no one understood, fighting for arbitrary and outdated ideals.
Berger’s film, with stunning cinematography by James Friend doesn’t hold back from the chaos of the front.
“A war film like this has to be brutal,” the director said. “It has to be visceral and physical. We wanted to make a subjective film that really puts you in Paul’s shoes. You mentioned earlier that it’s unsentimental. That’s the tone of the book and it was very important to me because it describes things without really judging it or commenting on it. It lets you imbue it with your own feeling.
“If it hadn’t been brutal, it would have felt to me like propaganda. You have to be shaking.”
All Quiet on the Western Front dropped in Netflix in late October without much – or any – fanfare. But then it blew up in the big way when it started to show up on the awards circuit as a contender in the non-English language/international feature categories.
What many maybe didn’t see coming was the film’s resounding success in two of the most notable awards ceremonies, the BAFTAs and Oscars. It was nominated comprehensively across a range of categories indicating a deep respect for Berger and his team’s work.
At the BAFTAs, it won seven gongs, including Best Picture and Best Director for Berger. At the Oscars, it is nominated for nine awards, including the top prize. It is widely expected to win International Feature, the question is how many more it’ll pick up along the way.
When Berger came across an English-language of the script and was rewriting it from the German perspective, it already had an added element, one which wasn’t in Remarque’s book.
The film dedicates a subplot to politician Matthias Erzberger’s mission to end the war and negotiate an armistice with the Allied powers.
“I thought it was important to build this out because it’s a great contrast to the trenches,” Berger explained. “Erzberger was used as a military patsy. He was sent there to negotiate the peace because [the military] was too scared to go because they thought they would be blamed for losing the war.
“So they sent him and then blamed him later. Claimed they were stabbed in the back by the politicians and that they would’ve won the war, which, of course, was complete nonsense.”
Erzberger was killed by nationalists two years after the war, by extremists swayed by a false narrative, the same that will eventually give rise to the Nazis.
“It was important to include that story because it sheds light on the war that has yet to come. It didn’t stop with the First World War. You might have thought we would’ve learnt a lesson from starting that war in 1914 but 20 years later, they began another one.
“That was crazy to me and I just can’t ignore that fact now.”
And the now is intrinsically linked to Berger’s artistic mission.
When All Quiet on the Western Front came out last year, a lot of the conversation around it, rather naturally, made comparisons to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Berger was in pre-production on the film in 2020 and shot it in 2021, before the conflict in Ukraine, but what’s going on there is part of a larger wave sweeping across the world.
“We wanted to make a film about the rising sense of nationalism, of patriotism and of isolationism found all over the world – in America, in England with Brexit, in Hungary with the right-wing party in government, and in Germany with a part being voted into office.
“These parties had a language that I thought had disappeared from the world. That worried me. It felt not that different from hundred years ago, what I’d read in history books.
“So this felt like a very relevant movie to make.”
All Quiet on the Western Front is in streaming now on Netflix