All Quiet on the Western Front

Professor Milada Polisenska

5 June, 2008Tyrone Schiff

I decided to watch the film called, All Quiet on The Western Front, which wasmade in the year 1930. It is a film based on a book. The book itself did unbelievably well,selling over 2.5 million copies. The film fared equally as well, ending up winning the best picture award at the 1930 Oscar Awards.The movie is a commentary on the horrors of war. It follows a group of school boys through their enlistment and eventual fighting that they have to do in World War I.Things pick up when the boys are encouraged by a school teacher of theirs to enlist in thearmy. They end up joining together, but at the wrong time. War is about to break out andthat means that they will have to go and fight.The movie does a superb job of showcasing on an individual level how terribleand scary war is. The movie shows death in its scariest form and shows how the boyshave to deal with the hardships of trench warfare as was necessary in World War I. As themovie progresses, the young, innocent boys that we saw at the beginning become hardand ruthless. Their ideas of the “enemy” and of the ideas of “right and wrong,” soon slipaway as the mutilation of war surrounds and encompass their entire being.The main protagonist of the film is Paul Bäumer, through who the movie tells thestory. We can see as the movie progresses how Paul’s disconnects his mind from hisfeelings, keeping his emotions at bay in order to preserve his sanity and survive. As aresult, the compassionate young man becomes unable to mourn his dead comrades,unable to feel at home among his family, unable to express his feelings about the war or even talk about his experiences, unable to remember the past fully, and unable toconceive of a future without war.2