Faithful rendering of the greatest anti-war novel

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2008)

Most of us have probably read a wonderful novel and found ourselves casting a movie version and envisioning how certain scenes would appear on screen. Most of us have probably been disappointed in a movie based of a favorite book.
Lewis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is in every way equal to Erich Maria Remarque's World War I novel of the same name. Milestone recreates trench warfare in scenes that still have a raw power, with their gut-wrenching depiction of violence and danger, their rodents and dysentery.
How Paul, the young German soldier who narrates the book, gets to the front lines with his buddies happens quickly in both the novel and the movie. Paul's bellicose schoolmaster has whipped his students into a frenzy over the glories of war and service to one's country. He quotes the famous declaration of the Greek poet Horace, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." The English translation is "sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country." But Professor Kantorek conveniently forgets the lines that follow: "sweeter it is to live for one's country, and sweeter still to drink of it." As the camera pans around the classroom it reveals only little boys, and even viewers who have not read the book know that they will soon be cannon fodder. Before that happens we learn a little about all of them, enough to care when they are gravely wounded or killed. The war makes men out of these boys in only a few weeks.
Lew Ayres plays Paul as an Everyman for all the boys in Division 2. The story is told through his eyes as it is in the novel, in a straightforward, highly effective narrative. As Paul, Ayres does some of the best work of his career. The horrors of war, and many are suggested here; speak for themselves. The screenplay is faithful to the spirit of Remarque's novel. Subjective commentary is really superfluous. The film does several things the book can't, one of which is to use slow tracking shots over the trenches. It's a subtle effect unusual for its day. The production design is so vividly detailed it's nearly impossible to believe "All Quiet on the Western Front" was shot entirely on studio back lots.
It is only towards the end of the story, when Paul has a lengthy leave and goes home, that he departs from his blunt narrative to ask himself the big questions. He worries if he will be able to live a civilian life, to carve out a career, have a family. His excursion from the front, far away from the constant bombardment of the shells should bring him some respite, some pleasure. But he finds none. And maybe it takes a soldier to understand that a lice-infested redoubt where one false move can leave you holding your intestines in your hands can, in a strange way, feel like home.
Milestone and his screenwriters made a smart move in treating the cast of "All Quiet on the Western Front" as an ensemble. As the men grow up -- and many of them do survive for two years or more -- it is obvious that these young soldiers have formed attachments of a kind they will never have again even if they live to be old men. When Paul is out on leave and runs into old acquaintances, they ask him "so, how is it out there?" What can he tell them? When he drops in on his old Professor he is giving the same rousing call to arms he gave to Paul and his buddies several years earlier. Kantorek wants Paul to echo his sentiments. Paul won't lie, but the truth is impossible to describe.
Rarely in the book or the movie are the names of specific battles given. It doesn't matter; they were more or less the same. Visitors to the battlefields of Northern France might be amazed at how much evidence still exists of the trenches and the battle lines like those where Paul and his comrades fought "The War To End Wars." 90 years later, farmers and hikers in the woods still find unexploded bombs (UXBs). Many a farmer tilling his land has been killed by one. If found before they go off, there are three depots in France where UXBs are taken and detonated safely. Children used to decorate fence posts with rusting German and French helmets. Bone fragments were routinely found by anyone working the soil until the 1960s. There is still so much metal in the ground near Verdun that very little green will grow there. And every few months some country loses its last WWI veteran. They are over 100 years old now. How many of their stories mirror those of the men in Paul's Division? Time and the elements are eroding the memories of WWI, but Remarque's story and Milestone's superb film will ensure that they will last, even if their message is never absorbed by any country preparing for war.