Lewis Milestone (born Leib Milstein in Chișinău in 1895) is one of those immigrant filmmakers who laid the foundations of the American film industry and whose biographies await screenwriters to turn them into memorable films. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front‘ was made in 1930, only a year after the publication of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. Just as the German writer’s book is considered one of the most successful anti-war works, Milestone‘s film about war is also considered a masterpiece of the genre. Any good war film is also an anti-war film – I’ve said it on other occasions and it applies here. Additionally, the film earned Milestone the first Academy Award for film directing in the sound film era, a year after he had received the award (in the comedy category). To this day, he is the only director in the history of the Academy to receive two Academy Awards for film directing in two consecutive years. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front‘ had two versions, one of which was silent for the many venues that were not yet equipped with sound amplifiers in that transitional period. It is a remarkable film and it is also a milestone in the history of the transition from silent to sound film.
The script follows quite faithfully the novel, the film being considered one of the most outstanding screen adaptations of an important novel in world literature. The first scenes take place in a German town at the beginning of the First World War. The patriotic atmosphere and the confidence in an easy victory also infected the students of a high school class, encouraged by their teacher’s demagogic speeches. Most enlist voluntarily. Paul Baumer, a young man with ambitions to become a writer, is not very enthusiastic, but he lets himself be carried away. He, along with six of his colleagues and friends, will go through basic training and be sent to the front after a few weeks of rudimentary instruction. The realities of the front are completely different from those described by the press and teachers or imagined by the young men. Violence, disorganization, hunger, corruption reign and the danger of mutilation or death is constant. Paul befriends an older soldier, Kat (Katcinsky), who takes the group of recruits under his tutelage, manages to procure food, teaches them the secrets of survival. The war begins to grind down the members of the group one by one. On leave after being wounded, Paul visits his family and the town, but is immediately shocked and disgusted by the ignorance of those back home about the realities of war and the unchanged patriotic demagoguery of the café bourgeois, including his teacher. Back on the battlefield, he will only find Kat. The end of the war is drawing near, but Paul’s generation, what few are left, is lost.
The narrative structure is excellent, building on the story in the novel. The names of the actors no longer mean much to today’s movie fans, but I will still mention the memorable creations of Lew Ayres (Paul) and Louis Wolheim (Kat). The former was only 22 years old when he made this film. It can be seen that he is already an actor of the sound film era and he indeed had a long career. Louis Wolheim had trained at the silent film school. He specialized in expressive compositional roles and at one point was declared ‘the ugliest actor in Hollywood’. He would die a year after playing the role of Kat, a pinnacle of her career. Fix camera scenes bear the stamp of the silent movies, with elaborate compositions and sophisticated framing. It is the battle scenes that are especially impressive. This version of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front‘ was made in the so-called Pre-Code period, that is, before the formal adoption of the censorship rules that determined what an American film could show on screen. The violence of war depicted realistically, with mobile cameras and bold angles, could not have been shown in this way after 1934 and until 1956 when the Code was revised (total elimination only occurred in 1968). Without the visual impact, this political, social, moral story about war and anti-war would not have had the same impact. Revisited today, as the one-century anniversary of its filming approaches, Lewis Milestone‘s film remains surprisingly expressive and powerful in its message. This message is also still relevant, and will be as long as other generations of young people are lost in wars.