All Quiet On The Western Front: 1930 - NOW We’re Getting Somewhere
Number Three on the list is All Quiet On The Western Front from 1930, directed by Lewis Milestone. It tells the story of a group of naive and hot-headed German students driven to enlist in World War I by a patriotic professor, only to have the loss, trauma, and shell-shock destroy them from the outside in. I was riveted from the very beginning of the movie, so I didn’t write a single note while I was watching. However, I did take note of what the introductory card said: “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession and least of all an adventure for death is not an adventure for those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, revenge though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war...” Honestly, I don’t have a ton to say about it. It was a great movie. The only difficulty I had was trying to differentiate character names; All Quiet was, in its essence, an ensemble film, so learning a lot of character names...