All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Upon completion of All Quiet on the Western Front , I had a myriad of thoughts flashing through my brain. The thought on the top of my head was, “how on earth was this film made in 1930?” It is a film that is way ahead of its time, cinematically and thematically. The film is clearly an anti-war film that discusses the horrors of World War I, which only ended about a decade before. This is a powerful, thoughtful movie and its one that is relevant some ninety years later. This is one of the first war films in the sound era, and it really revolutionized how war films were made. Steven Spielberg later credited this film for his 1998 picture Saving Private Ryan , which is often heralded as one of the genre’s best. Lewis Milestone’s film is based off the controversial book written by Erich Maria Remarque. The book, which details the horror of war, was banned in many countries because of its anti-war message. The book and film were banned in ...