Hacker Cinema
All Quiet on the Western Front
Im Westen nichts Neues
2022 · Film · 147 min
Directed by Edward Berger
Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.
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I've read Graves' Lawrence and the Arabs (Ranulph Fiennes wrote a recent, new bio of Lawrence that I hear is worth reading), but not his work on the Western front. The most interesting military histories I've read concerned the Mongols. Scholarship has improved, on them, in recent years. And hygiene, it turns out, is a major ingredient in a military's success.
But you're right, of course. (Also, Aragorn might have died of tetanus, or an infected, minor wound; though there is an implication, in LOTR, that within the world of the story, the Elves have a brought to Middle Earth a sophisticated knowledge of medicine, along with everything else. Aragorn became a reknowned 'healer', etc, from staying with them. So you're right; LOTR inhabits a different world altogether from our Middle Ages).
We can't remotely imagine the shock and horror it must have been for men like Robert Graves and Tolkien, to know only picturesque townships and bucolic landscapes, and THEN abruptly be thrust into the hellscape of the Western front. (The recent movie, All Quiet on the Western Front is extraordinarily good at showing how hellish it was. Brilliant, in that respect, though I warn you: it is not a good time). But again, these considerations, regarding history and the culture of the past, are utterly beyond the scope and capacities of the neo-feudalists. They have no conception of the world they're creating, nor how ill-suited they are to inhabiting it.
>Sounds like the German film Das Boot is a winner (the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front is also amazing. Looks like the German film industry is doing well).
It is? By what metric?
Yes, Das Boot is a fantastic movie, but it came out around 1980; that's about 45 years ago now!
The new AQotWF movie has great reviews too. It just came out within the last year I think.
That's two great movies in a 50-year period. This is not what I would call "doing well".
There might be a few more examples of good German movies, but overall I would not call the German film industry world-leading by any means.
If you get a chance, visit an Apple Store and ask to watch 2024 "Submerged" — first scripted film in Immersive Video — on Vision Pro.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/yDvASSABhNQ?si=iVSqDKuIUlrh23IF
Apple commissioned director Edward Berger (Academy Award-winning "All Quiet on the Western Front") to make this story of a torpedo attack on a U.S. sub during WW2.
Talk about claustrophobia and fear....
Sounds like the German film Das Boot is a winner (the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front is also amazing. Looks like the German film industry is doing well).
My fave was the burb by Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel (U.S. Navy).
All Quiet on the Western Front (1933) has a silent version. It was shot differently.
More - https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?num_votes=10000,&sound_mixes=silent&sort=user_rating,desc
Also I quite liked "All Is Lost" (2013) and of course "Hundreds of Beavers" (2022) for contemporary films
> However the film doesn’t do a good job at that. I see often comments about how people are missing the point of this movie.
To be fair, it's very hard in cinema to have people "get" the point without spoon-feeding it to them, which could fail anyway and make it a worse movie to boot. I'm sure you can think of tons of other examples.
Who was it that said it's impossible to make an anti-war movie because you always end up making it look cool on screen [1]? I think it's the same with any movie parodying or even denouncing something, unless it's turned into a manifesto. And this also bit Scorsese with this movie.
[1] Though in my opinion Netflix's "All Quiet On The Western Front" comes pretty close. I don't think anybody watched that movie and kept thinking war is cool or full of glory.
Hahaha, I expected the criticism of my comment to be that too much of what I was counting as good is "high brow", in fact. Too artsy-fartsy. Leaning too much toward "The Green Knight" and not enough toward "Jaws".
[EDIT] Here, lemme just list the 2022 movies that I think were worth a watch if you're at all into the kind of thing they were doing:
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Glass Onion Top Gun: Maverick Bullet Train All Quiet on the Western Front Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Crimes of the Future Death on the Nile Everything Everywhere All at Once White Noise Nope Prey The Sadness You Won't Be Alone Dual The Northman The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (arguably just a less-exciting RRR, but hey, it makes up for it by also being shorter and non-horror comedy *is* a bit weak lately, so it gets in) Watcher Dashcam (one of the most interesting movies I've seen in a long time—you may hate it, but you'll feel *something*, damnit!) The Banshees of Inisherin
This is just ones I've seen (I usually manage, like, 1/2 of the films in a year that I want to watch, at best) and excluding a few that did in fact suck or that I didn't think quite merited inclusion (e.g. The Menu) or that are good for what they are but are pretty narrow in appeal (Violent Night). Like, I hear Cyrano is great, Emily the Criminal, Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Whale, and a bunch of others, but haven't made it to them yet (and, inevitably, I'll end up never watching some of them).
"Quite a few of those are sequels, remakes, or adaptations! White Noise was a book! Death on the Nile! One of those is a marvel movie!" yeah, I know—good luck finding an era in Hollywood when a ton of the films, and even a ton of the good films, weren't such. I reject that as, specifically, a complaint about this moment in cinema (it has more merit as a criticism of cinema in general)
I don't disagree with the conclusion in that video. But my criticism is precisely when filmmakers rely solely on CGI for every aspect in a scene. When used in moderation, and to _augment_ practical effects, as in the original Jurassic Park, or All Quiet on the Western Front, then it can increase, rather than break, immersion.
Eventually, we'll reach a point when CGI truly becomes indistinguishable from reality, but even then I'd argue that using it for all aspects in a scene would undermine what makes the art of cinema "magic". After all, would it really be filmmaking, or animation, at that point?
> The most memorable shots in that film are CG.
I know it used CGI in some shots, but I disagree that these were the most memorable. Close-ups of the T-Rex, the creeping raptors in the kitchen, the sick Triceratops, the expanding neck frill of the Dilophosaurus, etc. These were the most tense and impressive shots IMO, and all were practical (even though they were historically innacurate). CGI was used mostly for wide shots that needed to show movement, which wasn't practical or sometimes even possible with animatronics.
> I also contest your assertion that the results are more impressive than todays CGI. That’s some rose tinted nostalgia, but there’s no way to replicate some of the advanced motion and realism like the latest Planet of the Apes or Avatar with animatronics.
I don't disagree that nostalgia is a big part of it, and the fact that back then these were truly ground-breaking shots we hadn't seen before. Each film did things slightly differently, and VFX weren't as accessible as today. Still, there's something raw and, well, real about an actual physical entity that actors interact with. The lighting and physical properties are always correct, and assuming the makeup and robotics are state of the art, it really can trick our brains into believing these are real objects much more than CGI could.
For example, take the sick Triceratops scene[1], and compare it to 2015's Jurassic World[2]. Sure, the CGI versions are more life-like, but they look completely fake. The lighting and shading is off, the interactions with the real world is limited and unrealistic, etc. In contrast, the scene from 1993 still looks impressive today, even though the movement is limited, and it arguably looks a bit stiff. State of the art CGI today is much better, though[3], but still slightly off in a few places.
This can possibly be blamed on "bad" CGI, but I'd argue most usage in movies falls into this category. Even the creatures in this new Avatar, while incredibly detailed and life-like, look artificial, and like they don't belong in the world around them (which is, ironically, also CG). It looks like an animated, instead of a traditionally shot, film. Which doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable, it's just a different experience. For me, it crucially lacks the awe-inspiring moments that films with practical effects often have. I realize that most of these shots couldn't be possible with practical effects anyway, but I appreciate when directors make an effort in using mostly practical effects, instead of defaulting to doing everything with CGI.
As another example, consider All Quiet on The Western Front[4]. According to the VFX lead:
> The overall VFX mantra was to allow the footage from principal photography to serve as the primary material for compositing, as opposed to creating CG elements in VFX to augment the scenes. “I believe that adds to the visceral, immersive quality of the film,” Frank Petzold explains. “So in other words when, say, there was an explosion scene, we did not entirely rely on CG models.” Rather, the team used photographic elements as the primary foundation, implementing CG simulations to augment principal photography. The effect was naturalistic, and the integration aimed to be seamless.
I think this is the right approach to take, and the film is much more immersive and enjoyable because of it.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYm7xeg27Rw
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CJL7rKJI18
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le0iiWwdeeE
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf8EYbVxtCY
[5]: https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-vfx/
My neighbor does that with stray cat groups, around here. It's quite effective (and humane).
Of course, that site has lots of heart-wrenching pictures of puppies.
If anyone has seen the new German-language All Quiet On the Western Front (richly deserving of all the accolades, IMNSHO), the initial scene is downright heartbreaking (not like the rest of the movie is any more upbeat, but that scene is the one that sticks).