Oscars Retrospective: All Quiet on the Western Front (3rd Academy Awards Review)

Hail to Thee in Victor's Crown (Anthem of the German Empire 1871-1918)

On November 5th, 1930, the 3rd Academy Awards met to hand out awards for the time period between the months of August of 1929 to July of 1930. If you read the last installment, then you know that the 2nd Academy Awards also took place in 1930, making this the only year with 2 Oscar ceremonies in the same year. This was probably when they realized that this was going to become more of a thing so they started moving the ceremony closer to the actual time frame.

The 3rd winner of the Oscar for Outstanding Production was All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the best-selling novel by Erich Maria Remarque. It was also the first movie to win both the Oscar for Outstanding Production (renamed from Outstanding Picture, the then-name for Best Picture) and Best Director (for Lewis Milestone). If you know anything about the Academy Awards, then you usually know that these two awards are almost always handed to the same film but, still, this was a first.

The plot is basically an antithesis to Wings (1927): a group of German students (with American accents for some strange reason) are encouraged by their small-town teacher (Arnold Lucy) to go join in Germany’s fight for World War I (still called the Great War when this movie came out). They leave, expecting to become heroes and serve the glory of their country but are very quickly given a rude awakening at how much of a living Hell the war actually is. This is very much your typical war movie set-up but what elevates All Quiet on the Western Front, especially at the time, is just how dark it is.

Our Generic Strawman Archetype returns to ask the question as to how dark a movie from 1930 could actually be. Well, believe it or not, it’s actually a pretty common misconception that older films were a lot tamer because of people’s sensitivities. As a matter of fact, older progressive directors probably would’ve been more than happy to show you some disturbing imagery to enhance their story if the technology was there. The problem is that for most of the Golden Age of Hollywood, filmmakers were subject to the Hays Code.

Considered the precursor to the modern-day ratings system, the Hays Code enforced “moral guidelines” to all films coming out of Hollywood and if a movie did not meet those guidelines, it would not be permitted release. So, things like extreme violence, sex, swearing, disturbing imagery and everything else that makes movies cool weren’t allowed. And it’s not like today, where you would get different ratings; if the film did not meet the approval of the Hays Office (particularly its strict, Puritanical president, Joseph Breen), it wouldn’t be released, period.

While the discussion for a censorship board had been brewing since at least 1922, and the Hays Office was founded in 1930, it wasn’t really strictly enforced until 1934. So as technology was getting better and better, films from the late 20s and early 30s were actually much edgier and challenging of people’s sensibilities than you may expect. (e.g. Clara Bow’s nip slip in Wings, wanton death and destruction in Little Caesar (1931) and Scarface (1932), off-screen rape in The Public Enemy (1930), a shot that lewdly focuses on Jeannette MacDonald’s legs in The Love Parade (1929) etc.)

So, when I say that All Quiet on the Western Front is dark, I mean it’s really freaking dark. Like, this was definitely the darkest war movie ever made for a long time until the Vietnam-based war movies of the 1970s and is no doubt an inspiration for those films. They really do a good job at showing the sense of horror and loss. Not just loss of life but also loss of self. There’re even a few deaths that are pretty gnarly (e.g. one soldier gets blown up by a grenade, leaving behind his dismembered, bloody hands).

Poorly aged effects aside, this is pretty metal.

What also stands out here is just how psychedelic it gets. While you may think that this means that the film is stylized, it’s actually quite the opposite. Many war movies at this time were known for their great epic panning shots and heroic deeds; the camerawork here, however, is a lot more realistic and static, showing things for how they were rather than how we wish they were. This gritty atmosphere is only enhanced by the music in the film, or the lack thereof.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a big breakthrough in sound design. If the editing technology still did not allow for more than audio track at a time, then the editors here really had their work cut out for them as the design here is wonderful. Most of the movie takes place in the trenches, or well within hearing distance of the trenches, subjecting the characters to the mortar shells. Thus, most of the film is characterized by sounds of the constant bombardment of shell explosions and the rain of dirt debris. When you contrast this with the gentle chitter-chatter of the opening small-town scenes, it really makes you feel like you’ve been transported to another world. (Fun fact: the battle scenes in this movie were the inspiration for the famous Omaha Beach battle from Saving Private Ryan (1998). Once you see both movies, you can definitely see the influence)

The movie isn’t all atmosphere and sound design though as there is a good group of characters here too. There’s sort of a recurring group of faces to the older soldiers in the 2nd Company that you get to know over the course of the movie and the stuff they talk about reinforces just how lost they feel. There are countless moments throughout the film that are uncomfortable and kinda makes you shift in your seat a little bit. One that sticks out to me in particular is when they have a conversation about why the war is even being fought and none of them can give a straight answer.

In all fairness, actually trying to articulate the reason why WWI was fought is like pulling teeth anyway.

All of this combines to make the most thematically accurate film representation of WWI I have ever seen. There’s probably some historical inaccuracies if you want to look for them but I’m just talking about the idea of World War I that is gotten across. By that I mean if you compare World War I to its sequel World War II, World War I comes off as downright asinine. Millions of people were dying in filthy, parasite-infested trenches to kill each other over a few inches of land. There was no V-Day of sitting on a destroyer to reflect on a job well done; just death and waste because of a dick-measuring contest between the rulers of Europe.

There’s a reason why the generation that fought in World War I became known as the Lost Generation. Centuries of chivalrous knights fighting for glory was preached to these children and they were all either wiped or traumatized forever. And that was the note about the guys over here in America: the winners of the war who only entered in the final few years. All Quiet on the Western Front is about the Germans, the losers of the war who were in it from the beginning.

In fact, that’s the other thing I love about this film and what really surprised me: they’re really fair to the German people. Remember, we’re only about 12 years removed from when the war ended. Propaganda doesn't die easily. To not only make these characters 3-dimensional but make an entire movie surrounding at the time was a serious risk and it really paid off. In fact, I actually can’t think of any German stereotyping in this movie. None whatsoever.

I also really love how this movie paces out the horror of the war. They kinda hit the ground running pretty early on in the film as the introduction to the 2nd Company involves the characters having to steal for food or go hungry for the night. The next scene is them going to the front. These both seem like good turning points but it’s just where the movie starts. It leaves you wondering how much worse things can actually get. And it gets worse. It always gets worse. In fact, the last 20 minutes of the film genuinely disturbs me, even over 80 years after the film came out. I won’t dare spoil it for you but let me say that it is not at all the typical war movie climax.

Despite my praises of All Quiet on the Western Front, it ain’t perfect. It does have some of the filler that tends to define old films though, at the very least in this movie, the filler does seem to have kind of a point (namely the characters are trying to relive normalcy), they just drag for a bit. Probably the biggest issue of the film is that it revolves around six or seven kids and they all seem to meld together into one character. I don’t mean that in the sense that they all have the same arc, I mean that in the sense that they all have the same personality. They’re all a bunch of arrogant snobs who get their innocence ruined by the war. But there’s nothing individually that makes them stand out. Not even in a lazy way like there’s one who’s more intelligent, one who’s a bit nerdier, one who’s more of a jock; they’re all just kinda the same.

Also, the guy who plays the main kid, Paul (Lew Ayres), isn’t always the best actor. He does fine as the twit and he does fine as the ice-cold soldier, but the transition in between probably could’ve been handled better by another actor. On the flipside, though, this last flaw is pretty negligible as you usually won’t find yourself caring that his performance isn’t all there because the writing more than makes up for it. The stuff he’s saying and the situations he finds himself in is so powerful that you don’t care that his performance isn’t always 100%.

I don’t think I’m really exaggerating when I say that All Quiet on the Western Front might be the darkest war movie I’ve ever seen. While later films would do the whole “loss of self” story later (and arguably better), All Quiet on the Western Front is just so Goddamned bleak. Even Saving Private Ryan at the very least has a happy ending, the note this movie ends on is just depressing.

It’s so dark, in fact, that I’m wondering why this even won the Oscar for Outstanding Production. It’s an amazing film, don’t get me wrong, but the Academy rarely goes for films that are this unpleasant. Most likely due the very anti-war attitude that the world in general seemed to have after seeing the destruction of WWI (which would ironically just end up leading to WWII anyway) but still. Usually, they go for films that are inspirational or has some dark themes but never goes anywhere with them. All Quiet on the Western Front is neither of those things, it’s just straight-up depressing. But, in the absolute best ways. It’s the kind of movie that, after it’s over, it leaves you sitting in your chair alone with your thoughts as you digest what you just watched. And its raw power still holds so many decades later. Even if you’re not the type to watch a lot of older films, I highly recommend that you check this one out. It’s well worth your time.

But was it truly the best movie of that year?

In case you missed it:

1st Academy Awards (1927/28): Wings/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans: Part 1, Part 2

2nd Academy Awards (1928/29): The Broadway Melody: Part 1, Part 2