All Quiet on the Western Front- October 5th

Clip: “One of the most powerful anti-war statements ever put on film, this gut-wrenching story concerns a group of friends who join the Army during World War I and are assigned to the Western Front, where their fiery patriotism is quickly turned to horror and misery by the harsh realities of combat.…the finale, as Ayres stretches from his trench to catch a butterfly, is one of the most devastating sequences of the decade.” End clip. (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1000642-all_quiet_on_the_western_front/ September 29, 2011)

My understanding of those who read the books was glad that Remarque had a more realistic outlook on war, and WWI in particular. With all of the other books that were published, they had a less realistic view on war and it was very “Hollywood.” The authors looked at the heroic aspects of soldiers’ lives and not nearly the same amount of traumatic and detrimental events like the author of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” The storyline took place in 1917 when Germany was losing and focused more on the negative effects of war. Other readers, including myself, see many symbolic meanings behind the novel: the horror of war, effect of war on people (soldiers and those back home), and nationalism. Overall, this book demonstrated the strong belief in anti-war. At the beginning, when the boys were in class, they thought that they could walk right in and walk out unharmed in a short matter of time. They believed that war was the answer until they saw for one day that it was mortifying. The book quickly switched from being war-happy to strongly anti-war. A lot of the reviews that I read also agreed with what I thought as far as what seems to be few and far between anti-war novels, newsletters, and stories on the nightly news.

Clip: “Published in 1929, it sold 1.2 million copies in its first year. The film won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 1930 and sits securely at number 54 on the American Film Institute's list of the best movies ever made.” End clip. (http://www.headbutler.com/books/fiction/all-quiet-western-front September 29, 2011)