Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front, a soldier’s bloody account of World War I, was written by Erich Maria Remarque in 1929. It was first made into a movie in 1930, and then re-made in 1979 directed by Delbert Mann. All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of a young German named Paul Baumer who is drafted into the German Imperial Army along with many of his high school friends. They are sent to the battlefield on the German western front seeking glory and adventure only to discover that it is a wasteland of death.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a prestigious and well-made historical movie because of its historical accuracy, important themes, and portrayal of wars’ devastating impact on the average soldier. All Quiet on the Western Front is recognized as one of the most historically accurate movies. The review in the New York Times describes the movie and director as follows: “’ Years after directing the classic Marty, Delbert Mann became a creator of prestige TV movie projects, none more daunting than his adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front.

One of the most respected anti-war novels beloved by fans of cinema. ” All Quiet on the Western Front is historically accurate even down to the tiniest detail. From the machine guns to the hand grenades to the chemical warfare, everything displayed in the movie was as it was really used on the battlefields of the western front. The popular movie review website All Movie Guide. com says, “The scenery and costuming in this period piece are well done, and surely contributed to its winning the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Made for TV.

Also contributing to the greatness of the film are the exceptional cinematography and special effects that, while realistically gruesome, truly emphasize the horrors of war. ” Just as historical accuracy is central for a director to deliver his message, using important themes is also powerful. Some of mankind’s deepest themes are shown in All Quiet on the Western Front. The biggest theme displayed in the movie is senseless death. In war, Paul see’s a lot of dying, but it’s the death outside the battles that equally affects him.

After being shot in the leg, Paul arrives home so see his sister crying and his mother sick in bed. Paul’s sister says to him, “ Paul, mum is sick again. The doctors say it’s the cancer, it’s back again. They don’t think there is anything they can do. ” After learning of this, Paul is as confused as warfare. He fears that if death is both on the western front and at his own home, then there is no difference between the two and there is no hope anywhere. So Paul wishes to go back to the western front because he cannot bare the loss of his mother. Another theme is the bravery of the average soldier.

Half way through the movie, when Paul and his squad reach a new enemy base they are immediately attacked. Paul and most of his comrades manage to avoid harm, but Sergeant, Stanislaus Katczinsky, is shot in the leg. Paul bravely carries the all the way to the medic tents, but only to find that Katczinsky was hiding a more serious injury in his back. Katczinsky then dies in Paul’s arms. Even though the Sergeant still died, Paul doesn’t regret risking his life for trying to save him. Paul shows what it’s like to be a true friend whose friendship was made on the battlefield, he shows what bravery and loyalty is.

One of the worst parts of World War I was the destructive psychological change on the soldiers, and All Quiet on the Western Front portrays it brilliantly. For example, it shows the psychological change of Paul. Paul enters the Western Front an immature boy, but leaves a cold and broken man. When Paul got sent home after being shot in the leg, he can no longer cope with his previous life because he has changed in a terrible way. He had become so accustomed to death on the western front that life back home seemed unnatural. All Paul wanted to do when he left the western front was to go back.

One night Paul wrote a letter to his mother saying, “ It’s awful to say it, but that battlefield is my real home now. ” The war changed Paul in unimaginable ways. He feared the western front when he first arrived, but by the end of the movie it became his life. Paul says, “I saw him die. I didn’t know what it was like to die before! And then, then I came outside and it felt so good to be alive, that I started in to walk fast. I began to think of the strangest things like being out in the fields, things like that. You know, girls. Then it felt as if there were something electric running from the ground up through me.

And I started. And I began to run hard and I passed soldiers, and I heard voices calling to me, and I ran and I ran, and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe enough air into me. And now I’m hungry. ” All Quiet on the Western Front is a movie that doesn’t seek to give someone an opinion of war, it only seeks to show what wars are really like. All the rats, chemical warfare, poor living conditions, and gruesome deaths were as accurate as can be. The reason that people say that All Quiet on the Western Front is an anti-war movie is because it shows how bad it really is to be a soldier.

That is not dramatization. The western front really was that bad and the movie did a believable job of portraying what it was like. It’s what Paul puts in his letter to Albert that really makes the impact at the end of the movie: “ Out of the 20 who enlisted 13 are dead, four are missing, one is in a mad house. You and I live, how I miss you. ” Shortly after writing his letter, Paul was shot in the head. Now out of 20 soldiers, 14 are dead, four are missing, one is in a mad house, and only one lives. That is what a soldier should expect when he enlisted to fight in a war.