All Quiet on the Western Front, Netflix version

[GWF1967]

31 minutes ago, Hedley Malloch said:

It must have done something right.

It provided gainful employment for several people!
 

[FROGSMILE]

3 hours ago, Hedley Malloch said:

Can you give some examples?

It's just been nominated for 14 Bafta awards. It must have done something right.

I understand your point Hedley, but imagine that the majority of the people making BAFTA judgements have little, or no understanding of WW1, and what is a likely, or unlikely scenario, or event.  They will presumably be making their judgements on artistic and entertainment value and how they perceive an uninformed audience attending a movie to be entertained might react.  I suppose it’s a bit like real policemen watching a TV police drama and commenting about poor accuracy and utter fantasy within the screenplay.  

Edited 19 January , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[healdav]

3 hours ago, Hedley Malloch said:

Can you give some examples?

It's just been nominated for 14 Bafta awards. It must have done something right.

I once worked in a building that received umpteen architectural awards. The fact that the roof wasn't connected to the walls and rain poured down the inside of the walls, disturbed them not a bit (I doubt they ever knew), and that is just one of the things that made this building a disaster from the foundations up (they forgot that it gets cold in winter in Northern Europe), and the water supply and drains - no toilets - froze  three days after we moved in through no insulation. And that is just the start of a long litany of disasters. Apparently panels of distinguished architects thought the concept 'interesting'.

 

 

[slick63]

3 hours ago, Hedley Malloch said:

Can you give some examples?

It's just been nominated for 14 Bafta awards. It must have done something right.

In the original there was a storyline following the main character and his friends, from the lecture at school, through recruitment, into training, and placement with a unit. Once there we got to know the "old veterans" in the unit, followed them through laying wire, then attacking and repulsing attacks, their interest in the opposite sex, then the "changing of the boots" as each one was killed. Pauls leave where he felt out of place at home, right through to the death of Kat, and finally the death of Paul.  Main thing being you get to know the characters, and follow their exploits to the point where I can still remember them many years later.

If i had only seen the new version then I would be hard pushed to remember the main characters names or storyline. It seemed to be a series of storyboard shots loosely based on the original version, with much missing, and some scenes placed in the timeline where they made little impact or sense.

 

Edited 19 January , 2023 by slick63

[phil andrade]

Don’t watch this if you seek an accurate depiction of the novel; more emphatically, avoid it if you want a realistic portrayal of the last days of the Great War on the Western Front.

 

If you want to see good screen crafting, decent acting and harrowing vignettes of the horror of war, then this is a film of high calibre.

 

Phil

[knittinganddeath]

On 19/01/2023 at 16:52, FROGSMILE said:

They will presumably be making their judgements on artistic and entertainment value and how they perceive an uninformed audience attending a movie to be entertained might react.

A friend of mine voted on the nominations for the Golden Globes and the awards themselves this year. In order to get through the candidates list, there were some days that she watched 6 movies in a row. I don't know if that pacing was normal (she will often see 2-4 on the same day at a festival), but it doesn't seem to leave much time for research about details.

22 minutes ago, phil andrade said:

If you want to see good screen crafting, decent acting and harrowing vignettes of the horror of war, then this is a film of high calibre.

The BAFTA nominations seem to recognise this, since many of them are for things like makeup, cinematography, costuming, production design, etc. The most puzzling nom for me is Best Adapted Screenplay.

[FROGSMILE]

19 minutes ago, knittinganddeath said:

A friend of mine voted on the nominations for the Golden Globes and the awards themselves this year. In order to get through the candidates list, there were some days that she watched 6 movies in a row. I don't know if that pacing was normal (she will often see 2-4 on the same day at a festival), but it doesn't seem to leave much time for research about details.

The BAFTA nominations seem to recognise this, since many of them are for things like makeup, cinematography, costuming, production design, etc. The most puzzling nom for me is Best Adapted Screenplay.

Yes that hectic pace doesn’t surprise me really, and it emphasises in a way, that the criterion was likely to be entirely cinematic rather than to do with accuracy.  Moreover I doubt very much if any comparison was made with the 1920s original screenplay of the same story, or indeed the 1970s colour remake.

Overall I feel that Phil Andrade has summed the matter up very well. 

Edited 22 January , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[AOK4]

2 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Overall I feel that Phil Andrade has summed the matter up very well. 

I agree.

Jan

44 minutes ago, phil andrade said:

Don’t watch this if you seek an accurate depiction of the novel; more emphatically, avoid it if you want a realistic portrayal of the last days of the Great War on the Western Front.

 

If you want to see good screen crafting, decent acting and harrowing vignettes of the horror of war, then this is a film of high calibre.

 

Phil

 

[GWF1967]

A review by film the critic Christina Newland in the i newspaper on Friday described it as “a pretty faithful adaptation of the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque”. 
 I’m not sure which random page of the original novel the quotation was based on, but @phil andradehas provided a far more accurate summary. 

[Broznitsky]

I would judge it a Marianne Faithfull adaption of the 1929 Remarque novel.

[Pat Atkins]

I watched it and, like many on here, found it rather "meh" overall regarding plot, character development,etc. It wasn't all bad, but I can't say I really liked it all that much. But in particular, I realised when I was watching, "my, I'm spending an inordinate amount of time looking for and tutting over historical discrepancies, here - I'm kind of missing the point, really". Discrepancies that genuinely irked me.

I think that's the nub of it for me. This forum is unlikely to constitute the target audience of this piece of cinematic entertainment, precisely because of the WW1 setting and content. Our interests - and in many cases on here, expertise - render us unlikely to suspend our disbelief (no Blackadder jokes, please); surely most other audiences would be much less concerned. I accept the view that e.g. War Horse contained was improved by far better research - but caring about that sort of proves the point, too. (War) Horses for courses, perhaps.

I loved the original film version of All Quiet On The Western Front by the way, and also the book.

[schooner]

To be honest I thought it was rather poor. Disjointed, no character development and gore for gore's sake. I much preferred the two previous versions.

[FROGSMILE]

44 minutes ago, schooner said:

To be honest I thought it was rather poor. Disjointed, no character development and gore for gore's sake. I much preferred the two previous versions.

Join the club…(you will see your view oft repeated earlier in the thread). 

[GWF1967]

3 hours ago, Broznitsky said:

I would judge it a Marianne Faithfull adaption of the 1929 Remarque novel.

😂

🔨 That firmly struck the nail!

[knittinganddeath]

Well, it just won Best Picture and Best Director at the BAFTAS so I guess we should ready ourselves for the likelihood that this movie, together with 1917, will define WWI in the public imagination for some time to come.

Edited 20 February , 2023 by knittinganddeath

[Steven Broomfield]

Sadly, yes.

[FROGSMILE]

I get the impression that a lot of the professional reviewers who, e.g. made comments such as “a pretty faithful adaptation”, had clearly neither troubled to read the book, nor watch any of the two earlier cinematic iterations.

Edited 20 February , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[squirrel]

The problem with those who would provide the finance for the production of such films is that they rarely, if ever, have any knowledge of the period nor the history of the events depicted being more interested in what the public view will be and to count the incoming dollars upon release. There is usually an "agenda" and, in this case, the writer of the screenplay states her view was to write an anti war script and story though the claim that it is based on the original novel is only partially accurate. The general view of those who produce, direct, write and act in films such as this, 1917, War Horse and others, O What A Lovely War, BlackAdder etc. is that historical accuracy is unimportant as the films are made solely for "entertainment". That they perpetuate myths, untruths, inaccuracies and at times a warped view of actual events is coincidental and does not concern them. The viewing public are duped yet again as many know no better and accurate knowledge and presentation of history is misunderstood at best and misinterpreted entirely at worst. The "let's destroy the  statues" mob then take advantage of this to change history retrospectively.

[stripeyman]

1 hour ago, squirrel said:

The problem with those who would provide the finance for the production of such films is that they rarely, if ever, have any knowledge of the period nor the history of the events depicted being more interested in what the public view will be and to count the incoming dollars upon release. There is usually an "agenda" and, in this case, the writer of the screenplay states her view was to write an anti war script and story though the claim that it is based on the original novel is only partially accurate. The general view of those who produce, direct, write and act in films such as this, 1917, War Horse and others, O What A Lovely War, BlackAdder etc. is that historical accuracy is unimportant as the films are made solely for "entertainment". That they perpetuate myths, untruths, inaccuracies and at times a warped view of actual events is coincidental and does not concern them. The viewing public are duped yet again as many know no better and accurate knowledge and presentation of history is misunderstood at best and misinterpreted entirely at worst. The "let's destroy the  statues" mob then take advantage of this to change history retrospectively.

Well said, I agree with you entirely. They rarely get a war film right, a few exceptions of course...

[squirrel]

Thanks for that, appreciated. Although even the 1930 film ending was not in the 1929 novel. IIRC it was the Director's hand, not Tyrone Powers', that the butterfly landed on shortly Paul was shot, this scene being filmed after the rest of the film was completed.

[geraint]

I enjoyed the film as a WW1 film. I'm not too bother about inaccuracies, it certainly wasn't the AQOTWF that I read avidly back in the 70s (The Pan version with a yellow butterfly landing on an out-stretched hand and forearm. What happened to the leave back home and a proud father showing Paul off to his drinking mates? Wasn't there a brilliant scene in the book about the lads diarrhoea after eating that goose, and playing cards all day on the latrine bench? And the flirting and dating those willing French girls for food by swimming the river? Wasn,t the teacher conscripted to their unit and beaten up by some of them? It seemed to me to be a very different story!

PS In one film version did Ernest Borgnine play Katz?

[GWF1967]

9 minutes ago, geraint said:

I enjoyed the film as a WW1 film. I'm not too bother about inaccuracies, it certainly wasn't the AQOTWF that I read avidly back in the 70s (The Pan version with a yellow butterfly landing on an out-stretched hand and forearm. What happened to the leave back home and a proud father showing Paul off to his drinking mates? Wasn't there a brilliant scene in the book about the lads diarrhoea after eating that goose, and playing cards all day on the latrine bench? And the flirting and dating those willing French girls for food by swimming the river? Wasn,t the teacher conscripted to their unit and beaten up by some of them? It seemed to me to be a very different story!

PS In one film version did Ernest Borgnine play Katz?

The 1979 version includes Ernest Borgnine. 
 I believe it’s their training NCO who is drafted to the frontline. 
 The modern version is billed, as with the original, as an anti war film, but all the relevant scenes have been omitted. 
  As you say, it’s a very different story that only works on the one level. 
 Visually impressive but totally lacking any depth. 

[geraint]

4 hours ago, GWF1967 said:

 Visually impressive but totally lacking any depth. 

Very succinctly put!

[stillicho]

It had its good aspects, the aesthetics and score, but I couldn't get past the historic inaccuracies (Somme 1916 in November 1918) and that ******** they put up at the end saying the line hadn't budged. It was better than 1917 though.

 

I think Journey's End is my favourite of the most recent crop.

Edited 26 February , 2023 by stillicho

[stripeyman]

34 minutes ago, stillicho said:

It had its good aspects, the aesthetics and score, but I couldn't get past the historic inaccuracies (Somme 1916 in November 1918) and that ******** they put up at the end saying the line hadn't budged. It was better than 1917 though.

 

I think Journey's End is my favourite of the most recent crop.

I recorded Journey's End and watched it last night. A very few minor inaccuracies but I thought it was quite good, that if war can be 'good'....