Text丨Grey Wolf
Netflix's new film "All Quiet on the Western Front" is the third film version in history, and the only version that returns the baton to the Germans.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
You must know that the 1930 version that is regarded as a classic by the industry is an American film, and it was directed by a Russian director Lewis Milestone .
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)
The 1979 version, which is less famous but still of excellent quality, is also an American film (TV movie), directed by Delber, who won an Oscar for "A Gentleman" and has always been a frequent visitor to Cannes T Man.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1979)
Whether it is serving the global-local strategy of , Netflix , or sincerely handing over the writing rights to the Germans, this kind of operation is worth encouraging, because it is implemented at the level of experience, There is nothing more legitimate than German creators, German actors, German dialogues, and Germans' historical reflection on subjectivity (especially one hundred years after the end of the First World War).
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
For Germany during World War I, Americans were relatively distant spectators; for Germany during World War II , Americans were direct enemies/adversaries. But this kind of thinking leads to a historical alienation, in which Americans view the flow of life in war with an externally sympathetic perspective, while Germans sacrifice the relevant detailed experience.
The original author of "All Quiet on the Western Front" Remark is a man in the middle of history. His original book achieved unprecedented market success when it came out in 1929, but also caused unprecedented market success in this wounded and arrogant country. slander: some suspect he is French, some say he never went to war at all, some say his books are copied from others, others say he has only been to the Eastern Front but not to the Western Front... but any Germans who participated in World War I would not question Remark because experience does not lie.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
German "Fox" began serializing "All Quiet on the Western Front" on November 8, 1928, and in a concurrently published commentary, the editor wrote: "Remark Not a professional writer, but a young man in his early 30s; "All Quiet on the Western Front" is not a war novel or a diary, it is a lived life, the first real monument to the 'Unknown Soldier'. It is A book without predisposition, but a monument stronger than stone, longer than ore, a monument that thrills, fills the mind, and presents the most horrific wars and real images to future generations ."
"All Quiet on the Western Front" is localized, it is a daily flow experience, it has nothing to do with the overall situation, it is just a sketch of individual survival. When he wrote about the Somme tanks in Chapter 11, Remark had only a few words to describe them: "Tanks are mechanical, their tracks turn endlessly like war, they are destruction, they roll unconsciously into In the crater, it climbed up again, unstoppable, like a roaring, smoking armored fleet, a herd of steel beasts invulnerable, crushing the dead and the wounded."
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022 )
Remark's "objectivity" lies in a dimension of experience limited to individuals, but Netflix's version of "All Quiet on the Western Front" turns it into a wide-format landscape mode, in addition to giving panoramic arrays and battlefield suppression. (including crushing the living/corpse and passing over the head of the protagonist in the trench), this tank battle is also edited alternately with the vision of the army commander and the discussions of the representatives of the peace talks, in order to seek a macro synchronicity.
This does achieve a visual scale and is an element that excites producers and some audiences, but at the same time, the core of this adaptation is getting further and further away from the concept of Remark's original work.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
The most direct expression given by Remark is "war's destruction of the younger generation": They are eighteen years old, never had a career, and the first thing they learn is to kill . In Remarque, the destruction of people (or the destruction of experience) is the first layer, and anti-war is the second layer. If you are faithful to the original work, no matter whether it is rectified or deleted, the most important thing is to obey this logic.
Therefore, although the 1930 and 1979 versions are films dominated by outsiders (Americans), they are both faithful adaptations; the 2022 version, although German-led creations, suffer from numerous "macro adjustments". ” From the perspective of their retelling of the story, it is not as the subject of history, but as the spectator of history.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
Behind these macro adjustments, there may be the shadow of American capital, but the "historical alienation" of the German creator itself is also to blame. The memory of choice”, which is also the claim of the West German government in Tony Judt’s writings: World War I was a fleeting moment, the Weimar era was a heroic era, the Nazis were a handful, and they had been punished accordingly.
This gesture is like Wenders' adoration of Fritz Lang mixed with a kind of American dream. As a German director, Edward Berger of course has his own admirers, and the high probability should be Christopher Nolan , Sam Mendes and David Ayer (of course, mixed with Kubu Indirect references by Rick , Coppola, etc.), because these are the representatives of the panorama war in recent years. But it is worth noting that, in addition to Ayer is a slightly outdated hardcore war scene idea, people like Nolan and Mendes have sophisticated and complicated operations in an exclusive sense.
"Dunkirk" (2017)
If the trench play at the beginning of the new "Western Front" can be traced back to the origin of "1917" and even earlier "Path of Glory", then it can be said that it failed at the beginning: The camera followed a few walks of the soldiers to climb out of the trenches to charge, and when the dispatch was just developing into a long shot, it was cut off instantly. The lack of technology and scheduling made it impossible for Edward Berg to start the prelude with precision like Nolan, nor to control the highly coherent scheduling like Mendes.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
The complication of Nolan and Mendez is to somehow elevate the threshold of experience - for which I have pointed to an important reason for the decline of war films : CNN's panorama of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan destroyed the logistical thinking that was the essence of war movies. Then a director who is proficient in creation can only make a fuss at the technical-perceptual level, elevating the sensory experience of war to a new dimension.
Edward Berger certainly doesn't have such a genius, but he finally has self-knowledge, and after a few technical experiments, he returns to the scene mode that he is fairly good at. The first few still photos of the film: distant mountains, forests, wolf dens, tree canopies shot upwards, battlefields shot overhead (and the final push-down mirror) have already clarified his work habits in advance, and his characteristic is static The consequence of composition is to turn dynamic vision based on individual experience into environmental vision based on objective experience.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
Berg has the level of modeling, the skill of scene design and the basic idea of realism, but this is not enough to penetrate the spiritual level of people, because he deliberately avoided the absolute subjective lens , this kind of avoidance is based on two logics: one is to avoid the difficult problem of scheduling and focus on the scenes of objective vision; the other is to avoid an absolutely immersive thinking, which is the consequence of historical alienation. Losing the subjective lens also loses the experience that is the core of "All Quiet on the Western Front", so it is impossible to anchor the destruction of this experience.
with school drumsFor a scene that motivates students to join the army, the 1930 version combines the interior scene of the classroom with the parade of soldiers in the back street, the agitation of teachers and the agitation of students, using a double vertical push mirror, all the way to the big picture of spiritual externalization. Close-up, it's a legacy of expressionism ;
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)
But the operation of the new "Western Front" is the boring side panning in the school hall, and the pragmatic scene switching, here environment The self-enclosure and vertical incoherence cannot produce a persuasive experience as effective as the former.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
We may call it "single-scene", which is essentially an objective experience mode of long scroll paintings/panorama paintings, with an imaginary non-physical viewpoint as the axis Heart, lack of an actual push-pull zoom.
In the choice of the original story, we can also easily recognize this: the protagonist's recruit training (including beating up the instructor who bullied them at night) and the paragraphs about returning home from vacation have been deleted, and more related to war episodes, such as the placement of the role/viewpoint of the commander-in-chief, and the passages where the peace negotiators negotiate with the French army, become alternative complements.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
These changes to the story destroy the in-depth fragmentation of the scene and maintain the unity of the scene. After the passage of recruit training was deleted, the group of young people were quickly thrown onto the battlefield, a shocking suddenness, but it was not credible or real, because it lacked the most important "psychological reality transition" in the original book, And this transition is precisely the essence of the first half of Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", starting with Bill's incompatibility, and finally his suicide by swallowing a gun. This tragedy makes the experience of the recruits landing in Vietnam continuous and self-consistent.
"Full Metal Jacket"
In killing the first Frenchman (and getting hit in reverse with 's helmet ) and the trench bombing scene that followed, the director basically avoided subjective experience, even if it meant letting the audience In a safe reflective position, but also leading to a lack of experience. In Benjamin's view, this lack of experience comes from the arcades of modernity, from the panorama, from the Baudelaire's wandering experience, all of which correspond to Berg's singularity in the new West Front. Landscape operation.
When he wrote "Experience and Poverty" in 1933, Benjamin probably read Remarque's novel and watched the 1930 film, and he traces the experience poverty back to thinking about war, probably related to "All Quiet on the Western Front" There is a more or less connection in the passage of returning home from the mid-term vacation: "People return...become silent - the direct experience that can be communicated is not so rich but poor..."
This aphasia of returning home, And the related destruction of experience is the most essential and deep reflection in the original book and even in the previous two film versions, but in the new "Western Front", the deletion of this paragraph means that the spiritual connection between Remark and Remark is severed— —The destruction of man is replaced by the destruction of matter, and the ruin of the spirit is replaced by the ruin of matter.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
's highly purposeful battlefield poses and those natural empty shots overlapped with a straightforward anti-war signal, and the intervention of the negotiators meant that anti-war Literal logic overrides the destruction of the individual.
In this change of the plot, Daniel Bruch who plays the negotiator, the German actor who has appeared in "Goodbye Lenin" and " Extremely Merry " and has taken a place in Hollywood , seems to be Another parallel protagonist besides Recruit Bowman. We can think of it as the intervention of a resource force, or an intervention of a macro humanitarian narrative, but this empty parallel narrative is premised on sacrificing pure individual experience.
Due to the loss of self-view, the soldiers in the new "Western Front" have become a dogtag, aA rusty, pronounced name, a miniature human being, as opposed to the monumentalization of the surname Ryan in Saving Private Ryan . Another change in the miniaturization was to change the location where Bowman and Carter stole the geese from the German regimental headquarters to the French farmhouse, although this created a sinister and comical scene of the two being shot in the back with rifles as they fled. scene, but also transformed the two from heroes into thieves.
"Saving Private Ryan"
Anyone who has read the original book will be moved by the father-like friendship between Bowman and Carter, and the new "Western Front" is no exception. A straightforward approach to Carter's family tragedy (whose son died of smallpox), yet another embarrassing passage that is too literary. Carter's experience did not constitute an effective pass, as the second-degree goose-stealing failed fundamentally, he was killed by the farmer's son in the jungle, ending in a miniature (upshot when shot) its own existence.
While the soldiers are being miniaturized, the general's insistence and the negotiating team's perseverance have become the key to the decision between war and peace. The macro proposition between dignity and stop loss may be the problem that the German creators are really concerned about. , they once again avoided the experience of the underlying individuals.
With the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II , the signing of the surrender agreement, the ceasefire at 11:00 the next day took effect in a kind of humiliation, but as the opposite of humiliation, the general, while observing the principle, ordered the recruits to complete the final battle. The wave attacked, and greeted the imminent peace as a false hero who seized the position.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
Soldiers were driven into battle, and the 11 o'clock peace bell became a reminder. This countdown presents the falsehood of the times with a macro-anti-war attitude, but it has also become a mechanical tool that kills people - Bowman's death has become inevitable, and it will inevitably happen at the moment when the clock strikes 11 o'clock. What a speculative and ironic design this is?
Looking back at the 1930 and 1979 versions, Bowman's death was inevitable, but his death was open to time, without the urgency of this design: in the 1930 version, he found a beautiful butterfly on the battlefield , and was killed by a French sniper at the moment of grabbing the butterfly, with only a close-up of his hand; The cry of the lark , he was using a pen and paper to draw the lark, but when he was in a trance, he was shot by the French. He then fell into the trenches. The camera is a close-up of the lark he drew. These simple poetics are the embodiment of empirical reality.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1979)
In the new "Western Front", Bowman is bayoneted by the enemy, but as he is dying, he walks out of the tunnel, looks up at the sky, and closes his eyes in a corner of the trench. This scene is so specific and overexaggerated that we instinctively don't believe it's a real human experience - it's a strict design, a dramatic reconstruction.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
In this Somme-like passage, when Baumann stabs the French soldier with a dagger, Remarque describes a mixed emotion: Baumann wishes he When he was in trouble, he could also be rescued by the French. This feeling made him choose to save.
This scene lasted for two days and two nights in the 1930 edition. Above his head were the French soldiers who kept straddling and the constant rise and fall of incendiary bombs. In the new "Western Front", this scene only lasted for a short time, and people only saw the blood spitting out of the French soldiers and the mud on Bowman's face.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
The misstep of the new "Western Front" may be to reject the experience itself, so that the ego (the German creator) as a witness becomes a spectator. Here are the Germans' understanding of historyInstinct refusal can also be said to reflect incompetence or the ostrich spirit of war as a defeated nation.
American filmmakers have no such cultural baggage. In those films about wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not difficult to see an individual reflection based on the experience itself, which is why "Apocalypse Now" and "Full Metal Jacket" Movies such as "Battle in the Valley of Elah" and "Excerpt Revised" have become classics in anti-war movies.
"Excerpt Revised"
Although it deviates from Remark's original work, the new "Western Front" is by no means useless, at least it has achieved its own effectiveness in the realistic restoration of the entire battlefield scene and the macro-level anti-war theme. , although it may seem fragmented or vulgar, it is always in keeping with the zeitgeist—that is, an instinctive rejection of war and an essential acceptance of humanitarianism.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (2022)
When thinking about war movies, it's easy to return to the topic of "Why We Fight". But what needs to be clear is that the "just age" of anti-fascism in World War II has long passed, and anti-war and peace have long been the basic consensus of human beings in any situation. In this regard, although the new "Western Front" has lost experience, it only It can be regarded as an empty positive work with "inexperience".
People may compare it with other similar films we are familiar with, then this comparison is more or less valid, because the problem of the latter is not only "inexperienced", but also "anti-experienced" .
