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All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
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Information
- Year
- 1930
- Runtime
- 152 min.
- Director
- Lewis Milestone
- Genres
- Drama, War
- Rating *
- 8.1
- Votes *
- 39,424
- Checks
- 13,630
- Favs
- 810
- Dislikes
- 70
- Favs/checks
- 5.9% (1:17)
- Favs/dislikes
- 12:1
Top comments
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Timec
niesl2-
And what was Shakespeare thinking, giving all his Italian and Danish (and so on) characters poetic English dialogue? Man, very few productions of "Hamlet" even have the actors speaking with a Danish accent.
But seriously - that's not a flaw. In fact, considering that the movie was made for an American audience, it was actually a very smart move to have them talk in English and without accents. Like it or not, foreign languages are a barrier to understanding and empathy for many people, and a decision to shoot this in German would have made the film less powerful than it is. By speaking English, audiences who might reject subtitled films were forced to empathize with a group that had been their enemy less than fifteen years earlier - by giving the characters everyday English dialogue it gave the impression that these people were, indeed, quite human, and that, in most cases, they weren't all that different than the average American in the audience. They had the same concerns, the same fears, the same hopes...
It does get more tricky when different characters would, in reality, be speaking different languages (that is to say, if we had an English soldier and a German soldier among the main characters) - but since that's not the case here, it's entirely reasonable that the characters speak English, as we the audience are given insight, are made witness of a world and experience that we may otherwise never have known.
In other words, having foreign characters speaking something other than their native language is an entirely acceptable stylistic device, one that had been established for a long, long time before film even came around. That device is used to brilliant effect here.
So a dogmatic "Oh no, they're speaking something other than their native language and that ruins the film" approach is entirely wrongheaded, and will lead you to reject some of the greatest films of all time (as well as some of the greatest works of theater, opera, and literature.) Those looking for that sort of verisimilitude are going to want to turn to something other than film, or literature, or theater, or pretty much any art form that contains the spoken word. 12 years 11 months ago -
Fluegi
The mother of all anti-war movies and probably one of the best. Very intensive. 9 years 8 months ago -
jacktrewin
spielberg made saving private ryan but i take your point abmannetje, the battle scenes are unbelievable considering the year it was made it 1930, 68 years before saving private ryan and 27 before paths of glory. 12 years 8 months ago
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In 19 official lists
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This movie ranks #4 in Academy Award - Best Picture
Academy Award - Best Pic…
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This movie ranks #5 in Tim Dirks's 100+ Most Controversial Films of All-Time
Tim Dirks's 100+ Most Co…
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This movie ranks #7 in 101 War Movies You Must See Before You Die
101 War Movies You Must …
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This movie ranks #10 in IMDb's 1930s Top 50
IMDb's 1930s Top 50
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This movie ranks #12 in Academy Award - Best Picture Nominees
Academy Award - Best Pic…
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This movie ranks #13 in Leonard Maltin's 100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century
Leonard Maltin's 100 Mus…
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This movie ranks #20 in The New York Times's Book of Movies
The New York Times's Boo…
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This movie ranks #28 in Library of Congress's National Film Registry
Library of Congress's Na…
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This movie ranks #41 in IMDb's War Top 50
IMDb's War Top 50
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This movie ranks #49 in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
1001 Movies You Must See…
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This movie ranks #55 in Rotten Tomatoes's Top 100 Movies of All Time
Rotten Tomatoes's Top 10…
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This movie ranks #67 in iCheckMovies's 1930s Top 100
iCheckMovies's 1930s Top…
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This movie ranks #71 in BFI's 360 Classic Feature Films Project
BFI's 360 Classic Featur…
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This movie ranks #87 in David Thomson's Have You Seen?
David Thomson's Have You…
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This movie ranks #101 in Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema
Jonathan Rosenbaum's Ess…
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This movie ranks #101 in Halliwell's Top 1000: The Ultimate Movie Countdown
Halliwell's Top 1000: Th…
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This movie ranks #402 in Emma Beare's 501 Must-See Movies
Emma Beare's 501 Must-Se…
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This movie ranks #804 in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films
TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest F…
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This movie ranks #835 in Sight & Sound's The Greatest Films of All Time
Sight & Sound's The Grea…
835