'All Quiet on the Western Front' Hints that War Is Bad
On this week’s episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) highlight the dumbest Oscar controversy of all time—did Andrea Riseborough’s friends send too many emails on her behalf in helping her secure a best actress nomination?—and try to explain the broader culture war reasons this has blown up into A Whole Thing. Then they review All Quiet on the Western Front, the Netflix original that secured nine Oscar nominations and hints, ever so subtly, that war might be bad. (The message is there, but it’s all subtext; only a keen viewer will discern it.) Make sure to swing by Friday for our bonus episode on antiwar films and whether any of them can truly be “antiwar.” And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!
'All Quiet on the Western Front' Hints that War Is Bad
I finally watched All Quiet in the Western Front. Took a while to get my wife to agree to watch. It was long and she hid her eyes from the violence. While the movie was very will photographed, it is an example of how a movie may not be the best place to recreate a work of literature. I read a translation of Remarque's book in the late 60s when the Vietnam War was raging - the book's lesson seemed compelling then. But the recreation of a series of scenes in ones minds is different from passively watching scenes in a movie. So an honorable effort but a failure in the end. Just too long and there was no narrative to speak of. That was the point of the book - but a movie needs something else -at least if that long.
I am curious if the group here are really surprised about the controversy re the nomination of a white person from a movie no one saw? In fact entertainment reporters need to write something. And somewhere (before I even read anything) I heard something about the "whitest oscars in years."
The number of nominees in any category is only a handful, and since only whites are a large enough group in the US to always have one of their group nominated in any category, we will no doubt hear about which group was slighted (blacks, asians, hispanics) until the story becomes a non issue.
Re All Quiet on the Western Front - was happy you discussed. I will watch it.
Interesting to juggle War = Bad with the War in Ukraine (so Good?)