MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: WESTFRONT 1918 (1930)

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(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Monday, October 27, 2025

WESTFRONT 1918 (1930)

Shot and released at the same time as Hollywood’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, this German production from top filmmaker G.W. Pabst uses much the same ingredients: late WWI infantry, the waste of young lives in trench warfare, futile battle action, a disappointing visit home, a girl at the front to embrace, nihilistic finale. Technically similar too in advances with some astonishingly free camera movement for an Early Talkie and capturing the horrors of war with Pre-Code honesty. Yet the two films are quite different in tone. Hollywood director Lewis Milestone, adapting Erich Maria Remarque’s international phenomenon in a far larger production, weeps over humanity where Pabst despairs. Both films essential. Three years on, the Nazis gained power and banned both films. Seven years on, Hollywood made something like a sequel to QUIET in THE ROAD BACK/’37. Nobody came; and WWII on the horizon.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Now best known for the Louise Brooks silent PANDORA’S BOX/’29, Pabst followed this with a true story of German & French miners working together after an underground explosion in KAMERADSCHAFT/’31. OR: The 1930 ALL QUIET . . . - the much acclaimed 2022 remake is best avoided. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/01/all-quiet-on-wewstern-front-2022.html

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Monday, October 27, 2025

WESTFRONT 1918 (1930)

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