Westfront 1918

Locations
Call Number: DVD FLC-GER Westfront
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD FLC-GER Westfront	1-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD FLC-GER Westfront	1-week checkout	On Shelf

Title from container.
Originally produced as a motion picture in 1930.
1.19:1 aspect ratio.
Special features: hour-long French television broadcast of World War veterans reacting to the film in 1969; 2016 interview with film scholar Jan-Christopher Hora; new restoration demonstration featuring Martin Koerber and Julia Wallmüller of the Deutsche Kinemathek; essay by author and critic Luc Sante.
Claus Clausen, Gustav Diessl, Fritz Kampers, H. J. Moebis.
G. W. Pabst brought the war movie into a new era with his first sound film, a mercilessly realistic depiction of the nightmare that scarred a generation, in the director's native Germany and beyond. Digging into the trenches with four infantrymen stationed in France in the final months of World War I, Pabst illustrates the harrowing ordeals of battle with unprecedented naturalism, as the men are worn away in body and spirit by firefights, and the disillusion that greets them on the home front.
DVD.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Realities of the Western Front submitted by Meginator on June 22, 2019, 10:57am Content warning: This film depicts violent death and corpses.
Like its more famous cousin (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), this film presents a German perspective on the First World War shot through with cynicism and wariness that feels particularly tragic given that it was produced in 1930. The film is stark and brutal, depicting many of the harsh realities of life in the trenches without sentimentality or undue gore, and its message about the futility of war is sadly timeless. The characters are a little more difficult to relate to than in some similar films, but they function well as archetypes with enough personality and quirky interpersonal interactions to carry the story; the message is unmistakable, but you do actually come to sympathize with these soldiers. Emotionally effective and thorough in its approach, this film deserves a wider audience.