In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
When I hear that a film or a book or a work of art has been condemned by some government official, my first instinct is to run and see it for myself. When the condemnation comes from a source as odious as Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, that goes double, and that’s how I came to watch G. W. Pabst’s Westfront 1918, which Goebbels declared expressed an attitude of “cowardly defeatism.”
Pabst’s film was extremely popular upon first release, which is probably why the Nazis banned it when they came to power (there’s not much point in banning a film no one wants to see, and such a move could well trigger the Streisand effect). But given the choice between trusting the judgment of people with first-hand experience of the actual war and the demographic and economic disaster that followed from the point of view of an ordinary citizen or someone who became the Reich Minister of Propaganda and a leading proponent of the Final Solution, I’ll take the former over the latter every time. And it turns out the people were right, as they often are.
The action is Westfront 1918 takes place in France at the very end of World War I and centers on four soldiers: “the Bavarian” (Fritz Kampers), “the student” (Hans-Joachim Moebis), “the lieutenant” (Claus Clausen), and Karl (Gustav Diessl). The fact that only one is identified by a first name suggests he will be the central character, and sure enough we learn much more about his life outside the trenches than we do the others.
When we first meet the four soldiers, they’re enjoying some time away from the fighting, drinking coffee in a café operated by Yvette (Jackie Monnier), who copes with their persistent sexual harassment presumably because she needs the money. An elderly man, also present in the café, is revealed to be her grandfather, and most likely she’s responsible for supporting him as well, since the able-bodied men are busy fighting the war.
The student falls in love with Yvette, but war has no time for such tender emotions and soon it’s back to the trenches, which are portrayed with remarkably realistic brutality. There’s no glory in this kind of warfare, just filth and fatigue and the constant possibility of death. Or maybe that should be the constant probability of death (and the probability is a whole lot greater than 0), because if you don’t die from an enemy bullet or a shell, you might be killed by friendly fire or disease or just lose your mind and remain in the world of the living only by the most basic of definitions. Even trips home might not restore your will to keep fighting, since people you thought you could trust may well be pursuing their own agendas. And then there’s the final blow, which audiences in 1930 knew even if the characters in the film don’t—it’s all for nothing, with Germany’s absolute defeat just a few months off.
It’s not central to the film, but another reason to see Westfront 1918 is for the lengthy depiction of a cafe variety show whose performers display a remarkable mix of musical accomplishment and low comedy. Some of the performances are also reminiscent of those featured in another 1930 movie, Josef von Sternberg’s Der blaue Engel, which launched Marlene Dietrich’s career.
Ladislaus Vajda’s screenplay for Westfront 1918 was based on a novel by the Hungarian writer Ladislaus Vajda. Because of the subject matter, it recalls Lewis Milestone’s 1930 All Quiet on the Western Front, but the story is quite different and Pabst’s film is much darker. So they make a really good double bill—both are great films that offer differing views of a world historical event from the point of view of the people who lived it. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 907
Technical details: 96 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.19:1; German.
Edition reviewed: DVD (1 disc)
Extras: Les dossiers de l’écran, 1969 French TV show featuring French and German WW I veterans commenting on the film; 2016 interview with Jan-Christopher Horak discussing this film in the context of Pabst’s career; 1988 audio of Jan Oser, editor of Westfront 1918, answering questions from film scholar Hermann Barth; featurette with Martin Koerber of the Deutsche Kinemathek discussing the film’s restoration; illustrated booklet with essay by Lucy Sante (credited as Luc Sante).
Fun Fact: Westfront 1918 is Pabst’s first talkie, a.k.a. film with synchronized dialogue. His ability to capture dialogue live while shooting complex action scenes is remarkable, and combined with his visual sense (honed from years of directing silent films), magnifies the impact of this film. In fact, the most important sounds in the film are not the dialogue but the noises of war, which are employed with great effectiveness.
Parting Thought: Alfred Hitchcock, like Pabst, got his start by directing silent films, and his grasp of visual storytelling is second to none. Should making silent films be made part of a director’s training once, since the art of telling a story through images seems a bit lacking in some more recent directors?
