Imagery V.2 – HISTORY III –WWI.1

A remarkable film about WWI in two versions:
All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930 directed by Lewis Milestone and
All Quiet on the Western Front from 1979 directed by Delbert Mann.

Adapted from the novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War I by their jingoistic teacher.
The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body.
The history is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.