Craig Kennedy's Memorial Day tribute over at Living in Cinema inspired me to do the same. Without further ado, and in remembrance, here's the last few minutes of the film I consider to be the greatest anti-war film ever made, "All Quiet On The Western Front" from 1930. That ending gets me every time.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day
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12 comments:
Nice. You know, the great thing about silent and early sound films is they have an appealing simplicity to them. The message and the feeling comes through without a lot of fancy clutter.
Simple. Direct. Powerful.
Good stuff.
It's one of the great anti-war films. Craig's right about how its simplicity and directness made it more powerful.
The response to WWI produced so much stunning anti-war art - literature, painting, film, theatre. A relatively recent novel by Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong (1994), is a devestating but wondrous addition to the ranks.
I agree, Craig. The simplicity achieved by those early artists is something that is strived for yet rarely achieved by today's filmmakers.
I like how you describe the film, sartre: an "anti-war" statement. I think that's what touched me the most. It is, in a way, a disservice to call it "a war film" (so I'll edit my post accordingly).
I haven't read "Birdsong" but will add it to my book list (which is pretty damn extensive). I also adore Vonnegut's anti-war message well, in everything he wrote, but especially in "Slaughterhouse V." The reverse sequence of how a bomb is made is one of the most amazing things I've ever read.
Here's the passage, by the way:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes few up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored nearly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the rack and shipped back to the United States, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous content into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone ever again.
The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.
Wow, thanks Dorothy. That is an amazing piece of writing and aptly highlighted on this day, and with the current backdrop of Iraq. What could have been a tricksy literary device in most other hands is given depth and touching power by Vonnegut Jr. I devoured his fiction when discovering it as a teenager. He was my first great literary hero, and over time has seemed more and more a 20th century Mark Twain.
Slaughterhouse is a very personal work, a masterpiece.
In the spirit of sharing on this day, here is Wilfred Owen’s Strange Meeting. He wrote the poem while invalided from the WWI in England after being discovered sitting in a shellhole for 4 days, gibbering with parts of a comrade all around him. He was killed in battle shortly upon returning to the front. Owen was killed at 24, one week before the armistice (his parents were notified an hour after BBC radio announced the end of the war).
"It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then ,as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, -
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now...'"
Wow. All I can say is: chills. I had not heard of Owen before or his backstory.
"I am the enemy you killed, my friend."
Just brilliant.
Thanks so much for sharing, sartre.
Largely off topic, Sebastian Faulks just wrote the new James Bond novel...
Also, back on topic: love Slaughterhouse Five. Frankly, I love the underappreciated movie too.
I *own* the film version of "Slaughterhouse Five." I think it's a gem -- and so did Vonnegut. I love everything about it; it just got the novel's vibe perfectly. And it features one of the best canine performances ever (seriously...don't laugh! Spot is amazing; just look at his face when he sees the spaceship...Oscar worthy).
The amazing thing about the movie (besides Spot) is if you think about it, it's nearly an impossible novel to film, yet somehow the movie captures the essential spirit AND it works as a movie.
Poo-tee-tweet?
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