Why the latest adaptation of All Quiet On The Western Front still matters
AVC: I’d love to peel back the curtain on your process, first as a screenwriter then as a director. What was adapting this book like as opposed to writing an original piece?So the book doesn’t have a traditional storyline. It’s really a bunch of anecdotes. The writer, Erich Maria Remarque, had been in war, but he also interviewed a lot of his friends and colleagues and comrades he met in a field hospital. So it’s almost like a reporting event.
AVC: The novel being analytical and therefore creating a distance between story and reader begs the question: How do you do that as a filmmaker? Are you calibrating the two extremes of bringing us face to face with the emotion, versus leaving stuff to the imagination?It is a great question. It’s a total fine line. Because one of my imperatives, one of my biggest motivations to make a film like that is to give the audience a physical, visceral experience.
AVC: Is that always the case for a director? You’re balancing that “subjectivity” with “objectivity,” if those are accurate terms?Yes. At least, there are films that I love where I feel I’m being overly manipulated. It’s only subjective: now the strings are coming up, the camera is dollying in on the face, and the tears are coming. You’re like, “Oh, come on, leave me alone. I want to do this on my own.
Good question. I think, unfortunately, that this type of movie is always relevant. Even now we have a very unfortunate, timely relevance with Ukraine that we couldn’t foresee. But we had war 10 years ago and we’ll have it again in 10 years, unfortunately, so that subject matter somehow never gets old. But educational, I’m not sure. I don’t want to educate, I’m just a filmmaker. I tell stories and then you ideally draw your own conclusion and take it home and everyone’s going to be different.
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