Westfront 1918 (1930)
Westfront 1918 (1930)
Plot.
Where to Watch.
Currently Westfront 1918 is available for streaming online, rent, buy or watch for free on: Criterion Channel, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Max Amazon Channel
Streaming in:🇺🇸 United States
Cast & Crew.
Fritz Kampers
Der Bayer - The Bavarian
Gustav Diessl
Karl
Hans-Joachim Moebis
Der Student
Claus Clausen
Der Leutnant - The Lieutenant
Jackie Monnier
Yvette - Die Französin
Vladimir Sokoloff
Proviantmeister
Hanna Hoessrich
Karl's Frau - Karl's Wife
Else Heller
Karl's Mutter - Karl's Mother
Aribert Mog
Undetermined Secdondary Role
Gustav Püttjer
Hamburger
Carl Ballhaus
Schlachtergeselle
André Saint-Germain
Undetermined Secondary Role
G.W. Pabst
Director
Ernst Johannsen
Writer
Ladislaus Vajda
Writer
Charles Métain
Cinematographer
Media.
Details.
Release DateMay 23, 1930
Original NameWestfront 1918: Vier von der Infanterie
StatusReleased
Running Time1h 37m
Genres
Last updated:
This Movie Is About.
Wiki.
Westfront 1918 is a German war film, set mostly in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I. It was directed in 1930 by G. W. Pabst, from a screenplay by Ladislaus Vajda based on the novel Vier von der Infanterie by Ernst Johannsen. The film shows the effect of the war on a group of infantrymen portrayed by an ensemble cast led by screen veterans Fritz Kampers and Gustav Diessl.
The film bears a very strong resemblance to its close contemporary All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), an American production, although it has a much bleaker tone, consistent with Pabst's New Objectivity work through the late 1920s. It was particularly pioneering in its early use of sound – it was Pabst's first "talkie" – in that Pabst managed to record live audio during complex tracking shots through the trenches.
Westfront 1918 was a critical success when it was released. Following the rise of National Socialism only a few years later, the new government banned the movie from public viewing for its extremely harsh criticism, similarly to many war poets of the era it depicts, of the mechanized and systematic slaughter of an entire generation of young men during a mere four years of trench warfare. Nazi Party Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels accordingly denounced Westfront 1918 as, "cowardly defeatism". Some shots from the film were used for scene-setting purposes in a 1937 BBC Television adaptation of the play Journey's End.