Westfront 1918

Westfront 1918
Swedish film poster for Westfront 1918
Directed by	Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Written by	Ernst Johannsen
Release date(s)	1930
Country	Weimar Republic
Language	German

Westfront 1918 (German: Vier von der Infanterie) is a German film, set mostly in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I. It was directed in 1930 by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, from the novel Vier von der Infanterie by Ernst Johannsen, and deals with the impact of the war on a group of infantrymen. It featured an ensemble cast led by screen veterans Fritz Kampers and Gustav Diessl; Diessl had been a prisoner of war for a year during the war. The film bears resemblance to its close contemporary, the All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), an American production, although it has a bleaker tone. 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, although it was often shown in truncated form. With the rise of Nazism, the film quickly became considered by the German authorities as unsuitable for the people, notably for its obvious pacifism, and for its clear denunciation of the total and useless abomination of war. This was an attitude that propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would soon label 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.

Cast

• Fritz Kampers as The Bavarian
• Gustav Diessl as Karl
• Hans-Joachim Moebis as The Student
• Claus Clausen as The Lieutenant
• Jackie Monnier as Yvette
• Hanna Hoessrich as Karl's Wife
• Else Heller as Karl's Mother

See also

• List of German films 1919-1933

Bibliography

• BANDMANN, Christa & HEMBUS, Joe: Westfront 1918. In: Dies.: Klassiker des deutschen Tonfilms. München: Goldmann 1980, S. 19 - 21 ISBN 3442102073
• VANDEN BERGHE, Marc, La mémoire impossible. Westfront 1918 de G.W. Pabst. Grande Guerre, soldats, automates. Le film et sa problématique vus par la 'Petite Illustration' (1931), Brussel, 2001 - text online in www.art-chitecture.net/publications.php [1]

External links

• Westfront 1918 at the Internet Movie Database
• Westfront 1918 at AllRovi
• Senses of Cinema Article on the film
• Jeremy Arnold on the film, for Turner Classic Movies