Source Material: All Quiet on the Western Front

It's funny that no matter how well-read and/or hip we think we are, there's always something we missed. I never read this book before, never had to in school and never had any desire to do so since. Then a friend whose opinion I value, suggested I cross this off my list. And the value of that opinion just went up.

Erich Maria Remarque's novel is a riveting account of life in the shamefully forgotten trenches of World War I and the best account of any war I have read. But what really amazed me was how accessible it is. The language is remarkably modern, really bringing the characters and story to life (which wasn't something I was expecting from a book written in the 1928). Two years later, director Lewis Milestone adapted it for the screen and proceeded to win the Best Picture Oscar for his work.

The movie is a mostly faithful, linear retelling of the novel. The most noticeable change was the decision to not focus on the character of Paul Baumer, Remarque's first-person narrator. In fact, it took some time for me to distinguish who Paul was from the rest of the fresh-faced German recruits. Yes, German, which is another reason the story is so effective. The Germans, the great 20th century antagonists were just like us, young men thrown into hell without a rope forced to fight other young men just wanting to stay alive. It's this humanizing of the universal soldier that drives the horror home.

Milestone also elevates the character of Stanislaus "Kat" Katczinsky to lead status. Kat is an older soldier on the front who takes Paul and his friends under his wing. The move makes sense as Kat is the most charismatic character in the book and Louis Wolheim, a crooked-nosed, fireplug of a man, captures his big brother appeal.

Paul (Lew Ayres) does emerge toward the end of the film when they tackle the novel's most moving sequence: his return home on leave. This is where both Remarque and Milestone truly capture the theme of the story. Paul not only has to deal with the psychological consequences of the war on himself, but on his family, particularly his sick mother. And he has to endure the ignorant posturing of clueless civilians who still see all the death and destruction as a theoretical game.

The battlefield scenes are impressive for the time, employing the pre-CGI literal "cast of thousands." And then there's the ending. The book is notable for it's sudden break from Paul's POV to a third-person report announcing his uneventful death. The film, while unable to utilize that form of narrative technique, goes the "cinematic" route with the symbolic, and memorable, use of a butterfly.

It's Memorial Day and if nothing else, give a thought to WWI and all the men who gave their lives in the War to End All Wars. It's not like you're going to hear about them anywhere else today.

"We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land."