If there’s one international feature that has the potential to break through with multiple Oscar nominations this year, it’s looking more and more likely that it will be All Quiet on the Western Front. The German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel is Germany’s submission in the international-feature category, and it also made the short lists in four other categories, including original score and visual effects.
Currently streaming on Netflix, All Quiet on the Western Front is epic in scope, following idealistic 17-year-old Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), who comes to realize the horrors of war after he is sent to the trenches on World War I’s Western Front. Directed by Edward Berger, the drama balances the violent tragedy of war with stunning cinematography, shot by James Friend. Filmed in the Czech Republic, Friend uses mostly large-format cameras, taking the viewer through the muddy trenches of war and intense, heart-racing battle scenes.
Berger and Friend tell Vanity Fair that Paul’s journey was their constant North Star. “Every decision that was made in terms of where to place the camera is to put the audience into Paul’s shoes,” says Berger. “We immediately thought, Alright, it’s one boy’s story, so it’s one camera. We basically only used one camera, and we had another camera to leapfrog to the next location.” Here, Berger and Friend take us through six of their favorite shots from the 52-day shoot, including the harrowing moments on the muddy battlefield and a snowy surprise.
The Battlefield
Courtesy of Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix.
The scenes at the Western Front trenches were filmed at an abandoned ex-Soviet air base in the Czech Republic town of Milovice. “The location was a real gem. When you are embarking on a picture like this, you’re only as good as what you can really photograph,” says Friend.
The air base had two runways with an enormous plot of land between them, so the team tore it up to build the trenches, with mud-filled craters running as deep as 20 feet. At one point, Friend even found himself stuck in one, sinking deeper every moment. “We had to get a crane to get him out of the mud,” Berger says with a laugh. “You can basically drown in the mud. It’s basically quicksand.” Almost every scene in the trenches was shot on location, says Friend, who, along with Berger, felt that shooting these scenes practically would provide authenticity. The explosions were also practical.
Where movie magic did have to step in was when it came to the background actors. Friend says they bunched up all the extras they had for this first shot, to make it look like the German army was being attacked by a giant enemy force. “In the magic of cinema, you give the illusion that there’s actually a thousand people running across a battlefield at once. It was fantastic,” he says.
The machine gun captured in this image was around 100 years old, creating another problem for the filmmakers when it came to time. “They’re not very reliable. They jam, basically, every five seconds,” says Berger. With only 52 days to complete the film, Berger and Friend needed every moment. They spent several months before the shoot holed up in a hotel in Berlin, storyboarding every single shot. “I genuinely feel that I’ve never gone into a project so prepped before,” says Friend.
SCENE-STEALING SNOW
Courtesy of Netflix.
After the war has just ended, Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) and Paul sneak into a home to steal some eggs or a goose for a celebratory dinner with their fellow soldiers. It was a cold February morning on set, and the sudden arrival of snow created what Berger calls one of his favorite moments in the movie, when Kat is standing guard and there’s a quiet moment when he seems to know his fate. “He stands there and looks up at the snow, and he knows. It’s just a really melancholic, beautiful moment, and the snow made that,” says Berger.
But the snow wouldn’t even last the whole day. Three hours later, it had melted and Berger and Friend were concerned they’d have to reshoot the whole sequence for continuity. But the producers stepped in and found it in the budget to add in snow visual effects for the rest of the scene so that moment could remain. “You take away the snow element, and it’s still, in my opinion, a beautiful scene,” says Friend. “But it’s nowhere near as beautiful, nowhere near as poetic.”
CHECKING IN
Courtesy of Netflix.
In the center of Prague, there’s an art gallery that has this stunning ceiling that Berger and Friend fell in love with. “It’s such a unique location that contrasts other locations in the film—it would’ve been irresponsible not to have shot there,” says Friend. To light the colorful ceiling, Friend was able to stick lighting balloons between it and the upper ceiling and inflate them to get that continuity of light.
Rebecca Ford
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