Movie Notes: All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Director: Lewis Milestone

This is a very powerful anti-war film.  The film convincingly immerses the viewer into the terrors of the war, and it feels very raw.  It's obvious that the pain of the war was still felt when the movie was made.  It evokes the pain so obvious in the literature of the period.

The only real draw-back is in the too earnest speeches given periodically by Lew Ayres are out of character with the otherwise authentic feeling of the movie.

Movie Notes: Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory (1957)
Director: Stanley Kubrick

The execution scene staged in this movie is intensely powerful.  When artists grip their audience as compellingly as Kubrick does during htat sequence, they've done something special.

While I freely admit to having sentimental taste in movies, I also like a movie that really bites at my moral intuition.  This movie challenges them, and draws its power from them.  I don't think there are many deeper wells from which the artist may pull.

Anyway, a beautifully shot, fascinating film that I highly recommend to everybody; though it's not an easy one to watch.