Erciyes İletişim Dergisi (Jan 2024)
The Representation of War in All Quiet on Western Front Films
Abstract
War, which represents power on the one hand and destructiveness on the other, is a form of struggle in the most general sense. This phenomenon, which includes all kinds of diplomatic or armed struggles in which the peace environment is disrupted, is of great importance not only during the war process but also with its post-process effects. Cinema has been interested in war as a social phenomenon since its early years. War cinema, which developed as a sub-genre of Western cinema, has become a genre over time. The history of cinema is full of countless examples of war films. In some of these films, the destructive social phenomenon of war is revealed, while in others war propaganda is made. All Quiet On The Western Front, which was transferred to cinema by different directors almost a hundred years apart from Remarque's autobiographical novel of the same name, is one of the important works of the war film genre. This study compares the versions of this film shot by Lewis Milestone in 1930 and Edward Berger in 2022. This comparison, it is aimed to reveal how war has been evaluated in cinema over the years. For this purpose, the plot and content of both films are analysed by the qualitative content analysis method. With this analysis, it will be explained comparatively how the ideological discourse on war is realised in the films. As a result of the study, it is seen that, as in many examples of war cinema, both films successfully reveal the destructiveness of war, its bitter face, and the destruction and despair it creates.
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