all quiet on the western front Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Christopher McQuarrie Now Writing WWI Movie
Filed under: Action », Drama », Scripts », War »
There aren't a whole lot of WWI veterans left (I think there's less than a handful of Americans), which is a shame with Memorial Day coming up since many people aren't familiar with the significance of that Great War. It certainly hasn't helped that Hollywood -- the history textbook writer for many young Americans -- hasn't been interested in the first World War as a subject for a long time. The studios used to produce great WWI films like Wings, All Quiet on the Western Front and Sergeant York. Then WWII came along and became the more popular war, with its definite villain, Adolph Hitler. Meanwhile the best WWI movie we've gotten in awhile (from the U.S., anyway) is the terribly cartoon-like Flyboys, which actually had to be made independently. There's hope on the horizon, though, as a new WWI epic is being written by Christopher McQuarrie. The screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and the upcoming WWII movie Valkyrie, McQuarrie is interested in making a film that not only depicts the Great War, but also explains it. His script, titled No Man's Land (not to be confused with the German WWI film Niemandsland or the recent foreign Oscar-winner No Man's Land) focuses on the stories of three soldiers who stand in to illustrate the reasons for their nation's involvement in the war. One is an American who fights first for the French Legion and then for the U.S.; one is a Brit who is wrongly accused of being a coward; and the third is a German trench dweller.
'All Quiet On the Western Front' Being Prepped for Remake
Filed under: Action », Drama », New Releases », Remakes and Sequels », War »
Remaking a classic film is always a tricky proposition. For every excellent update like Scorsese's Cape Fear, there's a hundred total disasters like last year's All the King's Men. Most remakes feel a lot like Avril Lavigne covering Nirvana -- the words and chords are the same, but the passion, the inspiration, and the power is gone. Now they are remaking the 1930 Best Picture winner All Quiet on the Western Front, which many consider one of the finest war movies ever made. Writer-producers Ian Stokell and and Lesley Paterson feel Erich Maria Remarque's classic World War I anti-war novel is just as relevant today as it was back then, and plan to make it into a "big budget, sweeping Hollywood epic."
Stokell and Paterson want to adapt the book with a "gritty, journalistic approach," and they have hired ex-US Marine Captain Dale Dye as "Senior Military Advisor," a task he also performed on war classics Platoon and Saving Private Ryan. I have never read the book, but found the original movie to be pretty powerful, especially for a movie made nearly 80 years ago. The film has already been remade once, as a TV movie with Ernest Borgnine in 1979. Strangely -- and here's where purists start to get upset with these announcements --Stokell and Paterson only want to use the novel as a jumping off point. Paterson says "By creating new storylines ourselves, we believe this modern rendition will encompass greater depth and historical context, but still remain congruent with the spirit of Erich Maria Remarque's work." So...why not just write an original script? Doesn't anyone do that anymore?
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