For the first time, Germany is sending a film made for streaming into the Oscar race. A jury has chosen the Netflix production “Nothing New in the West”, the film adaptation of the famous anti-war novel by Erich Maria Remarque and the remake of one of the most famous works in film history. Because the Oscar Academy requires films to have been shown in cinemas in order to be eligible for the awards, Netflix will initially show “Im Westen” on the big screen for four weeks, in Germany from September 29th. Then the big campaign to win Netflix the longed-for Oscar begins.
Director Edward Berger is almost offended when you ask him about his “television film”: “It was always clear to me that ‘Im Westen’ had to be released in cinemas worldwide.” He spent 55 days shooting in and around Prague, what Germans It is luxurious by all standards, with a budget of 20 million dollars, not much by American standards, but by local standards it is. The main roles are played by Daniel Brühl, Albrecht Schuch, Devid Striesow, Edin Hasanović and Felix Kammerer, a new discovery in the central role of Paul Bäumer.
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel was a sensation in the late 1920s because it realistically portrayed the horrors of World War I, from the devastation caused by artillery and machine guns to the use of chemical weapons. He contrasts the original enthusiasm for the war with the disillusionment that set in and portrays the “lost generation” who were unable to talk about their experiences even after the end of the war.
Berger refers to Anglo-American World War II films, which are often told from the point of view of heroism. Hollywood filmed “Im Westen” twice, in 1930 by Universal with their German-born boss Carl Laemmle, and in 1979 with the overwhelmed “John-Boy-Walton” Richard Thomas; this is the first German version of this original German material.
In “Im Westen” he wanted to tell the story from the German perspective, says Berger, “which must differ significantly in terms of feeling”. The German view of both wars (the first and the second) was still characterized by “shudders, grief, horror, shame”, a feeling that was passed on to his generation and that of his children.
Berger’s “Nothing New in the West” will premiere on September 27 at Berlin’s Kino International. A good dozen kilometers away, Lewis Milestone’s first film premiered on December 4, 1930 in the Mozart Hall on Nollendorfplatz (today’s “Goya”). Döblin, Zuckmayer, Feuchtwanger, Slevogt, Grosz, Kaiser, Kisch, Grimme – the artistic elite of the Weimar Republic were present, everything remained calm.
But the day before, Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter of the NSDAP in Berlin, had mysteriously noted in his diary that “the eunuchs should be taught more” when they went to the film. And so the heckling began in the evening performance of December 5th. The projectionist turned up the volume control, in vain: “The tumult grew wilder and louder, popular speakers yelled from every corner and the wildest insults filled the air,” recalled the director of the cinema, Hanns Brodnitz, in his autobiography.
The screening was stopped and the hall lit up. Joseph Goebbels and Ludwig Münchmeyer, a well-known anti-Semitic pastor, gave speeches. Enemy groups formed everywhere, brawls eased. Then: a gong, the light went out, the film started again. Not for long. Brodnitz continues: “In the meantime, stink bombs had been thrown into the auditorium, making the air unbearable and increasing the nervousness of the audience to the extreme, especially since such numbers of white mice were released from small cardboard boxes that the article was sold out in all Berliners Pet shops could close. Any slightly Jewish-looking guest was insulted, jostled, hit. Then a demonstration of about 1,500 people appeared on Nollendorfplatz, trying to storm the theater. A few minutes later, the first hundred police arrived and Nollendorfplatz was cleared with rubber truncheons.”
After two hours, the riot was under control – for the time being. The riots increased over the next few days. “Numerous hundreds were used every evening, the water truck was ready, mounted police laboriously cleared the flanking streets,” says Brodnitz. “Heavy speakers encouraged yelling, meetings were held almost every evening on Winterfeldtplatz and Wittenbergplatz, loudspeaker cars appeared, and the west of Berlin echoed with the cry ‘Adolf Hitler is at the gates of Berlin’.”
Windows were smashed in Kudamm cafés, and fanatics climbed onto the roof of the Mozart Hall on Motzstrasse to cut the power cable. After threats with hand grenades, firefighters were stationed in the cinema, search squads searched the pockets of visitors as if they were already in museums in 2022, afraid of superglue attacks.
After a week of pure chaos, the police issued a ban on the demonstration – and the chief inspectorate banned “Nothing new in the West” because of “degrading German reputation”. The Ministry of the Interior delivered an interesting statement. This winter, the German people are “in a state of such deep mental distress and inner turmoil” that everything that could deepen this conflict should be rejected. Now we are waiting for the justification for bans on demonstrations in the threatening cold winter.
