An American tourist in Russia
The biopic about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir premiered at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival and is scheduled for release in the USA later this month. I of course cannot render full judgement until seeing the full movie, but the theatrical trailer is crammed with every Biden 2024 talking point, so let’s start with those.
Why is All Quiet on the Western Front parroted as a great anti-war message when it didn’t even work on its original audience? It didn’t work on the second, third, or fourth audiences either. What do you call a person who tries the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?
My guess is that All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t really about the futility of war, regardless of how the author tried for that to be the message. Unfortunately, in the real world, an artist’s intended message doesn’t matter. All that matters is what the audience interprets the message to be. The interpreted lesson, the real lesson, of All Quiet on the Western Front is not that war is bad. It is losing a war that is bad.
On 5 April, 1241, Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod crushed invading crusader knights atop the frozen Lake Peipus. In 1939, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein immortalized the day in film. Let’s reflect on the cinematic and political importance of the Eisenstein movie and the centuries-old conflict it portrays.
