The first "realistic" war movie is King Vidor's 1925 "The Big Parade", in which the Battle of Belleau Wood is restaged in Griffith Park. It's silent; the cannon fire was bass drums. The screenplay was by Laurence Stalling, a veteran of the battle. Vidor and he were arguing at the outset about the battle. They made an overnight train trip…
The first "realistic" war movie is King Vidor's 1925 "The Big Parade", in which the Battle of Belleau Wood is restaged in Griffith Park. It's silent; the cannon fire was bass drums. The screenplay was by Laurence Stalling, a veteran of the battle. Vidor and he were arguing at the outset about the battle. They made an overnight train trip, in which they shared a sleeping compartment. Stalling had the upper bunk. When Vidor saw his wooden leg drop in front of him to the floor when he took it off before turning in, he later wrote "I stopped arguing with him." It's a really amazing movie, done with hand-cranked silent cameras. It still has some of the most realistic battle footage, though if you are familiar with Griffith Park at all, it can be difficult to maintain "the willing suspension of disbelief."
Also the German movie "Westfront 1918" made in 1930 and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst was considered far superior to Milestone's movie for portraying the war's effect on Germany and Germans. The Nazis hated it so much they burned the film even before they burned Remarque's novel. It was adapted from Ernst Johanssen's novel "Vier von der Infanterie".
Storyline (from IMDb): A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.
The first "realistic" war movie is King Vidor's 1925 "The Big Parade", in which the Battle of Belleau Wood is restaged in Griffith Park. It's silent; the cannon fire was bass drums. The screenplay was by Laurence Stalling, a veteran of the battle. Vidor and he were arguing at the outset about the battle. They made an overnight train trip, in which they shared a sleeping compartment. Stalling had the upper bunk. When Vidor saw his wooden leg drop in front of him to the floor when he took it off before turning in, he later wrote "I stopped arguing with him." It's a really amazing movie, done with hand-cranked silent cameras. It still has some of the most realistic battle footage, though if you are familiar with Griffith Park at all, it can be difficult to maintain "the willing suspension of disbelief."
Also the German movie "Westfront 1918" made in 1930 and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst was considered far superior to Milestone's movie for portraying the war's effect on Germany and Germans. The Nazis hated it so much they burned the film even before they burned Remarque's novel. It was adapted from Ernst Johanssen's novel "Vier von der Infanterie".
Storyline (from IMDb): A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.