‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ director Edward Berger names the 10 greatest movies of all time
Few directors have captured the nihilism of war quite like Edward Berger. The German director’s latest cinematic effort, a remake of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel All Quiet On The Western Front, is not an easy watch. Its tragic and brutal violence lingers long after the final credits roll. Below we’ll be looking at the ten films the director voted for in Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time poll.
Berger’s All Quiet on The Western Front opens with a harrowing sequence in which an unnamed German soldier is killed on the battlefield and buried in a mass grave. His coat is then washed, restitched and handed over to a young recruit still unaware of the horrors that await him on the frontline. Like Remarque’s original novel – which begins and ends with an old German schoolmaster whipping a roomful of recruits into a patriotic frenzy – Berger is interested in the cyclical nature of warfare. These young boys are doomed to sacrifice themselves across the generations, and for what? As Matthias Erzberger ( one of the German politicians who initiated Germany’s surrender at the end of the First World War) reminds us: the slain do not feel like heroes.
Berger’s first Greatest Film selection is an equally adept interrogation of war. It is, of course, Francis Ford Copolla’s 1917 Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now, which, in its artful portrayal of war-ravaged minds, undoubtedly influenced Berger’s focus on the psychological effects of bombardment. “[It] doesn’t try to tell a story,” the director commented, “but simply tries to capture the essence of war.”
Berger’s interest in the inner workings of the human mind is apparent in several more of his choices: including Milos Forman’s 1979 picture One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. It stars Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, a convict found guilty of statutory rape who pretends to be mentally insane to get out of hard labour and is subsequently transferred to a high-security psychiatric ward dominated by the oppressive presence of nurse Mildred Ratched.
Berger also names Michaelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 film L’avventura, a classic of Italian cinema starring the great Monica Vitta as Claudia, who joins Sandro, the lover of her friend Anna, on a remote volcanic island, where they begin a relationship despite Anna’s disappearance. Stylish, mysterious and sexy as hell – it’s certainly a worthy entry.
While clearly obsessed with classic cinema, the director also includes a handful of modern gems, including Alfonso Cuarón’s apocalyptic thriller Children of Men, Yorgos Lanthimos’s infinitely eerie 2017 picture Killing of a Scared Deer and Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. The latter stars Emily Blunt as idealistic FBI operative Kate Macer, who joins a team tasked with flushing out a cartel boss at the height of the war on drugs.
Make sure you check out Berger’s full selection below.
Edward Berger names the 10 greatest movies of all time
- Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
- Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Rocco E I Suoi Fratelli (Luchino Visconti, 1960)
- One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest ( Milos Forman, 1975)
- L’avventura Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
- Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
- Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017)
- Zimna wojna (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018)
- Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)
