Did they handle some of those nature shots?įriend: There’s this great wildlife cameraman called Rob Hollingworth, who specializes in shooting animals and wildlife. Then on the way back I spotted these woods as we were sort of half asleep and I said, “They’ve got lovely pine trees!” So, we pulled over and shot that too.įilmmaker: There’s a Wildlife Unit listed in the credits. We got this very lovely sunrise, and it got even more dramatic, but we actually thought that part was too indulgent for the movie. We left our hotel room at midnight, and we traveled for about two hours to the location and then we had to, basically like a documentary team, walk the tripod and a 65mm camera up the mountain and sit there and wait for the sun to rise. It was up in the mountains somewhere in the Czech Republic. The first shot in the film is actually the first frame we ever shot. We went on these tech scouts and found these lovely locations. So, when Edward Berger and I were discussing what could contrast the horror of the film, we wanted to find imagery that represented the opposing side, I suppose, and nature is one of the most beautiful things you can destroy. What is the function of those shots?įriend: The film-and the novel-are predominantly anti-war stories and I think, in order to appreciate that, you need to appreciate what war takes away. These interstitial glimpses of nature recur throughout the film. The first images in All Quiet on the Western Front are a sunrise over the mountains, a forest at dawn and a fox and her cubs in their den.
LENS STUDIO FOOT TRACKING MOVIE
With the movie currently streaming on Netflix, Friend spoke to Filmmaker about his compulsion for symmetrical composition, devoting 10 weeks to a few fleeting but crucial frames of fox cubs, and collaborating to create “the most cinematic latrine ever.”įilmmaker: Let’s start at the very beginning. Locations included a recreation of the French and German trenches and the No Man’s Land in between, brought to life at a Soviet-era airfield. The British DP employed an assortment of cameras (Arri Alexa 65, Alexa Mini LF, Sony Venice and Red Weapon) and lenses (Arri Prime DNA, Prime 65 S, Tribe7 Blackwing7, a detuned 21mm Zeiss CP.3 and a custom-built 18.5mm) over the 53-day shoot in the Czech Republic.
The film recently earned nine Oscar nominations, including a nod for cinematographer James Friend. In Netflix’s new adaptation, the latter half of that axiom is also represented with the addition of a subplot centered on the armistice negotiations that ultimately ended fighting on the Western Front.Īs in Remarque’s novel, the story is principally told through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a teenager who-propelled by patriotic fervor-enlists alongside his schoolmates only to be disillusioned by the brutality and inhumanity of the conflict. The former lies at the heart of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 novel All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the German writer’s experiences in the trenches of World War I. War is young men dying and old men talking.
All Quiet on the Western Front, James Friend, Netflix
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