The classic novel by Erich Maria Remarque, No news from the Western Front, which follows a young German soldier during World War I, has been adapted before. But Edward Berger, who directed and co-wrote the newly released film Netflix film adaptation, thought his background as a German-born filmmaker would give him an edge over the previous editions. “It informs the movie, and hopefully it ends up making a very different movie than the American or English version,” Berger said of his heritage at a recent THR presents Live at EnergaCamerimage, powered by Vision Media. “I thought that would be interesting to share.”
Berger was joined on stage in Torun, Poland by cinematographer and frequent collaborator James Friend – the pair also recently worked on the miniseries Patrick Melrose – to discuss the making of the film, which is also Germany’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2023 Oscars. “Authenticity was key to absolutely everything,” says Friend of the cinematography, which largely took place outside of Prague according to a recording schedule of 53 days. “It was about making it feel as real as possible. Our approach was always dictated by the environment we were in and what the characters were going through. And also just always go back to the book, go back to the source material which was very, very important to us.
The director also noted that the timeliness of the film’s subject matter was unfortunate: “A big reason why we thought it was a good time to make the film three years ago was that we felt like, you know, you had Trump in America, you had Brexit, you had right-wing governments across Europe that were elected.
“The discourse and the language felt very different,” he added. “It reminded us of a time we read about in history books.”
This edition of THR Presents is sponsored by Netflix.