All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)

"Let the months and the years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear."

This film adaptation of the combat veteran Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel (the book and its sequel, The Road Back (1930), were among the books banned and burned in Nazi Germany) was made in 1979, in that small window of American film history when war suddenly was fully exposed for the obscenity it is and always has been, between the end of the Vietnam War and the election of Ronald Reagan. The Deer Hunter came out the year before in 1978. Apocalypse Now the same year. It was a time when the United States as a culture was seriously questioning the concept of international conflict and military power. Compare a few of the war films of 1980, the year Ronnie Raygun took office:

The Dogs of War: "Mercenary James Shannon, on a reconnaissance job to the African nation of Zangaro, is tortured and deported. He returns to lead a coup."

Private Benjamin: "When her husband dies on their wedding night, Judy decides to join the United States Army. She realizes that she has never been independent in her entire life. What looks like a bad decision at first, turns out not so bad at all."

The Big Red One: "Director Samuel Fuller's autobiographical tale of a special infantry squad and its intrepid sergeant during WWII follows the men from D-Day to the liberation of the Nazi death camps."

There was one last echo of horror in war in this time before the heroics became the standard again. It was far away in Australia, where Gallipoli by Peter Wear was released in 1981. Like another Australian film, The Odd Angry Shot from 1979, it depicted war as pointless. 

War steals life. Not just through death and killing and cost. But it takes youth, it takes laughter, it takes passion and creativity. It kills thought and contemplation. It destroys love. It smashes families, hopes, desires, ambitions. It takes everything and turns it into waste and decay. This film is a brilliant study in that ancient horror.

Politicians start wars
Generals organise them
The people pay for them.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a television film produced by ITC Entertainment, released on November 14, 1979, starring Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine. It is based on the book of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque. The film was directed by Delbert Mann. A joint British and American production, most of the filming took place in Czechoslovakia.