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Academy Award Winners 2022

March 12, 2023 1 comment

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 95th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2022.

In the Best Original Score category composer Volker Bertelmann won the award for his score for the new version of the classic anti-war story All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the all-time great novel by Erich Maria Remarque. In accepting his award, Bertelmann said:

“Well, thank you so much, thanks to the Academy for this huge recognition. When I was working on the film I was thinking a couple of times of my mom, because she was telling me, every now and then, when you want to change humanity and empathy in the world, you have to start by yourself and with your own surroundings, because you learn by that and you can show actually where we all – how we all can live together. So, you know, by working on a film like that you always are deeply touched and sometimes you have to make the screen very small because there are so much explosions happening. I want to say thank you to my wife, Elizabeth, and my kids up there, Lotte, Paulina, and Lucas. To Malthe Grunert and Edward Berger, and the whole cast and crew, for their amazing craftsmanship. To Netflix for their huge support. And to my fellow nominees, Carter, John, Justin, Son Lux, that I can be a part of such a unique, human, and diverse group of talented composers, that’s for me a big gift. And last but not least I want to thank all of you, for this wonderful evening. Thank you so much!

The other nominees were Carter Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Justin Hurwitz for Babylon, Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia, and Ian Chang (Son Lux) for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and John Williams or The Fabelmans.

In the Best Original Song category, the winners were M. M. Keeravani and Kanukuntla Subhash Chandrabose for “Naatu Naatu” from the smash hit Bollywood movie RRR.

The other nominees were Stephanie Germanotta (Lady Gaga) and Michael Tucker (Bloodpop) for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick, Ryan Lott, David Byrne, and Mituski Miyawaki (Mitski) for “This Is A Life” from Everything Everywhere All At Once, Temilade Openiyi (Tems), Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Göransson for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Diane Warren for “Applause” from Tell It Like A Woman.

IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES/ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT – Volker Bertelmann

February 28, 2023 5 comments

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

The 1929 German-language novel Im Westen Nichts Neues – known in English as All Quiet on the Western Front – by Erich Maria Remarque is one of the most important anti-war novels ever written. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of Remarque’s own experiences fighting in the trenches of western Europe during World War I, and follows a young soldier named Paul Bäumer, who over the course of the book is transformed from an eager and enthusiastic patriot fighting for the glory of the vaterland, into a bitter, broken shell of a man, utterly devastated by the physical and mental anguish of war. It touches on several important themes, ranging from explorations of nationalism and blind patriotism, to the futility of war itself, especially the trench warfare of WWI where literally millions of soldiers, on both sides of the conflict, were slaughtered while trying to gain little more than a few yards of ground. The book was banned and burned in Nazi Germany, naturally, but has since become regarded as a modern classic, and is now one of the most revered pieces of German-language literature. Read more…