YMMV / All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

• Genius Bonus:
  • As Kantorek gives his rah-rah spiel goading the students into enlisting, he cites the old Roman proverb "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" ("It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.") That Latin quote inspired Wilfred Owen's famous poem about how War Is Hell, "Dulce Et Decorum Est."
  • If you take a good look at Kantorek's blackboard behind him. The phrase he's scrawled there is the first line of Homer's The Odyssey, which roughly translates to "Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide" This line supports Kantorek's worldview and provides us an insight into his militaristic fervor. Having been raised on the classics like The Iliad and The Odyssey, Kantorek sees war as something glorious, an event where nations invest young men and get worldly, ingenious heroes. And his own words follow a similar ideal: "Here is a glorious beginning for your lives. The field of honor calls you." Of course, he believes that. His experience of war comes from the ancient Greeks, who didn't exactly like to write epic poems about losers or dead men. Odysseus went to war and then had an epic poem written about him.

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