Composing the score for ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’

Director Edward Berger’s anti-war drama was nominated for Oscars in nine categories. The film has already won seven BAFTAs, including best film.

German composer Volker Bertelmann, better known as Hauschka, took home the BAFTA award for best soundtrack. The musician tells DW why he played the main theme on his great-grandmother’s antique harmonium and what he thinks is the reason for the film’s international success.

DW: You’ve worked with director Edward Berger several times. What was your first thought when asked to write the music for “All Quiet on the Western Front”?

In fact, my first thought was, “Definitely do this!” – and the second thought was: how to tell this German story about the war in a way that lets people decide and find their own interpretation without pushing them into a point of view?

Did you write the music during the film’s production or afterwards?

The film was already finished. I was invited to the screening in Berlin and it was very clear to me that it was going to be an impressive film.

The next day I had the first theme, the harmonium with those three notes you hear at the beginning of the film.

I sent the theme to Edward Berger – something you don’t normally do, you don’t send the first idea to the director, you collect maybe 10-15 ideas first to make sure one of them can work. But in this case I decided to send him the first idea right away because it was so strong and clear to me. I wanted to know if he felt the same.

He called me the next day and was overjoyed: “Fantastic, this is awesome, we’re looking forward to it, it’s exactly how we want it!” At that point it became clear to me that I could really build on that theme in some way.

You’ve written a very minimalist score, but also expressive and haunting. How did you decide what the music for this movie should be?

The first 10 minutes of the film tell the story of the uniform, and for me it was like a collage of images. There is no text, you just see the soldiers slowly leaving for war. Then the soldiers die. They take off their uniforms, wash them, take them to a factory where they are washed, and then it’s time for the sewing machines to sew new badges onto the uniforms.

For me, this sequence represents the machinery of war, how people were like materials. And I felt that the music had to fit the war machine, for example the sewing machines, somehow. The only way to do that was to take short, iconic elements and make them appear over and over again, like an art installation.

I also thought about the fact that these five young people who go to war lose everything they dreamed of in a relatively short period of time, everything they really are as humans. Yet they still have those moments where they might hold a woman’s handkerchief in their hand or see a poster of a woman.

In the film, women tend to epitomize what these guys really hope for, where they have a sense of normalcy. That’s where there’s hope. And I felt it needed a religious theme to match the powerful sound of the war machine.

The three-note main theme that runs throughout the film was played on her great-grandmother’s harmonium. What’s the story behind it?

Over a year ago, I received a call from my hometown about a harmonium that belonged to my family. I checked the instrument and immediately said, “I want this.”

In Düsseldorf, where I live now, there is a gentleman who restores harmoniums. I called him and asked if he could restore it. It then sat in my studio, ready and waiting to be used at some point.

After that first screening in Berlin, I thought it would be great to score the film with an instrument that dates back to that era and also works like a machine. I saw the harmonium and immediately realized it could work, it has a bellows, it has air, you hear the wood when you work on it.

I played the first few notes, went through distortion and amps, and that made it so dynamic and powerful that you hear it, but you’re not quite sure what kind of instrument it is.

What was the hardest thing for you in working on the music for this film?

The hardest part was actually not putting too much pathos and too much heroism into the music. As a songwriter, of course, this is a story where you tend to write sad, melancholy melodies. It was very important to keep your distance and appeal to your emotions at the same time.

Seven BAFTA nominations and nine Oscar nominations — what would be the reasons for such international recognition?

I think it’s because people can form their own image of what’s being portrayed. And, of course, current events certainly played a role as well. It could easily have been the other way around, that people would have said they didn’t want to see a film about the war – but it seemed the film resonated. The current times, strong script and strong execution are also part of this. I think this combination led the vast majority to choose to honor the film.

This interview conducted by Marina Baranovska was originally written in German.