![]() ![]() ![]() As the U-Boat raveled half-blind beneath the stormy Atlantic, vastly outnumbered by Churchill's insurmountable fleet and the deadly Allied destroyers, Das Boot portrayed the ears-only battles as harrowing, visceral, sweaty horrors, hell in a tin can with a limited supply of air. With a brilliant, harrowing cast headed by then-unknown Prochnow as the rough-hewn, cynical U-Boat captain, the film captured the look, feel, sounds, and even smells of daily life 20,000 fathoms beneath the Allies. Nevertheless, Das Boot went on to be nominated for six Academy Awards and became the most successful foreign film released in America up until that time. ![]() While it may not seem so portentous today, I clearly remember a ripple of unease among audiences (and some critics) during the film's initial 1981 release the idea that Nazi seamen could be portrayed in such a sympathetic light was, at the time, a sticking point for many who saw the film. As the opening crawl states, of the 40,000 men serving on U-Boats during WWII, 30,000 never returned home. Set in the waning years of Nazi Germany's control of the Atlantic, Das Boot explodes the myth of the all-powerful German U-Boat fleet and replaces it with the brutal truth of war: most of the crews conscripted at the time were barely out of puberty, 16- and 17-year-old raw recruits, cocksure and eager for glory, unwitting and doomed. Everyone from Steven Spielberg to Renny Harlin has chimed in on how influential Das Boot has been in the history of action cinema, and with the director's original vision now on screen for the first time, it's easy to see why. Petersen is now back in Germany to make his first German-language film since Das Boot, a reworking of his 1976 TV movie Vier Gegen Die Bank.īavaria Film’s decision to produce both a feature film and, in 1985, an extended TV series version of Das Boot is a textbook example of mutually beneficial collaboration between film and television, which was recognised with a Bafta and International Emmy.A revitalized, remastered version of Petersen's classic 1981 saga of the men of WWII German U-Boat 96, Das Boot now runs a lengthy three-plus hours, but it's still one of the greatest anti-war films of all time. ![]() Its success led to Petersen’s upward trajectory he shot $30m fantasy film The NeverEnding Story (1984) and sci-fi drama Enemy Mine (1985) at Munich’s Bavaria Film Studios, where Das Boot had been made, before moving to Los Angeles and blockbusters such as In The Line Of Fire (1993), Air Force One (1997) and Troy (2004). The mother of all submarine movies, Das Boot remains streets ahead of other nautical epics such as The Hunt For Red October (1990) or Crimson Tide (1995) thanks to its slick action sequences and unbearably claustrophobic tension.ĭirector Wolfgang Petersen even suggested that cinemas should provide sick bags as cinema-goers were likely to feel seasick - something he probably kept in mind when shooting The Perfect Storm (2000) and Poseidon (2006) in Hollywood with an array of digital effects at his disposal.īilled as Germany’s most expensive post-war film, Das Boot was seen by 20 million cinema-goers in 120 countries and grossed $22m, with $12m coming from the US alone (according to Mark Damon of Producers Sales Organisation). ![]()
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