Das Boot Q
 

About a month ago I re-watched Das Boot which I hadn't seen since I was probably 15 or so.

It was a great film, one of the best war films out there, but I have to say I was colossally disappointed in the the ending.

Can any of you history buffs tell me if thats really what happened to the crew, or the reasoning/thought process that went into the ending of the movie. I feel like if I understand the ending whether its historically based or theres some logic to it this bitter after taste of the movie will disappear! Right now it just seems like a lazy copout of an ending :-?

Please someone bring rays of :sunny: to this great film! :)

The book/movie is an historically based FICTION. The ending allows the reader to draw his own conclusion about the story.

That said, you might draw some meaning from the fact that these U-boat men went through harrowing dangers at sea only to return to port to face even more danger and death from the RAF bombing attacks on their French Atlantic bases.

Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, a real life war correspondent who made several U-boat cruises which are the basis for his books and this movie, most likely was never in a life or death situation as depicted in the scenes off Gibraltar nor the scenes at the end of the movie as they returned to base. But, he could still accurately write a war fiction based on his experience aboard U-boats.

In my humble opinion, Das Boot (book or movie) will always remain one of the best!

The book is actually mostly based on real events, as Buchheim went out on one patrol on U-96 with Kptlt. Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock in command. On this patrol they did meet another boat mid-Atlantic in a storm, and sat on the bottom of the straits of Gibraltar after being bombed.

The ending is the only fictional part of the book, as Willenbrock survived the war.

http://www.uboat.net/boats/u96.htm

Cheers,

Dan

For sure, they sunk only one merchant during the attack and they where heavily damaged during the attempt to break in the Mediteranea Sea. For sure also, they came under attack immediately after getting in the shellter, but nobody got hurt!

Well, not quite so. Here is the quote from U-boat.net. Please read the bold text.

30 Nov, 1941
While penetrating the Straits of Gibraltar, U-96 was attacked at 2235hrs by a British Swordfish aircraft. Suffering some damage, the boat dived, surfaced in the next morning at 0445hrs, and headed back to base in France. The much longer and more dramatic stay in the deep described by Buchheim in his novel Das Boot was one of the numerous occasions in this book where the author fictionalized the events he experienced during his time as a war correspondent on U-96. (Sources: Blair, vol 1, page 401)

Funny, I don't think I have heard from anyone who saw 'Das Boot' and said 'wow, what a great ending!':p

I also, from the first time I saw it, said 'oh, come on!'. I'm sure it was meant to shatter us with the complete waste and hopeless nature of war. I wish they had come up with another way of saying that. I think the idea that even if they made safe to base they were still going to be sent out again in a month or so would be more chilling.

For me, one of the most haunting scenes in the movie is the change in Thomsen's expression as he bid's them farewell as they are just starting their patrol. Despite his cheerful shouts, he knows what is waiting for them out there.:nope:

Strange since it always seemed to me an outright ANTI-NAZI film. :hmm:

The ending is semi-fictional, the boat was sunk in an airraid as said at Uboat.net;

Still, I dont mind the ending being fiction, it's one of the most powerfull scenes I've seen to sum up the Uboat war from german POV. You get home despite everything, only to not be safe even there.

Pretty much. The young nazi officer was portrayed as an awkward douchebag.

A sort of theme I picked up from the movie was that fighting on the side of something doesn't necessarily mean that one is fighting FOR that thing. The same idea comes across in the movie Stalingrad.

I wonder what it is about those critics that can't seem to differentiate between the young and very human men (sometimes just boys) plunged into the hell of a conflict and the ideologies on which those conflicts were based. Is a knownothing 18 year old pissing his pants in battle any less human or worthy of having his humanity recognized because of the tabs on his collar?

No, it's not. But the setting being WW2 (or WW1) and his surname being Bahr does, at least on the minds of most people. And it's a shame that it does. :nope:

Right, and it's sad/funny also because it takes the same kind of denial that made those atrocities of the era possible in the first place. That same black and white attitudes. The same cocksure unexamined self-righteousness.

I've always thought of it as an anti-nazie, anti-war film as well.

One of the opening scenes out right criticizes Hitler and the Nazis when that other captain (whos earned an iron cross), drunk as a human can possibly be bites his tongue after giving an incredibly sarcastic speech.

Also all the characters are portrayed with humanity, deep flaws, and emotions. Not as 'superhumans' which is what a pro-nazi film would have portrayed them as.

Perhaps the reason why the movie was not taken well when it was first released was because people, understandably, dehumanize and demonize the nazis. Das Boot broke this mold, it didn't try to glorify the men of that u-boat and it didn't try make them seem less than human, it simply portryed them human. Fact of the matter is, despite all the terrible things the naizes did, they were humans and in that way are an example of what we as a species are capable of (on the horrific end of the spectrum) and I think that is why people feel really uncomfterable when thinking about the Nazis.

I understand peoples views about the ending being ironic or showing the reality of war and I thought of those things after watching it, but I don't know I just still feel like it was a copout of an ending :-? Still a great movie though.

Well, the movie was set in a fairly late period during the war, when the tide had begun to turn against the Germans.

So, you can't really blame them for having less faith in Der Fuhrer. Hence, the anti-nazi sentiments in the movie.

As for the ending... well I found it really sad. Come on, they worked their ass off just to get home alive and then get bombed to pieces. The scene where the Captain dies as the U-Boat sinks was masterfully done. It's almost as if his life was tied to the sub.

(Oh wait, didn't Dowly already post something similar to the above paragraph? :P )

Kudos to you Wolfgang Peterson for giving us an accurate portrayal of U-boats and the futility of war (unlike some other **** movies like U-571).

Yoo ******* following me? :D

After the stunt you pulled off with Arma and the subsequent luring of perhaps 1000s of Subsimmers, I'm inclined to. :rotfl:

Seriously though, I didn't notice your post until I accidentally scrolled up the thread.

Ya ya, excuses! ;)

Lol... if you need proof, you'll notice that I edited my post to include the reference to you :P . Anyway, my job is to ensure some people still post on the forums and not spend their lives glued to Arma ;) .

Btw, this youtube movie (fairly old but brilliantly done) brings back some good old memories of Das Boot. And all of this was done using Silent Hunter 3. This one features the surface attack on the convoy depicted in the movie.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wwqvjyn22Ys

Well, humanizing the Nazis was one of the many problems Downfall had. I liked the movie, but most of my friends were horrified by the fact that "Hitler was a human being instead of Beelzebub himself"
BUT... and i think you made a mistake (or didn't express yourself the way yo wanted to, or i failed to understand you...)
[look the quote, specially the lines marked in red]
I get the impression you are saying that the soldiers were mostly sympathizers of the party, but at the same time humans.

The way i see it, Das Boot shows the crews as men, some against the party, some totally in favor and many in the middle. But all of them seem humans. Now, it's important to note that some are anti-Nazis or at least against the high command or the bubble that surrounds Hitler. And both, this fact (that breaks the common belief of "solidiers = nazi party members" ) and the fact that shows the soldiers as humans (again, bein that "soldiers = nazi party members" and "soldiers = humans", we could reach the conclusion that "nazy party members = humans", but that would be negating the first message of the movie)

edit: does this man look like a super human fighting machine? or is he just a 18 year old boy... scared as one can be.
http://www.createforum.com/phpbb/ima...40dc57e599.jpg (it's part from a really famous photo of a Heer soldier carrying an ammo belt)

@ Tachyon: Actually the movie covers the period from August through December 1941, hardly late in the war. The 'Happy Times' are over, for sure, and the British have beefed up their ASW technology, but the 'Drumbeat' has yet to begin.

I always pictured the ending as being typically German, as they invented opera after all. Don't the heroes always die in German drama? (mostly joking, but that's my sometimes observation).

As for the Nazi 1WO, once I saw the 5-hour version I came away picturing him as less a dedicated Party man that a confused young joiner. After all, he came all the way from Mexico to sign up, because he thought it was the right thing to do. And he likely joined the Party for the same reason, and that he didn't know any better. Nothing at all like the Nazi first mate in John Wayne's The Sea Chase, who waits until the rest of the crew has left to slaughter the Australian radio crew they had previously captured. I feel kind of sorry for the kid, because he can't seem to please anybody and has some real social-skills problems. And, when the chips are down he turns out to be an excellent First Officer, keeping his cool and doing his job well.

While I think it includes far too many submarine-movie cliches, it is still the best sub movie ever, and I watch it every chance I get.

Oh, and as to the original question: Only the captain seems to die in the book, not the other three. And I say "seems to" because there were two sequels, and I understand he was in both of them.

Real life? Lehmann-Willenbrock was technical adviser on the film, so it's a pretty safe bet that he did indeed survive the war.

I have the directors cut of Das Boot which has as commentary track in which the interviewer talks with the director, the actor playing the Kaleun (and producer I think) for the complete duration of the movie. I can't remember exacty what was said but at the end of it in the harbor, the complete crew or atleast the Kaleun wasn't meant to be portrait as being dead. He just collapsed/passed/cracked under all the drama up to that point.