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What I found impressive was that he already knew - the text is dated 1981 - that from then on this movie was going to be the one example for the uboat war all over the world and almost noone would care what's written in books about it anymore.
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Too true. A movie can be powerful. Both in its subject content, and how its presented. If Das Boot the movie was never created, i'd dare say there wouldnt be as many uboat fans as there are here on subsim. If "das boot" was a movie about the pacific war (under a different title naturally), then you'd probably see more people clamoring for US fleet boats over German type 7c's. The power of a movie, is a big influence on people. It's what i call "The das boot effect"
If the movie had portrayed the Germans from hollywoods point of view, then Das boot would have been nothing more then another U-571.And any reasonable person will admit, the machine gun scene on u-571 is derived from old WW2 propganda which persists to this day. In short, it was bull****. On the otherhand Das boot was portrayed from a more humanity point of view, but also one which seems to absolve German uboat crews of their wartime role against the allied nations, and ultimatly created alot of fans of uboats and the men who sailed them. Primarly as a result of the movie das boot.
One story is forgotten in all of this though. That of the allied sailors who had their ships torpedoed from under them. The ones who had lost their lives at sea trying to deliver vital supplies. What about their story? There' no movie about that, so you never hear about it. Ultimatly the Uboats of WW2, sailed under the flag of the third riech, but create a movie and present it in just the right way, and you can make people overlook that.
A movie, is a very powerful thing.