Das Boot Q

[Dowly]

Ya ya, excuses!

[Tachyon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

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.

[kenijaru]

Originally Posted by mara_eNtrO

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.

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.
(it's part from a really famous photo of a Heer soldier carrying an ammo belt)

[Sailor Steve]

@ 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.

[Pisces]

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.

[AngusJS]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

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

I think "Wow, what a great ending!" every time I watch Das Boot. It's what makes it one of the best anti-war movies ever. You grow connected to U-96, its captain and crew. You cheer for them after they make it back to the surface near Gibraltar, only to have it all taken away at the end by an event beyond their control. When U-96 sinks and the Captain dies, you think what was the point of it all.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

@ 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.

Das Boot should have been set in 1943, not 1941.

[sharkbit]

I am always struck more by the faces of the crew at the end of the movie as they are pulling up to the dock, rather than the air raid, the sinking of the sub, and the collapse of the captain.

Compare the look of the crew at the end of the movie to when they are lined up on deck, preparing to sail at the beginning.
Not like the smiling, happy crew that you see in the newsreels and photos.
Their eyes are a lot more haunted and many, if not all, have been changed by what they've gone through. That has always been one of the more striking moments for me in the movie.

I agree with what someone said above. I have never said, "Wow, what a great ending!" In fact I was a little dissapointed in the ending when compared to the book. Maybe I need to watch the movie again-it's been about 5 months since I last saw it.

The ending is not so good as in the book? Weell, filming a full attack sequence like it's described in the book would have raised the production costs by a large sum, especially since it was filmed full sized and not in model-scale.
Buchheim once said, that if he had known that he would write two sequels, the ending of "Das Boot" would have been quite different.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by gmuno

since it was filmed full sized and not in model-scale.

Err, there were two small models of U96 as well. One for surface scenes and one for the submerged scenes. The U-boat dummy on which the crew is standing during leaving and returning to port wasn't used for the scenes at sea IIRC (but it is some 15 years ago since I visited the Bavaria Filmstudios were they told us about the movie).

[Schroeder]

Sorry, it seems I misunderstood you.
I would love to edit/delete my last post, but somehow the button doesn't work.:hmm:

[barkhorn45]

I remember taking my wife to see thhe movie when it first came out.She was not a military history nut like myself by any means but at the end when the ship is bombed and sunk she actually cried saying"after all they went thru to die like that".
I found her reaction moving and quite interesting.She did'nt view them as nazi's but as men enduring the unendurable only to die at the point of seeming safety.

[kailii]

Since this thread is turning nostalgic a little bit i feel a wish to share with you how i learned of U-96.
I was a boy of 12 or 13 years and just loved to pick up those weekly published "mini books" of 64 pages each or whatever that were so popular among little men at that time.
Besides picking up my regular share of "Perry Rhodans" i bought a copy of "Der Landser" one day. This turned out to be not my usual science fiction crap but a nicely written story about a real U-Boat performing real actions and all that. I was completely hooked instantly, but this wasn't a big surprise as i was that type of boy who used a pencil and lots of paper trying to bring back to life the battle of Jutland already, with an emphasis on torpedoes...

"Der Landser" was (or is, i don't know) a propaganda tool used by some... honorable gentlemen... to glorify war generally and especially pointing out the role the respectable German Wehrmacht played in WWII. Yes, nothing but cheap post war nazi propaganda.

But i still remember reading this booklet. I don't have it in my posession anymore, but i think it must have been written by Buchheim since there were way too many details presented in this booklet which made it into the movies.

And now for the easter egg. I remember reading about an attack on warships in this booklet which never made it into the movie.

If i recall correctly (been some 30 years since then) the submarine U-96 while operating west of England (no time given) spotted two smokestacks on the horizon. The boat approached the sighting which turned out to be an english Nelson type battleship with escorts.

Not many details were given, but from what i can recall the boat attacked the battleship by firing a spread of torpedoes. They did not score a single hit but they escaped without being detected.

I also remember reading about the Captain of the boat after the attack saying something like "there were more opportunities like this at the time".
My guess is that the Rodney or Nelson did not sail without something valuable to protect against, but this is pure imagination.

Would be interesting to hear if anybody else knows about this - oh well - epic failed attack!

[Barman]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

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.

I think this is the intended feeling your supposed to get from it. These men went to hell and back, suffered, and were there for each other, and even when they think they've made it home, and it's over, it's not, because that's war.

I hated seeing those men die after all I'd seen them through though :/.

[Tombow]

I first saw a (heavily edited and cut-down to TV length) version of the movie when i was 14, read the book years later. Now I have both the book and the director's cut DVD.

The movie ending does not live quite up to the ending of the book but witht the filming techniques of that day, I imagine it is the best what could be accomplished. What I don't like about it is that it suggests the Kaleun's death much more overtly than the book where it is all left to the reader's imagination in a frightening last paragraph ("es ist ab er Blut, was aus seinem Mund kommt"). A kind of cliffhanger, but a really grim and gruesome one. It actually points towards death and hopelessness without calling each of these things by name, and THAT is the strongest point of it. The reader is left frightened and wondering if the Kaleun is dead or not and the whole world of "Das Boot" doesn't cease to exist in the moment one have read the book to the very end, it lives after.

The movie ending ruins exactly this afterfeeling...or reduces it with the much more overt suggestion of death. None the less, it is a really strong ending for a war film. For me, it is only second to the ending of "The Bridge on the River Kwai".