Das Boot (the movie)

[Scott Free]

We started into Das Boot yesterday evening. We finished it tonight. (It's almost 6 hours long.) For your enjoyment, know that my oh-so-funny wife thought it would be entertaining to throw water on me during one of the wetter scenes.

Anyway, WOW! What a great movie! Any other fans of Das Boot out there? Any movies that are similar that we might like?

 

[Sosa]

Stalingrad (1993) and Cross of Iron are good.

 

[Bob W]

I've seen Das Boot a couple of times and have the directors cut on DVD.
Six hours? You may have watched the entire mini-series, which I have not. The regular movie was just over 2 hours and the director's cut is 'only' 200 minutes.

Any movies that are similar that we might like?

I like the television show Combat, which is available from Netflix. Many of the episodes were directed by Robert Altman.

 

[Scott Free]

Six hours? You may have watched the entire mini-series,...

Yep. I think it was almost six. I can't imagine cutting it down to just over two hours.

 

[Sosa]

I was unaware that das boot was a mini series. I always thought it was a film directed by Wolfgang Peterson.

 

[Bob W]

I was unaware that das boot was a mini series. I always thought it was a film directed by Wolfgang Peterson.

There was so much footage, six hours worth, and only some of it was used in the original film, that they decided to make a mini-series using more of the footage. Then it was re-edited several subsequent times for different film releases:

150 minutes (1981, 1982) Theatrical
209 minutes (1981) unreleased
300 minutes (1984, 1988) BBC mini-series
208 minutes (1997) Director's Cut
293 minutes (2004) Das Boot: The Original Uncut Version

The first version to be released was the theatrical 150-minute (2½-hour) cut...

The film was partly financed by the German television broadcasters WDR and the SDR, and much more footage had been shot for the film than was shown in the theatrical version. A version of three 100-minute episodes was transmitted on BBC Two in the United Kingdom... In 1988 a version comprising six 50-minute episodes was screened. These episodes had additional cutback scenes summarising past episodes.

Petersen then oversaw the editing of six hours of film, from which was distilled Das Boot: The Director's Cut, 209 minutes long (3 hours, 29 minutes). Released in 1997, this cut combines the action sequences seen in the feature-length version with character development scenes contained in the mini-series....

An uncut miniseries version, running 293 minutes (four hours, 53 minutes), was released to DVD on 1 June 2004, as Das Boot: The Original Uncut Version...

Hope that makes sense to you, cause it's confusing as heck to me. Now I don't know which version(s) I've seen.

 

[Sosa]

I have seen multiple versions of this film. The voices are different and the lengths vary. But the only ones worth watching are very long. I guess you have to be fluent in German to get the full experience.

 

[mwerner]

I watched it when the original English subtitled version came out many years ago, and subsequently the dubbed-English version that was being shown on cable back then.
I thought the subtitled version was better, even not understanding the German...

I had heard that it was available as a mini-series; may have to give it a shot. No way the wife would sit through it.... She's claustrophobic......

 

[Scott Free]

150 minutes (1981, 1982) Theatrical
209 minutes (1981) unreleased
300 minutes (1984, 1988) BBC mini-series
208 minutes (1997) Director's Cut
293 minutes (2004) Das Boot: The Original Uncut Version

I was wrong about the length. I just checked the box, and we watched the 293 (2004) version. So, almost five hour, not six.

 

[Bob W]

I was wrong about the length. I just checked the box, and we watched the 293 (2004) version. So, almost five hour, not six.

I'm sure that was long enough to get the gist of the story.

 

[jackknife]

While I've seen the movie a couple of times, I was more interested in the book. The guy who wrote it, was an actual U-boat officer, and all the stuff that was in the movie actually happened to them, just not on one voyage. When he sold the rights to the book to the movie firm, they combined all the things in the book into one patrol for the sake of action in the movie.

Those U-boat men had some xxlarge stones of solid brass! It's depressing that 75 percent of them never made it home.

 

[Piso Mojado]

The 1984 (UK) and 1985 (Germany–Austria) TV mini-series was three 100 minute episodes. Edited for DVD (2004), the mini-series is 293 minutes. The original theatrical release (1981) was 149 minutes. The 1997 "Director's Cut" version (cut by director Wolfgang Petersen) is 209 minutes. They are all the same movie, filmed 1979–1981, but edited differently. Wolfgang Petersen wanted it to be a five hour movie. The 209 minute version, released in 1997, was Petersen's rejected cut for the 1981 theatrical release.

The actors were all bilingual and did their own English dubs. IMO they were better actors in German than in English, and I recommend watching it in German if your screen big enough for reading subtitles.

The Region 2 (European) version of "Director's Cut" is the only DVD release with German subtitles — very helpful to German language students.

The movie is based on a 1973 novel Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Buchheim was a war correspondent on the U-96, like Lt. Werner in the movie. He hated the 1981 theatrical release, which wasn't anti-war enough to suit him. He called it a "cheap, shallow American action flick," but he lived to see the 293 minute DVD and he liked that.

Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, first of U-96's five captains, and U-219's first officer Hans-Joachim Krug were consultants during the film's production.

The movie Captain's favorite song was Rina Ketty's "J'attendrai."

[video=youtube;KZvd11_3Yr4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZvd11_3Yr4[/video]

Any movies that are similar that we might like?

Die Brücke AKA The Bridge (1959)
Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben AKA Stalingrad: Dogs, do you want to live forever? (1959)
Stalingrad (1993)

 

[Scott Free]

It's been ten days since watching it. I only bring this up because this evening my wife were again talking at length about the movie. It really sticks with you. Almost none of the characters have names, and yet you really feel like you know them by the end. Although it's a bit too soon to rewatch a five hour movie, we will definitely be watching it again eventually. You almost dismiss the individual men in all the early scenes because you don't know them. It will be a different experience the second time around. If anyone is put off by the length—don't be. It's a very very good (great?) movie.

 

[LEGION 12]

It's been ten days since watching it. I only bring this up because this evening my wife were again talking at length about the movie. It really sticks with you. Almost none of the characters have names, and yet you really feel like you know them by the end. Although it's a bit too soon to rewatch a five hour movie, we will definitely be watching it again eventually. You almost dismiss the individual men in all the early scenes because you don't know them. It will be a different experience the second time around. If anyone is put off by the length—don't be. It's a very very good (great?) movie.

I have the Dvd think I might watch it again tonight a classic.

 

[akula83]

Great flick.I first read the book while under way in the N. Atlantic, then saw the movie after I got out of the Navy. I think the movie stayed true to a lot of what a U-boat crew would have experienced, I was impressed with the movie's "vibe" and could relate to the stories accuracy. Our CO would play the opening soundtrack over the 1-MC during evolutions sometimes, as our main function was anti-submarine warfare.