Film Archive

Boat, The (Boot, Das)

Wolfgang Petersen's elaborate and internationally acclaimed film The Boat is based on an authentic submarine operation during 1941. Leaving harbor from La Rochelle, the German submarine U96 takes off to torpedo British freighters.

On board the submarine is the young war reporter Werner, who doesn't seem to make friends with any of the crew. After gruelingly boring days out at sea, suddenly a British fleet appears. But the men overlook one hugely important detail in their plan of attack: the freighter's highly armed security escort...

Wolfgang Petersen was born in 1941 in Emden. After studying Theater in Berlin and Hamburg, he attended the German Film & Television Academy (dffb) in Berlin from 1966-1970. He first made his mark in the film world with The Boat (Das Boot) in 1981. Although he had been making feature films in Germany since 1973, and television productions before that, it was Petersen's success with this anti-war U-boat epic, along several OSCAR nominations, that bought him his ticket to Hollywood. A selection of his other films includes: One or the Other (Einer von uns beiden, 1973), The Never Ending Story (1984), Enemy Mine (1985), In the Line of Fire (1993), Outbreak (1995), Air Force One (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), and Troy (2004).
 

Genre Drama, History
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 1981
Director Wolfgang Petersen
Screenplay Wolfgang Petersen, Lothar-Guenther Buchheim
Directors of Photography Ernst Wild, Theodor Nischwitz, Jost Vacano, Franz Rath, Wolfgang Treu, Peter Maiwald, Ernst Stritzinger, Leander R. Loosen, Ernst Schmid, Egil S. Woxholt
Editor Hannes Nikel
Music by Klaus Doldinger
Production Design Bernhard Neureiter, Rolf Braun, Heinz Schaefer, Erhard Hose, Pius Huengerl, Joseph Teppert
Producer Guenter Rohrbach
Production Companies Bavaria Film/Geiselgasteig, WDR/Cologne, SDR/Stuttgart, in co-production with Constantin Film Produktion/Munich, BBC/London, ORF/Vienna, RAI Cinema/Rome
Principal Cast Juergen Prochnow, Herbert Groenemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge, Bernd Tauber, Erwin Leder, Claude-Oliver Rudolph, Jan Fedder, Heinz Hoenig, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Guenter Lamprecht, Otto Sander
Length 149 min, 4,069 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.66
Dubbed Versions English, French, Italian
Original Version German
Festival Screenings Tallinn Black Nights 2006, Moscow 2010
Awards German Film Awards 1982 for Production and Sound, Bavarian Film Awards 1981 for Direction & Cinematography, Golden Screen 1982, German Record Award 1982 for Best Score, Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing 1983
German Distributor Constantin Film Verleih/Munich

World Sales
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