The grooming standard would have been MORE enforced. The respect for the officers and the class hierarchy would have been MORE pronounced. A veteran of the u-boot fleet, he thought the emotional reactions to the pressure of the war was unrealistic: the real German sailor would have acted MORE like the stereotypical, emotionless button pusher stereotyped in American and English war films. Interestingly, the writer of the source book criticized the film for having its cast conform to emotional profiles of Hollywood War films. So in the end it's pretty amazing they were able, at that time, to make a depoliticized German film about Nazi soldiers. Then at the end, they're all brutally killed in a sort of deus ex machina, but this is really the political counterpoint to the beginning: they couldn't have had that beginning without that end, and whilst the ending has often been called unsatisfying, the political controversy that would have surrounded a more triumphant ending would have overshadowed the film. At the time this was controversial, of course. It humanizes them as soldiers (not the typical stern nazis) and endears them to the audience as characters. Then there's the beginning and the end: the beginning shows you Nazi sailors partying, getting drunk, breaking stereotype. Much is made in the first seen about juxtaposing recently returned veterans with fresh green sailors. This scene captures this dynamic more fully than ANY war film I've ever seen, and this is really the theme of the movie in a way. One of the biggest themes of war films in general is the divide between civilians and those who have seen combat. I'd say the other scene that really stood out was the scene on the boat in Spain, in which the by now hardened crew drinks Champagne and eats canapes with a non-combat crew. It's true that no other submarine film captures that feeling, but they do all try! Das Boot obviously created that genre, and it is possibly the only vehicular-related genre in film! Aside from the road trip at least. I think it is fair to rank this as one of the most intensive depictions of naval warfare in WWII! The silent way the submarine backs away from the burning wreckage carries all sorts of deeper undertones, but sticks in my mind as showing the moral questions of being 'hunter' in naval war (unable to pick up prisoners or linger alongside a defeated ship). The second scene, and one that is probably the most memorable for most viewers, is the refusal to pick up the British sailors following a torpedo attack. ![]() Compare it to any other submarine film you've seen and you'll be surprised how many others tend to avoid focusing on the confined space, and the problems it inherently brings. ![]() The first, in which a long tracking shot moves through the entirety of the submarine, with all the sailors running alongside and ducking under the doorways, manages to capture the intensity of submarine life in cramped conditions remarkably well. Two scenes in Das Boot stick out to me as testament to the weight of that film.
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