Editing Das Boot (section)

==Production==
In late 1941, war correspondent [[Lothar-Günther Buchheim]] joined {{GS|U-96|1940|2}} for her 7th patrol, during the [[Battle of the Atlantic]].<ref name=Uziel>{{cite book |author=Daniel Uziel |author-link = Daniel Uziel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1pKnPzrPD7sC&q=buchheim%20iron%20cross&pg=PA402 |title=The Propaganda Warriors: The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front |location=Bern / Oxford |publisher=Lang |year=2008 |isbn=978-3-03911-532-7 |page=402 }}</ref><ref name=Grauniad>{{cite news |author=Dan van der Vat |author-link = Dan van der Vat |url=https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,,2026462,00.html |title=Obituary: Lothar-Günther Buchheim |date=5 March 2007 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> His orders were to photograph and describe the U-boat in action. In 1973, Buchheim published a novel based on his wartime experiences, {{lang|de|Das Boot}} (The Boat), a fictionalised autobiographical account narrated by a "Leutnant Werner". It became the best-selling German fiction work on the war.<ref name=Local /> A sequel {{lang|de|Die Festung}} by Buchheim was released in 1995.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.zeit.de/1995/22/Der_Krieg_aus_dem_Naehkaestchen |title=Der Krieg aus dem Nähkästchen |language=de |trans-title=The War From the Sewing Box |first=Peter |last=Wapnewski |date=26 May 1995 |via=Die Zeit |access-date=10 March 2018 |archive-date=2 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220302235553/https://www.zeit.de/1995/22/Der_Krieg_aus_dem_Naehkaestchen |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Production for this film originally began in 1976. Several American directors were considered, and the {{lang|de|Kaleun}} ({{lang|de|Kapitänleutnant}}) was to be played by [[Robert Redford]]. Disagreements sprang up among various parties and the project was shelved. Another Hollywood production was attempted with other American directors in mind, this time with the {{lang|de|Kaleun}} to be portrayed by [[Paul Newman]]. This effort primarily failed due to technical concerns, for example, how to film the close encounter of the two German submarines at sea during a storm.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Production of {{lang|de|Das Boot}} took two years (1979–1981) and was the most expensive German film at the time.<ref name=Winds/> Most of the filming was done in one year; to make the appearance of the actors as realistic as possible, scenes were filmed in sequence over the course of the year. This ensured natural growth of beards and hair, increasing skin pallor, and signs of strain on the actors, who had, just like real U-boat men, spent many months in a cramped, unhealthy atmosphere.

The production included the construction of several models of different sizes, as well as a complete, detailed reconstruction of the interior of the {{GS|U-96|1940|2}}, a [[German Type VII submarine|Type VIIC-class U-boat]].

Hans-Joachim Krug, former first officer on ''U-219'', served as a consultant, as did [[Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock]], the captain of the real ''U-96''.

The film features both Standard German-speakers and [[dialect]] speakers. Petersen states in the DVD audio commentary that young men from throughout West Germany and Austria were recruited for the film, as he wanted faces and dialects that would accurately reflect the diversity of the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]] around 1941. All of the main actors are bilingual in German and English, and when the film was dubbed into English, each actor recorded his own part (with the exception of Martin Semmelrogge, who only dubbed his own role in the Director's Cut). The German version is dubbed as well, as the film was shot "silent", because the dialogue spoken on-set would have been drowned out by the [[gyroscope]]s in the special camera developed for filming. The film's German version actually grossed much higher than the English-dubbed version at the United States box office.<ref name="indiewire.com">{{Cite web | url=http://www.indiewire.com/1999/08/editorial-life-isnt-beautiful-anymore-its-dubbed-82123/ |title = EDITORIAL: Life Isn't Beautiful Anymore, it's Dubbed|date = 23 August 1999}}</ref><ref name="Archived copy">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/19/business/will-dubbing-fly-in-the-us-read-my-lips.html |title=Will Dubbing Fly in the U.S.? Read My Lips |newspaper=The New York Times |date=19 February 1996 |access-date=5 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180805152511/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/19/business/will-dubbing-fly-in-the-us-read-my-lips.html |archive-date=5 August 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all |last1=Pristin |first1=Terry }}</ref>

===Sets and models===
[[File:Baselapallice08.jpg|thumb|[[U-boat pens]] at the harbor of [[La Rochelle]] (2007<br/>{{coord|46|9|32|N|1|12|33|W|type:landmark_scale:3000_region:FR|display=inline}}]]
Several different sets were used. Two full-size mock-ups of a Type VIIC boat were built, one representing the portion above water for use in outdoor scenes, and the other a cylindrical tube on a motion mount (hydraulic [[gimbal]]) for the interior scenes. The mock-ups were built according to U-boat plans from [[Chicago]]'s [[Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago)|Museum of Science and Industry]].

The outdoor mock-up was basically a shell propelled with a small engine, and stationed in La Rochelle, France, and has a history of its own. One morning the production crew walked out to where they kept it afloat and found it missing. Someone had forgotten to inform the crew that an American filmmaker had rented the mock-up for his own film shooting in the area. This filmmaker was [[Steven Spielberg]] and the film he was shooting was ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]''.<ref>{{cite book | author=Marcus Hearn | title =The Cinema of George Lucas | publisher =Harry N. Abrams Inc, Publishers | year =2005 | location =[[New York City|New York]] | pages =127–134| isbn =0-8109-4968-7}}</ref> A few weeks later, during production, the mock-up cracked in a storm and sank, was recovered and patched to stand in for the final scenes. The full-sized mock-up was used during the Gibraltar surface scenes; the attacking aircraft (played by a [[North American T-6 Texan]] / Harvard) and rockets were real while the British ships were models.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Krug |first=Hans-Joachim |title=Filming Das Boot |url=https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1996/june/filming-das-boot |access-date=March 8, 2023 |website=U.S. Naval Institute|date=June 1996 }}</ref>

[[File:U995 2004 1 b.jpg|thumb|{{GS|U-995||2}}, a U-boat of the version VII-C/41, at its exhibition in [[Laboe]] in 2004]]
A mock-up of a conning tower was placed in a water tank at the [[Bavaria Film Studios|Bavaria Studios]] in [[Munich]] for outdoor scenes not requiring a full view of the boat's exterior. When filming on the outdoor mock-up or the conning tower, jets of cold water were hosed over the actors to simulate the breaking ocean waves. A half-sized full hull operating model was used for underwater shots and some surface running shots, in particular the meeting in stormy seas with another U-boat. The tank was also used for the shots of British sailors jumping from their ship; a small portion of the tanker hull was constructed for these shots.

During the filming there was a scene where actor [[Jan Fedder]] (Pilgrim) fell off the bridge while the U-boat was surfaced. During the played rescue, Bernd Tauber (Chief Helmsmann Kriechbaum) really broke two ribs.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.focus.de/kultur/kino_tv/wiedersehen-unter-veteranen-das-boot_id_2000568.html |title=Wiedersehen unter Veteranen |language=German | magazine=Focus |date=2013-09-03 |accessdate=2021-08-28}}</ref> This event is often purported as Jan Fedder breaking the ribs.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096/trivia| title = "Das Boot" on imdb.com| website = [[IMDb]]}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" style="text-align:left" caption="Mock-up of the interior at the Bavaria Studios in Munich">
File:Bavaria Filmstudio Das Boot 1 b.jpg
File:Bavaria Filmstudio Das Boot 4 b.jpg
File:Bavaria Filmstudio Das Boot 5 b.jpg
File:Bavaria Filmstudio Das Boot 6 b.jpg
</gallery>

The interior U-boat mock-up was mounted five metres off the floor and was shaken, rocked, and tilted up to 45 degrees by means of a hydraulic apparatus, and was vigorously shaken to simulate depth charge attacks. Petersen was admittedly obsessive about the structural detail of the U-boat set, remarking that "every screw" in the set was an authentic facsimile of the kind used in a [[World War II]] U-boat. In this he was considerably assisted by the numerous photographs [[Lothar-Günther Buchheim]] had taken during his own voyage on the historical ''U-96'', some of which had been published in his 1976 book, {{lang|de|U-Boot-Krieg}} ("U-Boat War").

Throughout the filming, the actors were forbidden to go out in sunlight, to create the pallor of men who seldom saw the sun during their missions. The actors went through intensive training to learn how to move quickly through the narrow confines of the vessel.

===Special camera===
Most of the interior shots were filmed using a hand-held [[Arriflex]] of cinematographer [[Jost Vacano]]'s design to convey the claustrophobic atmosphere of the boat. It had two gyroscopes to provide stability, a different and smaller scale solution than the [[Steadicam]], so that it could be carried throughout the interior of the mock-up.<ref>{{cite AV media|people=Jost Vacano|url=http://vimeo.com/19688881|title=SOC 2011 Historical Shot: Das Boot by Jost Vacano|date=7 February 2011 |work=[[ARRI]] |via=Vimeo|access-date=15 February 2016}}</ref>