Wide angle: Submerged passion

`Das Boot', the epic WWII submarine picture, made its director, Wolfgang Petersen, into a Hollywood fixture. Now, with the release of the Director's Cut, he has the opportunity to delve deeper into his characters' lives

Originally released in 1982, the submarine saga Das Boot surprised everybody by becoming an international box-office triumph. Two-and-a-half-hours long, with German subtitles, the film matched the blockbuster profile only in cost: at 30 million Deutschemarks, it was the most expensive film Germany had ever produced. Set aboard a German U-boat during the Second World War, the film is a compelling study in sweaty claustrophobia, plunging audiences to the bottom of the ocean to show the hopes, fears and boredom of its callow crew.

"We were so innocent in those days," says Wolfgang Petersen (right), the director of slick blockbusters such as The NeverEnding Story and In the Line of Fire. "When we set about making Das Boot, we weren't thinking commercially at all. There was this great book and we were just determined to make it. Two American companies had already tried and failed. John Sturges spent a year working with Robert Redford before abandoning the project, then Don Siegel tried with Paul Newman. While they were shooting, I was working on the same TV set and feeling pretty jealous. I thought, this is a very German story, why are Americans making it? Basically, I wanted to show Hollywood how to make a big submarine movie!"

Fifteen years after the film's release, Petersen is now showing everyone how to make a big submarine movie even bigger, trawling his way through millions of feet of original footage to produce an epic three-and-a-half hour long director's cut. "It was great to be able to return to the project with no commercial constraints," says Petersen, "to approach it from a purely creative point of view. I knew that it was a bit too much of an action picture. I wanted to restore the balance, so that the characters' emotional lives could be better drawn."

Along with expanding on the mindset of his crew, much of Petersen's work involved retuning the picture's sound, using today's improved technology to create a startling aural authenticity. "Being on a submarine is all about listening. Your ears are your only senses. It was a great opportunity for the sound team to create a whole field of effects, every whir and creak of the craft. The boat almost becomes a character in itself. The better the sound effects, the more the audience feel that they are down there on the bottom of the ocean with these men. Thanks to Surroundsound, some people have told me after seeing the film they almost felt they could hear the water zipping along the walls of the theatre.

With Petersen now an established Hollywood player, and Das Boot a confirmed classic, the director has little reason to worry about the success of his re-release. It was a different story back in 1982. "I was desperately worried when the film first hit the cinemas because the reviews we got from German critics were really horrible," Petersen remembers. "It was the end of the New German Cinema and there was a feeling of depression. I think the critics felt they could have had 30 small, auteur films for the price of Das Boot. They hated it for its sheer size. They also criticised its lack of political perspective. Which is exactly what I wanted, to simply show a group of young men trapped in a supposedly "glorious" situation and fighting to survive. The German critics wanted me to deal with our war guilt. To beat my chest and shout `mea culpa, mea culpa!'"

Luckily, the film's anti-war humanism went down a storm with both Germans and the old enemy abroad. "I didn't anticipate what happened," admits Petersen. "But it changed my career. Now I separate my life into `before' and `after' Das Boot." While the film-maker is hesitant to suggest that Das Boot is his finest work, he certainly sees it as his most significant. "When I made Das Boot, I worked on it for three years, writing the script and finally shooting it under insane circumstances. I'll never forget that. It is The Big One!"

After Air Force One, you could be forgiven for thinking that Petersen had a fetish for making films in small, metal tubes, but he laughingly rejects the idea. "I can't say I was searching for another claustrophobia film, it just found me. Working in a confined space is good for suspense, but I can't say I'm looking for a third. In fact, my next film is about the British explorer Ernest Shackleton - wide open spaces as far as the eye can see."

The director's cut of `Das Boot' is released on 23 Jan