Versatile and ingenious director whose films included Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story
The director Wolfgang Petersen set a new standard for claustrophobia in cinema with his international breakthrough movie Das Boot (1981). Taking place almost entirely on board a German submarine during the second world war, it is forensic in its detail, expert in its use of limited space, and eloquent in its anti-war message.
Petersen, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 81, captured the tension and the tedium of the submariners’ lives together, and skilfully shaped episodes of extreme suspense, such as the attempt to escape sonic detection, which pushes the vessel further into the ocean’s depths until the metal groans and the rivets pop. He was alert to what he called “the terrors of silence, which can be even more effective than the loudest sound effect in the world”.
