In his long career, Wolfgang Petersen made it from the scene of the crime to the premier league of Hollywood. The director from Emden shot legendary thrillers, the best submarine movie of all time and an unforgettable fantasy fairy tale. Whether it’s a science fiction chamber drama or a Clint Eastwood thriller, a mythical blockbuster epic or a flashy Die Hard blend: Petersen proved his versatility on both sides of the Atlantic. As was announced yesterday, Wolfgang Petersen died as a result of cancer.
War film, fantasy and sci-fi: Petersen switched genres on the fly
The graduate of the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin began his career in a film culture that was already heavily influenced by television and public broadcasters. Here he caused a sensation with six crime scene episodes, above all the classic crime scene: certificate of maturity, which made Nastassja Kinski a star. He directed the disaster film Smog and the drama The Consequence about a homosexual relationship. The constant of his work was already in these years psychological tension. He proved that on the big screen in 1981 in Das Boot, the legendary film adaptation of Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s novel of the same name. In a confined space and under extreme pressure, Petersen navigates through the large ensemble of character actors, which has been honored with six Oscar nominations.
The NeverEnding Story – Trailer (German) HD
After that, he pulled off an impressive hook, at least in terms of subject matter and genre. The Neverending Story was also a best-selling film adaptation with an ambitious budget, but that’s where the parallels end. the Film adaptation of a fantasy novel by Michael Ende enchanted and traumatized an entire generation with the story of Bastian (Barret Oliver) and Atréju (Noah Hathaway), the Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach) and the dragon Fuchur. Petersen and his co-writer Herman Weigel managed to breathe life into the elaborate effects, which came to fruition at the latest in the heartbreaking death scenes. Three words that break children’s hearts: Artax in the bog.
In his next film, Petersen switched genres again: Der science fiction movie Enemy Mine – Beliebter Enemy, also a German-American co-production, told of the equally unusual and involuntary friendship between a human (Dennis Quaid) and an alien (Louis Gossett Jr.), who make an emergency landing on a foreign planet after a battle.
In the 90s, the really big Hollywood stars called
After that, the way was free to Hollywood, where Wolfgang Petersen would be in the 90s A knack for thriller entertainment proved In the Line of Fire, about a Secret Service agent who must prevent an assassination attempt on the President, is probably what distills Petersen’s entertainment cinema best. Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich face each other here as characters who could hardly be more different, also as actors. Petersen didn’t necessarily need submarine battles, lucky dragons, giant waves, etc. for great suspense. He also showed this in the virus thriller Outbreak – Silent Killers, which draws horror from an invisible danger.
© Warner Bros.
Wolfgang Petersen on the set of Four Against the Bench
Petersens Pop cinema of the 90s and 2000s attracted the big stars. He sent Harrison Ford on an absurdly entertaining Die Hard rip-off in Air Force One, chased George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg through the factual disaster of The Tempest, and cast Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy. His remake Poseidon was Petersen’s first film to visibly suffer from how much larger the effects were compared to the people in front of the camera. The failure put an end to Petersen’s Hollywood career, who then returned to Germany with his remake Four Against the Bank. Again with the big names of the local cinema: Til Schweiger, Matthias Schweighöfer, Michael “Bully” Herbig, Jan Josef Liefers. It was a goodbye before we knew it was one.
Deadline reports that Petersen died in the arms of his wife Maria Antoinette in Los Angeles on Friday. He was 81 years old.