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 Wolfgang Petersen was born in 1941 in Emden. From 1953-1960, he attended the Johanneum school in Hamburg.
In the 1960s, he directed plays at Hamburg's Ernst Deutsch Theater. After studying theater in Berlin and Hamburg, Petersen attended the German Film & Television Academy (dffb) in Berlin from 1966-1970.
Petersen has created a vast array of films across genres, from the children’s film the Neverending Story to highly political dramas and adventure movies. One of his first films, Die Konsequenz (1977) - a black and white adaptation of Alex Ziegler’s novel about pederastic love, was considered "one of the best `70s gay dramas." However, the film was so controversial for its time that a Bavarian network turned off the transmitters rather than broadcast it.
His first film productions were primarilly for German television, which is what his best-known film Das Boot started out as. At the time, Das Boot was the most expensive film ever made in Germany and, when the segments for the mini series were adapted for the big screen, it became an international success.
He first made his mark in the film world with Das Boot in 1981. Although he had been making feature films in Germany since 1973, and television productions before that, it was Petersen's success with this anti-war U-boat epic, along with an OSCAR nomination for Best Director, that bought him his ticket to Hollywood.
By 1998, Petersen had firmly established his Hollywood name and released the classic Das Boot in a new director's cut. By the end of 2005, Petersen had returned to this successful sea epic form with a new title Poseidon (2006), based on the 1969 Paul Gallico novel and an earlier film adaptation The Poseidon Adventure (1972).
Other films his Wolfgang Petersen are: The Never Ending Story (1984), Enemy Mine (1985), In the Line
of Fire (1993), Outbreak (1995), Air Force One (1997) and The
Perfect Storm (2000). |
