On the death of Wolfgang Petersen: a great storyteller

Created: 08/17/2022, 09:19 am

By: Zoran Gojic

A big name in cinema has said goodbye: Wolfgang Petersen died of cancer at the age of 81.

© Ulrich Perrey/dpa

Wolfgang Petersen wrote cinema history with “The Boat”, “The Neverending Story” and “Troy”.

Now the director has died at the age of 81.

Our obituary:

Of course, many people smiled mockingly when Wolfgang Petersen announced in the mid-1980s that he would be living and working in Hollywood from then on.

But from his point of view it made sense.

Germany, home of the "state-sponsored zero film", had definitely become too small for the director at the time.

And in the USA Petersen has now also died.

As it became known only late yesterday evening, he succumbed to pancreatic cancer last Friday (August 12, 2022) at the age of 81.

He died peacefully surrounded by his family at his home in Brentwood, a part of Los Angeles.

His wife Maria was by his side, his assistant shared.

Wolfgang Petersen wrote television history with the "crime scene: certificate of maturity".

In 1977, the filmmaker made German television history with “Tatort: ​​Reifezeugnis” – with his feature film “Die Konfolge” in the same year, he aroused a nationwide debate because he quite bluntly addressed homosexuality in it.

In those days, BR television did not see itself in a position to expect such a thing from its viewers.

Finally, in 1981, Petersen made “Das Boot”, the most internationally successful German cinema film of all time, and then “The Neverending Story”, the most expensive post-war production in the country at around 50 million Deutschmarks.

For the director, the experienced film craftsman with the big visions, there really wasn't much more to do in Germany after that.

Petersen died of cancer in the United States

So Hollywood, where the filmmaker, who was born in Emden and grew up in Hamburg and trained at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, got off to a flying start with ambitious entertainment cinema.

Petersen's efficiency and calmness are appreciated in the dream factory;

the German has also always had a weakness for genre cinema.

He worked with the biggest stars of the dream factory and had an enviable grip on the productions.

Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire (1993), Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak (1995), Harrison Ford in Air Force One (1997), and George Clooney in The Tempest (2000).

They were massive hits at the box office around the world - in the US alone, these films each grossed more than $100 million.

In 2004, Wolfgang Petersen celebrated an enormous success with "Troja".

But despite his success, Petersen had increasing difficulties finding new projects that really interested him.

Because the trend towards riot cinema, which is mainly created on the computer, did not suit him.

He liked entertainment, no question - but with believable characters and a coherent story: Despite his affinity for technical progress in the cinema industry, this director was basically an old-fashioned filmmaker committed to the narrative structure and dramaturgy of classic Hollywood.

Of course, even in the USA, this was of less and less interest to the studio groups – after all, over the years they have increasingly fallen into the hands of global investors who are not really interested in film.

But all the more for your return.

Of course, film has always been a business,

With the epic Troy, Wolfgang Petersen then celebrated another great success in 2004, in the wake of the triumph of Gladiator.

But with the disastrous flop of his remake of the disaster film Poseidon (2006), his first real failure, he said goodbye to Hollywood.

"Every now and then you just need to be in your face," he commented clearly in a Nordic way at the time.

After all, he had shown everyone that, apart from perhaps Roland Emmerich, no other of his compatriots in Hollywood had such a career.

Wolfgang Petersen was at peace with himself.