U-571 (film)
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| U-571 | |
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| Directed by | Jonathan Mostow |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis Martha De Laurentiis Hal Lieberman |
| Written by | Jonathan Mostow (Story) Jonathan Mostow Sam Montgomery David Ayer (Script) |
| Starring | Matthew McConaughey Bill Paxton Harvey Keitel Thomas Kretschmann |
| Music by | Richard Marvin |
| Distributed by | StudioCanal |
| Release date(s) | April 21st, 2000 |
| Running time | 116 min. |
| Budget | $62,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
U-571 is a 2000 movie directed by Jonathan Mostow, and starring Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi, Jack Noseworthy, Will Estes, and Tom Guiry. In the movie, a German submarine is boarded in 1942 by disguised American submariners seeking to capture its Enigma cipher machine. This movie was shot in and around Malta.
The film is loosely based on the capture of U-110 by the Royal Navy. The film attracted criticism for its portrayal of an Enigma capture by an American, as opposed to British, crew.
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[edit] Plot
A German U-Boat, designated U-571, sights a British supply ship in its periscope and sinks it with a torpedo. Seconds later, a British destroyer moves in, forcing U-571 to dive. The destroyer drops depth charges which disable the submarine. The destroyer moves away believing it sunk the enemy. U-571 resurfaces but is stranded. The captain who had lost his entire engineering team (who were in the engine room which caught fire from the leaking fuel) following the attack orders his radioman to signal the Lorient U-Boat base to send a resupply ship using the Enigma.
Meanwhile, the officers of the US Navy are celebrating the wedding of Larson. During the party, Lt. Tyler comes in with a solemn look on his face because he didn't get his own submarine to command. After complaining about it to Captain Dahlgren, he's rebuffed and upset. Suddenly military police officers come in saying their shore leave's over. All the men go to the submarine docks to find the S-33, their ship, being converted into a U-Boat. Tyler rounds up Radioman Wentz who can speak German as well as English, a Marine named Coonan, and another Navy sailor named Hirsch who's fluent in German too. The ship goes off to sea and Hirsch explains to everyone what the mission is. The Allied radio direction finders detected radio signals from the disabled U-571 and they are going to be the resupply ship it called for. Coonan says that the Enigma is onboard and that he will lead a boarding party to capture the U-Boat and liberate the Enigma. Then they'll scuttle the ship so the real resupply sub will think that it was too late and the U-571 sank. Tyler is skeptical about this but goes along.
Back on U-571, the repairs are not going smoothly and the captain is alerted that there are other men out in the water. He sees several survivors, from the merchant ship he sank, on a lifeboat asking for asylum. He orders his men to shoot them as their Führer Hitler gave instructions not to spare any survivors. His men reluctantly do so.
During a rainstorm, the S-33 comes across U-571 and sends its boarding party over. They take the ship by force, losing some sailors in the process. Larson is injured during the fighting later. They capture the Enigma and begin rounding up the prisoners including the captain. Afterwards, the S-33 is torpedoed and sunk by the real resupply sub and the captain is killed. Coonan, Larson, and many others are lost as well so Tyler takes command and orders his men to dive the ship and look for the enemy. They fire a salvo of torpedoes that destroys the enemy U-Boat leaving only one torpedo in a busted tube. Tyler and his men search for survivors and find two: the black cook from the S-33, Eddy, and the captain of the U-571.
[edit] Historical inaccuracies
The first capture of an Enigma machine and associated cipher keys from a U-boat was made in May 1941 by the British, who captured U-110. There were some 15 captures of Naval Enigma material during World War II, of which the Americans and Canadians carried out one each (U-505 and U-774, respectively), while the British performed the rest. The U.S. Navy did not seize German Naval Enigma material until June 1944, when it captured U-505. The British captures provided critical information for breaking Naval Enigma, so that by the time of the U-505 capture the Allies were reading Naval Enigma routinely.
The film caused irritation and anger in Britain. The film was raised at Prime Minister's Question Time where Tony Blair agreed with questioner Brian Jenkins MP that the film was "an affront" to British sailors. [1] In response to a letter from Paul Truswell, MP for the Pudsey constituency (which includes Horsforth, a town proud of its connection with the ship that captured of U-110), US president Bill Clinton wrote assuring that the film's plot was only a work of fiction.[2] David Balme, the British Naval officer who led the boarding party aboard the U-110, was positive about the U-571 ("a great film"[3]), arguing that the movie would not have been financially viable without being Americanized[2].
In 2006, screenwriter David Ayer admitted that U-571 distorted history and stated that he would not do it again. [4] Ayer told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting Americans captured the Naval Enigma cipher rather than the British.
- "It was a distortion... a mercenary decision...to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience," he said. "Both my grandparents were officers in World War Two, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements."[4]
There was a real German submarine designated U-571, but that vessel was never involved in events depicted in the film.
[edit] Cut scenes
The movie was originally (in the USA) rated “R” due to a scene where Lt. Pete Emmett (Jon Bon Jovi) is decapitated by flying debris. To get a “PG-13”, the shot was redone with Emmett this time knocked overboard by flying debris. This led to many audience members not knowing what happened to his character. A death scene was also filmed for Maj. Matthew Coonan (David Keith), but the effect did not work well so it was cut from the film Interview with Jonathan Mostow.
[edit] Cast
- Matthew McConaughey .... Lt. Andrew Tyler, Executive Officer
- Bill Paxton .... Lt. Cmdr. Mike Dahlgren, Commanding Officer
- Harvey Keitel .... CPO Henry Klough
- Jon Bon Jovi .... Lt. Pete Emmett, Chief Engineer
- David Keith .... Maj. Matthew Coonan, USMC, Office of Naval Intelligence
- Thomas Kretschmann .... Capt.-Lt. Gunther Wassner
- Jake Weber .... Lt. Hirsch, USNR
- Jack Noseworthy .... Seaman Bill Wentz, Radioman
- Tom Guiry .... Seaman Ted 'Trigger' Fitzgerald, Radioman
- Will Estes .... Seaman Ronald 'Rabbit' Parker, Torpedoman
- Terrence 'T.C.' Carson .... Steward Eddie Carson
- Erik Palladino .... Seaman Anthony Mazzola, Planesman
- Derk Cheetwood .... Seaman Herb Griggs, Helmsman
- Matthew Settle .... Ens. Keith Larson, Chief Torpedoman
- Robin Askwith .... British Seaman
[edit] See also
- History of cryptology — World War II cryptology.
- Submarine film.
- Enigma (2001 film)
- First naval seizure of Enigma
- Das Boot
[edit] References
- ^ "U-boat film an 'affront', says Blair", BBC News, 2000-06-07. Retrieved on 2006-08-18. (in English)
- ^ a b "Storm over U-boat film", BBC News, 2000-06-02. Retrieved on 2006-08-18. (in English)
- ^ "Capturing the real U-571", BBC News, 2000-06-02. Retrieved on 2006-08-18. (in English)
- ^ a b "U-571 writer regrets 'distortion'", BBC News, 2006-08-18. Retrieved on 2006-08-18. (in English)
- David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma: the Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
- Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: the Battle for the Code, Phoenix, 2001.
