Those whom the Gods WIsht to Destroy......................

Rating: Null/10 (8 February 2005)

"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first call promising." Long ago and far away a 6 hour film about submarine warfare was made for German TV by a director named Wolfgang Peterson. The film was edited down and given a theatrical release. It was hailed as a masterpiece. It showed the true human cost of war. The price paid on the human spirit and soul. The film was called "Das Boot" and Peterson the director was called the newest cinematic genius. A film maker with vision. Then Hollywood came a calling and the Celluloid Gods began to have their fun in Petersons undoing.
Big Hollywoood budgets, and bigger semi-literate egos, served as the main path for Petersons descent. Films like "Airforce One", "A Perfect Storm" and "Troy" show that Wolfie never met a script or a CGI effect that he didn't like. Somehow Hollywood stole Peterson's ability to say "NEIN". He had become the perfect lapdog for the the powers that be, and in Hollywood thats the bean counters most of whom have never read a work of literature.
"Troy" is the latest and hopefully the last example of Petersons artistic destruction in Hollwood. "The Illiad" was first and foremost a comment on human foilbles, and at its center a tragedy, not a adventure cartoon like "Troy". Peterson understood those concepts when he made "Das Boot". But sadly Peterson's own career is the tragedy in its final stages here, and hopefully for Peterson he will retire from film making before he completely makes people forget what promise he showed those many years ago in Berlin.