Otto Sander’s warm baritone and melancholy presence made him a distinctive supporting actor. We recommend his Cassiel in Wings of Desire, while recognising that the films give only a partial account of his gifts for physical comedy.
Fi1m perspective
In Wings of Desire (1987), Otto Sander’s Cassiel watches the people of divided Berlin alongside Bruno Ganz. Sander was often cast as men marked by melancholy or disillusionment, and Wim Wenders gives that familiar sadness a good home. We value him as a supporting actor, while recognising that these disappointed figures tell only part of the story.
His film work developed alongside the theatre in the mid-1970s, with Rohmer’s The Marquise of O (1976) and Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (1979). In the latter, he plays the trumpeter Meyn. Das Boot (1981), with Sander as U-boat officer Phillip Thomsen, brought international attention. The literary and historical supporting parts suited his gift for disillusioned figures. They also help explain why the screen offers a narrower impression of him than the work with Peter Stein’s Schaubühne ensemble.
Wings of Desire remains our recommendation, with a caveat about its pacing. Bruno Ganz and cinematographer Henri Alekan’s roaming camera keep the film welcoming, even when its dialogue grows solemn. We were moved by the angels’ attention to ordinary lives, because Wenders makes those people worth the time spent watching them. The romance slows things down, and there are passages where the solemnity becomes wearing. These are reasons to approach the film with patience, not to pass it over.
The theatre gives a useful corrective: at the Schaubühne, his work in Botho Strauss productions, including Kalldewey Farce, drew on serious comedy and precise physical business. The cinema rarely gave those abilities comparable room. His warm baritone had another substantial life in documentary narration, audiobooks and dubbing, work that a list of film parts cannot convey. That makes the familiar melancholy casting seem both understandable and rather restrictive. Start with Cassiel, then try Das Boot; do not expect either to explain why he was valued for slapstick.
Biography
Otto Sander was a German film, theatre and voice actor. Born on 30 June 1941 in Hanover, he died on 12 September 2013 in Berlin.
His stage career was closely linked to the Schaubühne in Berlin under Peter Stein. He appeared in several Berlin theatres, including the Schillertheater and the Komödie am Kurfürstendamm, and later at the Schauspielhaus Bochum. In 1990 he served on the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival.
Sander is known for playing the angel Cassiel in Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire (1987) and its sequel Faraway, So Close! (1993), and as Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen in Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot (1981). Other film roles include appearances in The Tin Drum (1979) and Comedian Harmonists (1997). He was married to actress Monika Hansen and was stepfather to actors Ben Becker and Meret Becker.
