Titanic
Posted: March 17th, 2011, 5:16 pm
Recently my wife and I visited the Titanic Artifact Exhibition at our State museum and the following weekend she had a business trip to Titanic's final port of call, Cobh, Ireland. This coincidence rekindled a lifelong interest in Titanic, and since my wife was away, I decided to revisit many of the films dealing with the tragedy.
Titanic (1943)--If there's any one thing the Titanic story needs to make it more compelling it's propaganda, and this German production has plenty. Produced during the war, the production values are quite high and the film gets many of the basic facts more-or-less right. But the propaganda gets laid on pretty thick, especially with created character 1st Officer Peterson, a German who was substituting for an ailing English officer, and who, single-handedly, could have prevented the Titanic disaster at numerous turns, if only he had been listened to. The film goes to extraordinary lengths to show the greed and ineptitude of the English, portraying Captain Smith as weak-willed and Chairman of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, as the one ultimately to blame for the disaster. According to this film, it is the German First Officer who leads Ismay to his seat in the life boat, making sure Ismay survives so that he can be prosecuted. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) this Titanic is the only film in which the Congressional Inquiry is presented. Ismay is exonerated (as he actually was) but here it's adding fuel to the propagandistic fire.
Technically Titanic looks pretty good, especially considering it was made during the war. The special effects are so-so, particularly when seeing shots of the "actual" ship from any distance. (Whatever ship they are filming looks only marginally like Titanic.) The sinking image looks almost like a tilted photograph but may be a model.
Titanic (1953)--I guess the facts of the Titanic sinking weren't compelling enough for Hollywood, so instead they made up their own story, which is essentially a soap opera that happens to take place on the Titanic but could have happened anywhere. While well-acted, it's hard to relate to any of the characters, and even harder when the tragedy is merely used as a plot point. Instead of the Atlantic, this Titanic goes down in soap suds. On the plus side, Robert Wagner sings two songs!
Technically the film looks great, although it's clear that they are sets that are being flooded. Interestingly, this in the only film that actually shows an underwater shot of the ship hitting the iceberg. Notably, though, it's the wrong side! (She hit Starboard, not Port as depicted.) Witnessing the sinking from the lifeboats is quite effective and the model work is very good.
A Night to Remember (1958)--Author Walter Lord was the Kevin Brownlow of the Titanic. His lifelong fascination with the story led him to to seek out and interview dozens of survivors, which allowed him to write his book filled with details that have been meticulously recreated in the film, making A Night to Remember as close to a documentary of the actual sinking as one can get. Unlike both the Hollywood and German films, A Night to Remember doesn't bother with any real personal stories but does follow most of the action as seen from Second Officer Charles Lightoller's (Kenneth More) perspective. Unlike the other Titanic films, NtR also shows the proximity of the Californian, a ship close enough to the sinking Titanic that seamen on her deck saw several of the distress rockets fired form the sinking Titanic. While there are any number of things that could have prevented the Titanic disaster, if only Captain Stanley Lord or anyone had woken up the wireless operator on the Californian, it's pretty clear there would have been many more survivors.
On a technical level A Night to Remember is almost a documentary, too. Check out the making-of documentary included on the Criterion DVD and you'll see how they seamlessly moved from locations to models to sets. The model work is amazing, particularly during the sinking. (While the soundtrack is mono, there is a substantial amount of bass, and on more than one occasion the subwoofer made me feel as if my living room was starting to founder, too.)
One thing about the special effects in all of the above films is the hard fact about trying to work with miniatures in water: you can't manipulate the size of a single drop of water, therefore perspective is always an enormous challenge. Just ask Willis O'Brian, Ray Harryhousen or the effects guys at Toho.
Titanic (1997)--I'm not sure where we are in the inevitable backlash against Cameron's film, but my fondness for it hasn't faltered and after watching the other films, I appreciate it even more. Yea, the McGuffin necklace is hokey; but it also enables Cameron to setup the crucial bookending sequences. It's here where we get to learn the particulars of the ship's sinking, especially how it split--something even NtR got wrong. (To be fair to Lord, only one teenaged boy described the ship as breaking in two, something which the experts dismissed as impossible. Of course she was impossible to sink, too.) This information gives us the timeline and a sense of place as we then enter the Kate and Leo story. And yea, that story is a bit hokey, too, but as David Warner (who really deserved a better part) gives chase, that McGuffin again enables us to explore the ship in a way that the other films did not. Whether one becomes emotionally involved in the exploits of Kate and Leo may depend on gender and age, but Cameron gets a lot of the facts correct and presents them in an entertaining and exciting way. He also doesn't sugar-coat the harrowing aftermath of the sinking where survivors are left screaming for help while the half-filled lifeboats wait for the screams to lessen. (Because most of them were wearing life jackets, floating bodies continued to be found by passing ships several months after the tragedy.)
Technically the film still holds up brilliantly. Cameron is nothing if not ambitious, and the mix of miniatures, actual locations and yes, the now much maligned CGI, Cameron allows us to actually experience not only the sinking, but, more importantly to me, the overall grandeur of the ship before she went down. And because of CGI, he didn't have that pesky drop of water to throw-off the scale.
Not sated, I went for the documentaries:
Titanic: The Legend Lives On (1994)--Really great documentary that covers every aspect of Titanic; from her inception, construction, demise, everything in-between and after, including the official inquiries in both the U.S. and Great Britain. Interviews with survivors, experts, and, of course Robert Ballard's discovery of Titanic on Sept. 1, 1985. The film also briefly talks about the company that has the salvation rights, RMS Titanic, Inc., and how they "plan to" put the artifacts on tour, something I'd had mixed feelings about at the time it was announced, and kinda still do even after seeing some of them.
Beyond Titanic (1998)--Included as a special feature on the Titanic (1953) DVD, this documentary primarily focuses on the aftermath of Titanic and the various films, songs, and other forms of popular culture she inspired. Apparently all my viewing hasn't even touched the tip-off the iceberg (!), when it comes to films about Titanic, but the one I'd most surely love to see is the lost silent Saved From the Titanic, made in 1912, mere weeks after the sinking and featuring one of the actual survivors. Still can't imagine the play, Titanic: The Musical, (but I also can't imagine Spiderman the Musical, so that's my bad). Great documentary, though, and includes some footage not seen in the other docs of the Carpathia bringing in the too few survivors.
Titanic (1943)--If there's any one thing the Titanic story needs to make it more compelling it's propaganda, and this German production has plenty. Produced during the war, the production values are quite high and the film gets many of the basic facts more-or-less right. But the propaganda gets laid on pretty thick, especially with created character 1st Officer Peterson, a German who was substituting for an ailing English officer, and who, single-handedly, could have prevented the Titanic disaster at numerous turns, if only he had been listened to. The film goes to extraordinary lengths to show the greed and ineptitude of the English, portraying Captain Smith as weak-willed and Chairman of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, as the one ultimately to blame for the disaster. According to this film, it is the German First Officer who leads Ismay to his seat in the life boat, making sure Ismay survives so that he can be prosecuted. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) this Titanic is the only film in which the Congressional Inquiry is presented. Ismay is exonerated (as he actually was) but here it's adding fuel to the propagandistic fire.
Technically Titanic looks pretty good, especially considering it was made during the war. The special effects are so-so, particularly when seeing shots of the "actual" ship from any distance. (Whatever ship they are filming looks only marginally like Titanic.) The sinking image looks almost like a tilted photograph but may be a model.
Titanic (1953)--I guess the facts of the Titanic sinking weren't compelling enough for Hollywood, so instead they made up their own story, which is essentially a soap opera that happens to take place on the Titanic but could have happened anywhere. While well-acted, it's hard to relate to any of the characters, and even harder when the tragedy is merely used as a plot point. Instead of the Atlantic, this Titanic goes down in soap suds. On the plus side, Robert Wagner sings two songs!
Technically the film looks great, although it's clear that they are sets that are being flooded. Interestingly, this in the only film that actually shows an underwater shot of the ship hitting the iceberg. Notably, though, it's the wrong side! (She hit Starboard, not Port as depicted.) Witnessing the sinking from the lifeboats is quite effective and the model work is very good.
A Night to Remember (1958)--Author Walter Lord was the Kevin Brownlow of the Titanic. His lifelong fascination with the story led him to to seek out and interview dozens of survivors, which allowed him to write his book filled with details that have been meticulously recreated in the film, making A Night to Remember as close to a documentary of the actual sinking as one can get. Unlike both the Hollywood and German films, A Night to Remember doesn't bother with any real personal stories but does follow most of the action as seen from Second Officer Charles Lightoller's (Kenneth More) perspective. Unlike the other Titanic films, NtR also shows the proximity of the Californian, a ship close enough to the sinking Titanic that seamen on her deck saw several of the distress rockets fired form the sinking Titanic. While there are any number of things that could have prevented the Titanic disaster, if only Captain Stanley Lord or anyone had woken up the wireless operator on the Californian, it's pretty clear there would have been many more survivors.
On a technical level A Night to Remember is almost a documentary, too. Check out the making-of documentary included on the Criterion DVD and you'll see how they seamlessly moved from locations to models to sets. The model work is amazing, particularly during the sinking. (While the soundtrack is mono, there is a substantial amount of bass, and on more than one occasion the subwoofer made me feel as if my living room was starting to founder, too.)
One thing about the special effects in all of the above films is the hard fact about trying to work with miniatures in water: you can't manipulate the size of a single drop of water, therefore perspective is always an enormous challenge. Just ask Willis O'Brian, Ray Harryhousen or the effects guys at Toho.
Titanic (1997)--I'm not sure where we are in the inevitable backlash against Cameron's film, but my fondness for it hasn't faltered and after watching the other films, I appreciate it even more. Yea, the McGuffin necklace is hokey; but it also enables Cameron to setup the crucial bookending sequences. It's here where we get to learn the particulars of the ship's sinking, especially how it split--something even NtR got wrong. (To be fair to Lord, only one teenaged boy described the ship as breaking in two, something which the experts dismissed as impossible. Of course she was impossible to sink, too.) This information gives us the timeline and a sense of place as we then enter the Kate and Leo story. And yea, that story is a bit hokey, too, but as David Warner (who really deserved a better part) gives chase, that McGuffin again enables us to explore the ship in a way that the other films did not. Whether one becomes emotionally involved in the exploits of Kate and Leo may depend on gender and age, but Cameron gets a lot of the facts correct and presents them in an entertaining and exciting way. He also doesn't sugar-coat the harrowing aftermath of the sinking where survivors are left screaming for help while the half-filled lifeboats wait for the screams to lessen. (Because most of them were wearing life jackets, floating bodies continued to be found by passing ships several months after the tragedy.)
Technically the film still holds up brilliantly. Cameron is nothing if not ambitious, and the mix of miniatures, actual locations and yes, the now much maligned CGI, Cameron allows us to actually experience not only the sinking, but, more importantly to me, the overall grandeur of the ship before she went down. And because of CGI, he didn't have that pesky drop of water to throw-off the scale.
Not sated, I went for the documentaries:
Titanic: The Legend Lives On (1994)--Really great documentary that covers every aspect of Titanic; from her inception, construction, demise, everything in-between and after, including the official inquiries in both the U.S. and Great Britain. Interviews with survivors, experts, and, of course Robert Ballard's discovery of Titanic on Sept. 1, 1985. The film also briefly talks about the company that has the salvation rights, RMS Titanic, Inc., and how they "plan to" put the artifacts on tour, something I'd had mixed feelings about at the time it was announced, and kinda still do even after seeing some of them.
Beyond Titanic (1998)--Included as a special feature on the Titanic (1953) DVD, this documentary primarily focuses on the aftermath of Titanic and the various films, songs, and other forms of popular culture she inspired. Apparently all my viewing hasn't even touched the tip-off the iceberg (!), when it comes to films about Titanic, but the one I'd most surely love to see is the lost silent Saved From the Titanic, made in 1912, mere weeks after the sinking and featuring one of the actual survivors. Still can't imagine the play, Titanic: The Musical, (but I also can't imagine Spiderman the Musical, so that's my bad). Great documentary, though, and includes some footage not seen in the other docs of the Carpathia bringing in the too few survivors.