#10: The Forgotten Titanics
On April 10, 1912, the largest, most luxurious passenger liner ever built set sail from England. Bound for New York City, the ship carried over 2000 passengers and crew, most of who would go to their watery graves on a ship deemed "unsinkable." It's sinking would send its name into history's lexicon, and create a myth more powerful then any reality.
In 1997, a director named James Cameron, long noted for movies that stretched the imagination, would release a version of the Titanic's story that would become the highest grossing movie of all time. The movie's success would raise the bar for modern special effects, while once again proving that, if you put enough polish at anything, you can make even the most trite and uninspired story shine brightly enough to dazzle an audience with lowered expectations.
Yeah, you all know about that Titanic. The one with that skinny, anorexic girl. And Kate Winslet was in there somewhere, too. Damn thing won 11 Oscars, cost $200 million, went explosively over budget and sucked out over a billion of your hard-earned dollars.
Ah, I'm wasting space. You already know the stats. Point is: Titanic was the most successful chick flick in movie history.
But in its success, Titanic drove other, similarly plotted movies out of the spotlight, crushing them under the weight of undeserved success. In all the annals of great historical disaster, no single incident has sparked more imaginations than the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic. And what we're gonna do here today, is take you back down memory lane, and chronicle some of the most (un) successful attempts at telling this tragic story of the biggest little microcosm of society to ever get pasted by a giant ice cube.
All Aboard
Titanic (1953)
This movie has the dubious honor of being only the second "talkie" to bare the great ship's name. Made a decade after the original A Night to Remember, and 5 years before its remake, Titanic tells the story of the Sturges family, and those whom they meet aboard the great ship. Far from an action/romance/thriller, this flick is quite the character study (emphasis, for once, on the character). Historical inaccuracies are few and far between, though blatantly obvious. Special effects are from the 50s. Interestingly, though, this movie one 2 Oscars of its own, for Best Story and Best Screenplay, both of which would slip through the grasp of that other Titanic, 43 years later. A full review lies this way.
Trans-Atlantic Crossing
A Night to Remember (1958)
Based on a book of the same name, Night presents the stories of the Titanic's survivors (and non-survivors) in a stark, decidedly un-dramatic light. Five years of improvement in movie making technology make a big difference in technical effects and factual accuracy. Sets, once again, rock the house. Characters suffer from a lack of meat on their bones. Some even suffer from a lack of bones. Still, the starkness can create lots of empathy, and Roy Ward Baker's direction adds an almost documentary feel to the proceedings. A full review is steaming towards you.
Iceberg ahead!
Titanic (1996)
One year before Cameron's boat set out to sea, Hallmark Entertainment launched its own little craft onto American TV. This movie originally aired as a mini-series and it shows. Filled with fictional characters and romantic subplots that look boringly similar. And though a young Catherine Zeta-Jones is certainly easy on the eyes, her face--er, I mean, character, doesn't get nearly enough screen time. By weaving in so many characters and story lines together, the moviemakers tried to create a tapestry. Instead, they created a movie that resembles an afghan. And not the warm, fuzzy kind your grandmother use to knit, either, but the one with more holes in it then a stabbing victim. A full review is slowly sinking into the Atlantic.
Lessons learned
The lessons the Titanic teaches us are far and wide. The disaster is a monument to man's hubris and arrogance. The loss of life is senseless and hideous. But, by God, when you're trying to make money, nothing packs up into the theater faster then a good old mindless, senseless, hideous human tragedy.
Right out of history, no less. You don't even have to pay any real writers. After all, you're a Hollywood big shot who's got lots of award winning, well liked movies under his belt and an ego the size of an exploding atmosphere processor. And it worked, too. You packed 'um into those theaters like sheep and they ate everything you had up with little silver spoons but I know where you live, Cameron! I see through your smokescreen! I see you behind that curtain and I'm coming for ya! Be afraid, be veeeerrrrry afraid!
Um, what were we talking about again?
Oh, right. Well, after a watching a combined 394 minutes worth of video on the subject, I officially declare myself sick of this freeken ship. If I ever watch another movie about the Titanic it'll be do damn soon.
--12:4:0:0