Can we discuss the film Titanic?

[KindergartenKop]

I've just found it on an obscure movie channel. Do you like it? As a teenager I loved it but recently it occurred to me that it's a bit weird to set an entirely fictional and unlikely romance against the backdrop of a real and horrific accident. You'd not find anyone making a 9/11 romance, so why is it ok to do this? Maybe this should be in aibu?!

The movie I mean.

She’d never have been happy with jack. The reality of life with a poor person who had nothing to offer would soon have worn thin when she was used to being rich
He was far too flighty
And she let her mother believe she was dead - what a nasty thing to do

Will look up the French and Saunders parody

The Titanic museum in Belfast is world class - worth a visit for anyone remotely interested in the story.

Wait Rose dies at the end?

The unsinkable Molly Brown campaigned after the sinking to commorate those who had died. She also campaigned for workers rights and was in france during WWI. She was also an actress. Quite a woman!

There’s a permanent Tiranuc exhibition in Southampton’s Seacity museum. Including a map of Southampton showing a dot where all the Southampton based victims were from. Hundreds and hundreds.

Including it on the curriculum as a KS1 topic both easy (easy school trip) and a bit tasteless (come dressed as a first class or third class passenger).

1500 people died in awful circumstances, mainly because someone decided to cut costs and not fit enough lifeboats.

Completely missing the point of the thread but the theory was that with radio and so many ships i the area the life boats would be used to ferry people to another boat ad therefore you didn't need a seat for everyone.

It was used a year or two before successfully.

The Titanic had more lifeboats than legally required.

If the Titanic had had enough seats then people would still have died because the evacuation was so slow.

To start with people did not want to go into the life boats, they were on a luxury liner with heating and electric lights, who would want to get into a rickety boat, 100 ft above the sea and be lowered into the sea?

Titanic didn't need a fictional story, there are lots and lots of individual accounts that would make a good film.

There was an Irish woman who had done well in the US and came home to Ireland and persuaded a number of friends and relatives to return with her, I think about 15 people from one village, only a child survived.

On another note I saw a news story this morning of a Titanic replica being built expected to launch in 2022. Apparently it launches from Dubai to Southampton then on to New York. First I've heard of this is it common knowledge?

I've not heard of that but there are 'cruises' that follow the route and serve the same meals and then stop over the spot the ship is.

www.cruiseline.co.uk/Re-live-the-Titanic-Experience

I like it. But I know it's weak and poor.

Draw me like one of your French girls....

The musicians playing unto death never fails to elicit a sob from me.

Here is my list of the things I find 'problematic' about Titanic:

It's hard to have any feelings about the fictitious fate of a fictitious couple, given that there was so much real tragedy involving real people. This isn't like a romance set in WWll the scale of which gave anonymity and involved millions of people rather than 2,000-ish...the Titanic had exhaustive lists of passengers and crew so we know exactly who was on board, their names and who was saved & lost.

Likewise, because they were all real people, it was real people you are traducing when you make up stories about them. Eg the movie made up a story that 1st Officer Murdoch shot and killed one of the passengers....Murdoch was a real person and a lot of what he did was documented, & there is absolutely no evidence that ever happened. The crew members are people who worked through the night to get people loaded onto lifeboats whilst knowing they would probably not survive; that is as good a definition as any of heroism and imo they deserved the utmost respect, which didn't happen here;

Rose being portrayed as a heroine although she:
-jumped out of a lifeboat at the last minute so it went away with an empty space which could have saved another person;

-held onto the jewel which didn't actually belong to her, which someone would have claimed insurance on - so fraud as well as theft (she should have given it back to her ex-fiance surely? especially after the 1929 crash 'hit him hard'), then chucking it into the sea on a whim despite the ongoing search for it and despite how it could have benefited other people. I mean, the old bag!

Old Rose wittering on about the people in the lifeboats 'waiting for dawn, for absolution which never came' - like they should feel guilty for surviving? They deserved better than that & had nothing to be guilty for.

I think that's all for now but there is probably more.

Titanic Survivor, the memoirs of Violet Jessop is worth reading, as is And The Band Played On By Christopher Ward is very moving and interesting as it is an account of what happened after the Titanic sank. Christopher Ward is the grandson of Jock Hume, one of the musicians in the orchestra.

The script is bloody dire, Jack, Jack, Jack this, and Jack that, and Rose giving the finger to someone and the spitting is just stupid. Worst film Kate Winslet has been in.

The musicians playing unto death never fails to elicit a sob from me.

The musicians were not employed by White Star Line, they subcontracted to another company.

The company they worked for sent at least one family a bill for the uniform he was wearing as he hadn't completed his contract (you know, because of being dead).

The bill was sent to the family of Jock Hume, it’s mentioned in the book above.

There were only 14 years between the fall of Saigon, and the stage show Miss Saigon opening. Although, granted I think everybody is fictional in that (more or less).

I was 15 when the film came out and I loved it. I cried buckets though. We had a talent show at school and my friend and I did a dance routine to my heart will go on. We loved Céline Dion just as much as we loved titanic

I prefer the old black and white version, 'A Night to Remember'. Very atmospheric and the acting is far better, IMO. That old film really gets to me, and certain scenes really stick in my mind.

I found the Kate Winslet one completely unreal, despite the flashy decor and huge budget. The phrase 'less is more' springs to mind (regarding the film, obviously not the budget for lifeboats, that's another matter).

It seems ridiculous now that people could be so arrogant as to think that they had designed/built a ship that was unsinkable. Mother nature soon proved otherwise. But it seems that engineers/businessmen haven't learned their lessons, as now they have begun fracking in England, which seems to be messing with nature in a big way and causing earth tremors. Maybe nature is going to teach us another lesson, the hard way. (Sorry for going off topic, just seeing a parallel in man's arrogance towards nature, and myopia caused by pound signs in eyes.)

There’s an absolutely superb titanic museum in Belfast (where the titanic was built) titanicbelfast.com - one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. Dh, dc and I found it fascinating and really moving too. It gives a real insight into the amount of work and lives that went into building the ship (as well as the tragic loss of life when it sank).

I can't watch beyond where the boat starts to sink. I feel ill....

It seems ridiculous now that people could be so arrogant as to think that they had designed/built a ship that was unsinkable

The designers never said that though. Although possibly the 1912 version of the PR department did...

The crew members are people who worked through the night to get people loaded onto lifeboats whilst knowing they would probably not survive; that is as good a definition as any of heroism and imo they deserved the utmost respect, which didn't happen here;

This.

"A Night to Remember" was much more engrossing and had some extremely touching and sad moments - but nothing was overdone. Kenneth Moore was so believable as the efficient Lightoller(?). Just the sort of man that was "stiff upper lippish" and capably rose to every eventuality. He also played a similar role to great effect in "North West Frontier" where Lauren Bacall managed to look soignee fleeing across India.

"Titanic" left me completely untouched, although it did have good special effects.

I don't think it's in poor taste at all.
Hundreds of books for example set romances against real disasters. I've even read a few set against 9/11. It's not that different. Life is art. If it brings important messages to more people it's relevant.