by Joseph Davis, Contributing Writer
You find yourself awoken in your cabin, or maybe even stateroom, late at night. Maybe you’re preparing for bed, or you could be planning to take a late night tour of the ship. Suddenly something feels off. You’re not sure, but you could have sworn you felt a bump. However, you are for certain that the ship has come to a stop, as the engines down below have stopped their usual movement, or maybe the wind blowing into your porthole has stopped. Donning a warm coat, you make your way to the boat deck to see the crew in a flurry of activity, uncovering lifeboats as steam is released from the funnels towering above. Soon you learn that the lifeboats are to be filled and lowered into the Atlantic, women and children first, but you scoff at the idea. This is the Titanic, the safest ship on the sea. There’s no way she can be in any real danger… is there?
SiftPop contributing writer Joseph here. As you might know, I’m a big fan of history and how it’s portrayed in film, and few historical events capture the imagination of people and myself as the sinking of the RMS Titanic. This disaster has truly transcended history and social class, with both members of the elite of the day and immigrants looking for a better life were caught in the tragedy, sending rippling effects across all walks of life. Since it slipped beneath the waves in the early hours of April 15, 1912, numerous films, miniseries and documentaries have been made that depict what is quite possibly the most famous disaster in the history of the world, spanning from the silent era to the blockbuster film. So today, I want to take you on a journey through the years and to discuss the many films portraying the Titanic sinking and just how the ways we’ve told the story has changed over the years alongside with the growth of film.
The Silent Era and the Power of Propaganda
What might come as a surprise to most is the fact that the first ever film made about the disaster, Saved from the Titanic, actually released barely more than a month after the ship sank, and starred Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson as she retold her harrowing tale of survival. Sadly, this film has since been lost to history, though it truly serves as the cornerstone of filmmaking around the Titanic disaster. Later that same year, the first film directly depicting the disaster, the German In Nacht und Eis, premiered. Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of this one, which last I checked is available on YouTube in its entirety, but you can see the beginning of narrative filmmaking and the direction towards the movies today all the way back in 1912. These were still the days of short, 12-minute films, and to see something over half an hour that tries to focus on the broader stories of the crew and passengers is close to where movies would begin to reach by the next decade, even if the silent movies were dominated by a much more animated style of acting. However, there are still aspects of the popular mythos of Titanic that had yet to surface as well. This began to change a bit with the film Atlantic in 1929 (fun fact: this one was supposed to be called Titanic before the White Star Line threatened to sue the filmmakers). Admittedly, this is one I really want to see someday, but the most important aspect of this movie is that it is the first film about the Titanic disaster that wasn’t a silent film. This in and of itself is a dramatic change both in the era of filmmaking and in the telling of the Titanic disaster, as people could truly begin to act in ways they couldn’t with silent movies. A mere four years later, Cavalcade, which would go on to win Best Picture, even found a way to use the sinking as an important plot point for their characters. These two movies, at least in my opinion, show the genesis of the future of filmmaking for both narrative storytelling and the disaster movie. However, the next movie I will talk about was used for more… nefarious means.
Vladimir Lenin once said, “of all the arts, the most important for us is cinema.” Clearly, even in the 1920s, Lenin and many others were well aware of the power that film could have when it came to ideological means. Unfortunately, even the RMS Titanic could not escape the eyes of autocrats attempting to push their ideals of their national superiority over the perceived inferiority of their enemies upon their own people, as in 1943, during the height of the Second World War, Nazi Germany released a film titled, Titanic. While I haven’t seen this one, nor do I really want to, because… well, Nazis… it is still important to discuss, as many later movies have somewhat similar themes presented, such as the idea of Bruce Ismay being the cowardly villain who pushes for the Titanic to break the speed record for crossing the Atlantic (which is not true, by the way). However, while many tellings of the disaster use these themes and fictional characters to show man’s hubris of conquering nature, the Nazis aimed to show the faults of capitalism and the superiority of their own ideals and of the Germanic people. While to my knowledge this film did not pan out the way it was hoped, the fact that it even exists shows how when making films, one can easily use their art to push a narrative, for good or for ill, and that it’s a fine line between thought-provoking storytelling and storytelling aimed to tell you what to think.
The Renaissance of the 1950s, Musicals, and the Box Office Bomb
Okay, now let’s get away from the horrors of the Nazis and back to the Titanic. In the 1950s, two films about the Titanic were released: 1953’s Titanic and 1958’s A Night to Remember. Both of these I personally rank highly on my Titanic list of Titanic movies; however, they are distinctly different tales in how they build their stories. I’ll talk about the 1953 film first, mostly because I have a lot of nostalgia for this one. In it, you have a much smaller cast to deal with, but one with notable names to draw on with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck headlining the cast. This movie, however, is very much more a film about the characters than the disaster itself. You have the estranged couple and a fight over their children, a social climber who cheats his way to the top, and a man seeking redemption. It’s a beautiful film in its own right, and definitely leans into the character development of filmmaking. A Night to Remember, meanwhile, was a movie that took the time to truly focus on all aspects of the disaster. Granted, this one largely focuses on actor Kenneth Moore as Charles Lightholler, the highest ranking officer to survive the sinking, but it does focus on various other aspects of the sinking, from the engineers down below fighting to keep the lights on, to passengers across all classes as they make their way to the boats, and eventually their own fights for survival. This is easily one of my favorite movies, and really made a great combination of the multitude of stories that the disaster itself had. And while it didn’t do as well at the box office, it encapsulated character acting, and does a phenomenal job of making you feel like you were there. The fact that this movie has had some of its scenes used in later Titanic movies does also show just how much of an impact it has had in the telling of the disaster.
Of course, we can’t talk about films and the portrayal of the Titanic without bringing up The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Easily the most famous survivor of the sinking to most modern day Titanic enthusiasts, it feels almost fitting that of all the survivors, the most bombastic of them had her life story turned into a musical. Granted, this one only barely touches on the Titanic disaster, but it also is important to highlight that these people had lives before the disaster, and in some cases it was just as fascinating as their short time aboard the doomed liner.
Now, I did talk about the box office bomb of the Titanic movies. This movie, Raise the Titanic, is based off a Clive Cussler spy thriller novel, and boy does it not translate to the movie. To have Academy Award winner Jason Robards, Sir Alec Guinness, and producer Lew Grade (who would actually go on to produce Sophie’s Choice two years later) and to make less than a quarter of your budget back is astounding to me. It’s probably most notable for the fact that Cussler, who had numerous bestsellers in his writing career, all but banned his works from being made into movies (one of his later works, Sahara, would also prove to be made into a box office failure, leading to Cussler actually suing the filmmakers). It really feels like it wants to be a spy thriller, but just fails.
Titanic’s discovery, the Small Screen, and The Blockbuster
With the advent of television and the increased presence of home video capabilities, the idea of made-for-TV movies about the Titanic, along with miniseries, became a reality. While some shows did include episodes with a plot point set on board the doomed liner, such as the Kraft Television Theater and Voyagers!, 1979 saw the first true depiction of the disaster on the small screen with S.O.S. Titanic. The most notable thing here is how this movie explores both the class distinction of the Titanic, but also that it is both the first film to show the disaster in color, and the last film to show the ship sinking intact. It also shows the potential that could be found in made-for-TV movies, with the ability for filming aboard the RMS Queen Mary giving the movie a more authentic (if historically incorrect) feeling to this movie.
With the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, not only were some mysteries solved (namely if the Titanic had broken up in her final moments), but it kicked off a renewed interest in the disaster, one that continues to this day. This has helped spin off multiple TV series and docudramas such as the 1996 Titanic two-part miniseries starring George C. Scott, Tim Curry, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Peter Gallagher and a 2012 four-part miniseries of the disaster, along with influencing many shows to premiere episodes that were clearly based off and influenced by the disaster. However, few of these pale in comparison to the mega-hit that came out in 1997.
Leading up to the 1997 release of the James Cameron film, Titanic, the many films and series about the Titanic were a broad range of productions, from the first silent movies where emphasis of personal movement were clearly present to the early days of the “talkies” and other sound films that could produce more subtle roles with substantially more gravitas. But none of them truly changed the ways that films could be seen or made quite like Cameron’s epic. The highest grossing movie of all time for over a decade, this movie managed to combine a singular love story with the deep and fascinating mythos of the disaster like no other film before it could, and it truly showed what a blockbuster film could be in terms of story and effects. The attention to detail and care matches that of A Night to Remember, and just leaves you wanting for more as you find yourself on the edge of your seat as the disaster unfolds, as each and every moment feels as if it’s unfolding in front of your eyes. It has its faults, namely the portrayal of Molly Brown in the lifeboat being completely off from actual fact (the woman was a badass and James Cameron did her dirty), but it earned its record-setting 14 nominations and record-tying 11 wins at the Oscars.
In all honesty, I could probably go on for weeks on the portrayal of the Titanic, and there are several documentaries and other areas such as some animated movies that I haven’t touched on. However, it is clear to me that the story of the disaster, and the lives lost and changed by the sinking, have and likely will continue to reverberate with filmmakers for years to come. From the silent era, to the first talkies, the ’50s golden age of cinema, to the modern blockbuster, this disaster and it’s mythos will likely continue to be a well that filmmakers can go back to and draw from for fascinating stories. I expect someday soon that someone will look to the disaster once more and decide that there are stories that have not been told that are worth telling. While films like Titanic II and Titanic 666 exist, I believe that someone will one day decide it’s time again to go back and revisit the night of April 14 into the morning of April 15, 1912.
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