Films

Filmmakers all over the world have made many movies over the years. There were silent movies, docu-dramas, and even Alfred Hitchcock toyed with the idea of a Titanic thriller for a while. The Titanic even showed up in the comedy film, Ghostbusters II.

Among the most notable was A Night to Remember, made in 1958. It is about as close to the truth as filmmakers ever got without going overboard. Actual survivors were consulted on the film. Even then, there were some major flaws as showing the ship being christened and making the Californian's officers look like total morons. In the movie, a young woman (Edith Russell) keeps a couple of small girls amused in a lifeboat with a musical toy pig as the Titanic sinks. This actually happened, and this was the actual toy pig!

1997 is the year for James Cameron 11 Oscar film Titanic. You can visit the Web site dedicated to the film at <http://www.titanicmovie.com/>.

I enjoyed the film. It is quite a good reconstitution of the events. Though some facts must be reminded:

  • Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), Rose Duwitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) are imaginary characters. However Molly Brown (Kathy Bates) did exist. A Web site is also dedicated to her memory.
  • The "Heart of the Ocean" (the "cœur de la mer" in french) is fiction as far as I know. Even if it exists, it was not aboard. Yet, another diamond exists and has this name, but it has not the shape of a heart.
  • The paintings of Monet and Picasso weren't aboard either.
  • The Officer of the watch ordered Hard-a-Starboard when he actually wanted to go to Port because in those days commands were given as tiller orders as opposed to helm orders. If you wanted to go to port, you ordered Starboard and vice versa. Today the order that you give is the direction that you are going to turn to.
   Titanic

Last Update — November 14, 2005
Copyright ©1995-2004 Arnaud Mouronval