There have been many films and TV dramas about the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a story which ever since 1912 has gripped the human imagination, far more than other, similar, maritime disasters. (I cannot, for example, think of a single film about the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, even though it caused nearly as many deaths). There are several reasons for this, primarily that the Titanic can be seen to symbolise the vanity of human wishes, the inadequacy of human technology and human powerlessness against a hostile Nature. (The Lusitania was sunk as a deliberate act of war, so its loss carries no such symbolic meaning). As Thomas Hardy wrote in "Convergence of the Twain", his poem on the disaster:-
"In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she".
This American film was one of two versions from the 1950s, the other being the British-made "A Night to Remember". There was also a notorious Nazi propaganda version (which I have never seen) but the one everyone knows today is James Cameron's from 1997. Jean Negulesco's "Titanic" from 1953, however, has one advantage over Cameron's grand epic- a better human interest story. Whereas Cameron just had that clichéd love-story of Kate and Leo, Negulesco's film has a plot which could almost be something out of Henry James. (It won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, although it was fortunate in that many of the "big films" of 1953, such as "From Here to Eternity", "Julius Caesar" and "Shane", were adaptations from other media and hence not eligible for that award).
The film centres upon a wealthy estranged couple, Richard and Julia Sturges. Julia is from Mackinac, Michigan. (I understand that the name of the town is correctly pronounced "Mackinaw", but in the film it is always pronounced as it is spelled). Richard's nationality is something of an enigma. He is played by an American actor, Clifton Webb, but speaks with a British accent. There are, however, hints that he is not an Englishman but a Europeanised American, possibly an East Coast blue blood, who has fallen in love with European "high society". This has caused his estrangement from his wife, who regards this world as snobbish and artificial, and has booked a passage to America on the Titanic with her children Annette and Norman. Julia has kept her plans a secret from Richard, but he has somehow found out about them and, determined to persuade the children to return to Europe with him, buys a ticket from a Basque immigrant. (Despite his only holding a steerage ticket, nobody attempts to prevent Richard from using the first-class facilities).
Julia privately despairs of being able to influence the seventeen-year-old Annette, whom she regards as being as great a snob as her father, but hopes to rescue young Norman from European decadence. On the voyage, however, Annette falls in love with Gifford Rogers, a young college student who, although wealthy, is exactly the sort of non-decadent sun-tanned, crew-cut, All-American male whom Julia would want as a son-in-law. There is also a sub-plot about George Healey, a Catholic priest defrocked for alcoholism.
I found the story of the Sturges family so entertaining that I wished that these characters had been created in the context of some other film where they could have worked out their own solution to their problems rather than having a solution forced upon them by the iceberg. I never felt like that about Jack and Rose. In other respects, however, Cameron's film is superior. It is obviously superior in terms of its visual effects, but it might be unfair to make comparisons in this respect; the makers of the earlier film did not have either the modern special effects technology or the budget (even allowing for inflation) that were available to Cameron.
The other respect in which I feel the newer film is better is in the way in which it portrays human reactions to the disaster. Although the older film was made four decades after the loss of the Titanic, it suggests that in some respects social attitudes had not changed very much between 1912 and 1953, certainly much less than they were to change in the next four decades between the 1950s and the 1990s. If the film-makers of the 1910s had had the benefits of more modern technology, including talking pictures, and if they had decided to make a movie about the sinking shortly after it took place, I doubt if the resulting film would have been very different to Negulesco's.
The prevailing atmosphere after the iceberg strikes is one of Edwardian stiff-upper-lip heroism, with all the adult males (bar a single coward who disguises himself as a woman) unquestioningly following the "women and children first" policy, helping their wives, sweethearts and children into the few lifeboats then stoically standing on the decks to await their inevitable deaths while singing hymns. The ship's captain, Edward Smith, portrayed in the 1997 film as a weak character unable to stand up to the bullying ship-owner J. Bruce Ismay, here becomes a gallant hero whose decisive leadership and self-sacrifice saves the lives of many others.
Cameron's film, by contrast, does show some acts of heroism, but also shows that not everyone was a hero and that chaos and panic were more common reactions. That film may have been unfair to certain individuals, particularly in its calumny of the ship's First Officer William Murdoch, but overall I felt that its picture of the disaster was not only more accurate but also more moving, presenting it is the tragic waste of life it really was rather than sentimentalising it as some sort of noble and heroic martyrdom. Not every remake is inferior to its original. 6/10
"In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she".
This American film was one of two versions from the 1950s, the other being the British-made "A Night to Remember". There was also a notorious Nazi propaganda version (which I have never seen) but the one everyone knows today is James Cameron's from 1997. Jean Negulesco's "Titanic" from 1953, however, has one advantage over Cameron's grand epic- a better human interest story. Whereas Cameron just had that clichéd love-story of Kate and Leo, Negulesco's film has a plot which could almost be something out of Henry James. (It won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, although it was fortunate in that many of the "big films" of 1953, such as "From Here to Eternity", "Julius Caesar" and "Shane", were adaptations from other media and hence not eligible for that award).
The film centres upon a wealthy estranged couple, Richard and Julia Sturges. Julia is from Mackinac, Michigan. (I understand that the name of the town is correctly pronounced "Mackinaw", but in the film it is always pronounced as it is spelled). Richard's nationality is something of an enigma. He is played by an American actor, Clifton Webb, but speaks with a British accent. There are, however, hints that he is not an Englishman but a Europeanised American, possibly an East Coast blue blood, who has fallen in love with European "high society". This has caused his estrangement from his wife, who regards this world as snobbish and artificial, and has booked a passage to America on the Titanic with her children Annette and Norman. Julia has kept her plans a secret from Richard, but he has somehow found out about them and, determined to persuade the children to return to Europe with him, buys a ticket from a Basque immigrant. (Despite his only holding a steerage ticket, nobody attempts to prevent Richard from using the first-class facilities).
Julia privately despairs of being able to influence the seventeen-year-old Annette, whom she regards as being as great a snob as her father, but hopes to rescue young Norman from European decadence. On the voyage, however, Annette falls in love with Gifford Rogers, a young college student who, although wealthy, is exactly the sort of non-decadent sun-tanned, crew-cut, All-American male whom Julia would want as a son-in-law. There is also a sub-plot about George Healey, a Catholic priest defrocked for alcoholism.
I found the story of the Sturges family so entertaining that I wished that these characters had been created in the context of some other film where they could have worked out their own solution to their problems rather than having a solution forced upon them by the iceberg. I never felt like that about Jack and Rose. In other respects, however, Cameron's film is superior. It is obviously superior in terms of its visual effects, but it might be unfair to make comparisons in this respect; the makers of the earlier film did not have either the modern special effects technology or the budget (even allowing for inflation) that were available to Cameron.
The other respect in which I feel the newer film is better is in the way in which it portrays human reactions to the disaster. Although the older film was made four decades after the loss of the Titanic, it suggests that in some respects social attitudes had not changed very much between 1912 and 1953, certainly much less than they were to change in the next four decades between the 1950s and the 1990s. If the film-makers of the 1910s had had the benefits of more modern technology, including talking pictures, and if they had decided to make a movie about the sinking shortly after it took place, I doubt if the resulting film would have been very different to Negulesco's.
The prevailing atmosphere after the iceberg strikes is one of Edwardian stiff-upper-lip heroism, with all the adult males (bar a single coward who disguises himself as a woman) unquestioningly following the "women and children first" policy, helping their wives, sweethearts and children into the few lifeboats then stoically standing on the decks to await their inevitable deaths while singing hymns. The ship's captain, Edward Smith, portrayed in the 1997 film as a weak character unable to stand up to the bullying ship-owner J. Bruce Ismay, here becomes a gallant hero whose decisive leadership and self-sacrifice saves the lives of many others.
Cameron's film, by contrast, does show some acts of heroism, but also shows that not everyone was a hero and that chaos and panic were more common reactions. That film may have been unfair to certain individuals, particularly in its calumny of the ship's First Officer William Murdoch, but overall I felt that its picture of the disaster was not only more accurate but also more moving, presenting it is the tragic waste of life it really was rather than sentimentalising it as some sort of noble and heroic martyrdom. Not every remake is inferior to its original. 6/10