I had grand plans for the Titanic centennial, plans filled with a supersize hubris not unlike the power players at the White Star Lines albeit without the deadly consequences. It would be the biggest boldest blog post ever and would compare every last detail of all film versions of Titanic from costuming to art direction to special effects to young loves lost in the icy waters. Film Experience readers would feel as if they'd won the lottery for a first class ticket, no slumming in steerage required! But before I drive this analogy into an uncomfortably tone deaf iceberg moment -- like the one James Cameron collided with when he mixed "King of the World" bragging with that moment of silence for a 1517 souls lost on the tragic night -- I will stop and just get on with it. Picture time!
Titanic (1943), Titanic (1953), and Titanic (1997)
Here is a brief visual history of the Titanic sinking via the greatest of all art forms, The Movies. All images are culled from films named Titanic directed by Germany's Herbert Selpin, the Romanian Hollywood success Jean Negulesco, and Canada's box office colossus James Cameron in 1943, 1953 and 1997. These are hardly the only films about the infamous oceanic disaster even if you exclude the filmed narratives where the disaster is only a minor plot point in everything from one of the earliest best picture winners Cavalcade (1933) to today's popular British series Downton Abbey (2010-)
The three Titanics begin very differently... before settling in as narrative siblings.
The German film begins with a board meaning at White Star Line staging the event as a cautionary tale about big business. The 1953 picture begins with an eery human-free depiction of the forming of an iceberg that Malick might love (though it instantly flips back to a stuffy 50s drama). The 1997 blockbuster begins with a contemporary dive with an explorer (Bill Paxton) and an old survivor Rose (Gloria Stuart) about to reminisce... cue three hour flashback!!!
After that they're much more similar. We get...
Establishing shots of the ship... the ship of dreams.
Unhappy couples and/or engagements that will never make to altars in New York.
Classy looking gentlemen dressed to the nines who aren't so gentlemenly.
Impossibly smooth young pretty boys just beginning their careers. Well RJ Wagner and Leonardo DiCaprio at least. Things didn't work out so well for Germany's film industry in the 1940s. (See also: Inglourious Basterds)
Saucy dancing in steerage with sexy women letting their hair down!
Loose sexual morals in steerage! [Actually Titanic (1953) isn't really into the class divide or suggestions of actual sex but Titanic (1943) and Titanic (1997) are way hornier and economically conscious.
The oblivious aristocracy and their fashions.
The iceberg spotted! The contained crew panic followed by calm "we cleared it" followed by wildly contagious panic for the rest of the movie.
The flooding!
The jostling for position in the lifeboats with the rich people especially selfish about it.
People accidentally and purposefully jumping into the water.
The movie star who would quite possibly rather drown with her man than leave him on the boat (though in all cases she gets on the life boat (Kate Winslet Rose Bukater Dawson's stunt double is the only leading actress fiery enough to leap back onto the ship). Titanic (1953) misses the chance to compose a heartbreaking reverse shot of the woman lowering out of frame with the man rising but the other two films get it just right... THE MEN THAT GOT AWAY!
The amazing f/x work detailing every single terrorizing destructive beat in the ... oh wait that's only Titanic (1997) with its contemporary visual effects
The sad orchestral music as people die (1953 is very moving in this regard with the men singing "Nearer My God to Thee as the ship goes down). The little boats floating outside the wreckage and the terrible pathetic visual of the majestic ship disappearing under that infinite black ocean.
It's no wonder that filmmakers are drawn to this story that has everything. It's a mythic tale of hubris, heroic sacrifice, the inevitability of death and the natural world's indifference to the self proclaimed kings of the world (i.e. mankind). It's all still there on the ocean floor, and in our memories of the movies, too.
The 1943 picture ends with a useless trial (the deaths are unatoned for). The 1953 picture ends with a sad narration over the tiny boats. The 1997 blockbuster ends with the old lady's memories, her treasured memories and an actual jeweled treasure returned to their eternal liquid graves. She'll never let go. Neither will we. Titanic and at least Titanic (1997) will always be with us.