“Iceberg! Right Ahead! The Various Narrative and Real-World Lessons We Can Learn from Titanic!”
“I’m king of the world!!” If you are of a certain age, you likely remember that movie quote very well. Titanic- James Cameron’s Oscar-winning historical disaster drama (released December 1997)- was the movie where you heard it. Titanic was also the film that temporarily catapulted Canadian singer Celine Dion to fame for her soundtrack song, “My Heart Will Go On.” “Paint me like one of your French girls” became another one of the film’s famous quotes, as did the more historically appropriate quote: “Iceberg! Right ahead!”
In the late 1990s, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio starred as the young and beautiful romantic duo- Rose DeWitt and Jack Dawson (respectively). DiCaprio was a major male hunk at the time (he was just 23 years old), and every older-millennial girl and gen-Xer likely had a celebrity crush on him. But…yes…yes…all the Hollywood glamorousness and memory-lane expeditions shouldn’t distract us from what really made this film so timeless—its real-life historical and disaster-related elements!
The Film’s Premise
The film’s premise: Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and his team survey the wreckage of the Titanic aboard their research vessel, the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. They discover a large diamond necklace (called the “Heart of the Ocean”) alongside a nude drawing of a young woman. Their televised discovery draws the attention of centenarian Rose Dawson Calvert (Gloria Stuart). She phones Lovett and reveals her identity. Rose travels with her granddaughter, Lizzy (Suzy Amis), and the two meet the research crew. She gets very emotional and begins to tell them all her story.
When she was 17-years old, Rose DeWitt (her maiden name) boarded the Titanic with her mother, Ruth (Frances Fisher), and her arrogant, snobbish fiancée, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), a steel fortune businessman. At the same time, Jack Dawson, a poor, adventurous, artistically talented American itinerant from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, ecstatically boarded the ship as well. How did he afford to do so? He and his friend, Fabrizio (Danny Nucci), won a pair of tickets in a game of poker.
Rose is deeply unhappy and resents both her arranged marriage to Cal and the suffocating social atmosphere she finds herself in. One night she contemplates suicide and stands on the edge of the ship (clinging to the railings). Jack rescues her, and, during the first section of the film, Rose slowly falls for Jack. She cannot resist his wild, free, carpe-diem personality! This, of course, rubs both Rose’s mother and fiancée the wrong way (the former forbids her daughter from ever seeing “that boy”). Cal- violent, jealous, and humiliated- employs his personal bodyguard/valet, Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner), to spy on/break up Jack and Rose’s newfound romantic relationship. Then…amid all of that…on the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic sideswipes an iceberg. Part II of the film begins.
Captain Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill), Titanic’s builder, Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), and the rest of the ship’s crew decide what to do. The protocol to board women and children first (and to work from 1st class to 3rd class passengers) goes terribly awry! There are not enough lifeboats. The seawater inundates the lower levels, the ship pitches upward, it snaps in half and then, within several hours, it plunges to the bottom of the ocean. At least 1,500 passengers die (most from drowning and/or freezing), and only an approximate 740 passengers survive.
James Cameron wrote, directed, and produced the film. Russell Carpenter provided principal photography. Conrad Buff, James Cameron, and Richard A. Harris edited the film. James Horner oversaw music, and the movie’s production and distribution companies included Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Lightstorm Entertainment.
There are undoubtedly various scenes in Titanic that stand out. Not the lovey-dovey “Jack-Rose” scenes…but the hard-hitting disaster sequences. The movie, in some sense, splits into two- not unlike the vessel itself- when one of the ship’s watchmen immediately loses his playful smile. We see the sinking look of terror in his eyes, and we know immediately he’s seen the iceberg! He phones his colleagues anxiously, ordering them to bear as hard left as they can. It all works to no avail, as the iceberg cuts a large incision in the lower portion of the ship’s hull. The men down below race to squeeze beneath the automatic doors and prevent the waters from rising higher.
People who’ve seen the movie likely remember all those other “down-below” sequences. There are the scenes where torrents of icy waves sweep away third-class passengers and “chase” down our two leads (as the lights flicker and strobe). The desperate and enraged passengers use makeshift battering rams to pour through the gateways that the ship’s crew have guarded. Jack and Rose frantically try to key open one of the gates as the water levels rapidly rise above their heads.
First Officer William Murdoch (Ewan Stewart) fires panicked shots at passengers apparently violating the “women and children first” policy and trying to storm the lifeboats (shipside). In the film, Murdoch shoots one of the men dead and then (certainly thinking “what have I done?!”) shoots himself. William Murdoch’s real-life nephew who saw the film took issue with its depiction of his uncle, whom he explains fired warning shots but never killed anyone (Fox vice-president Scott Neeson apologized to Scott in person). Cameron explained that he didn’t try to depict Murdoch in a bad light.
The orchestra plays on. The fine China falls from the shelves and showers the floors with broken shards. Furniture breaks apart. A piano rolls into a wall. The wheelhouse windows shatter and a swirling vortex of water consumes the captain who anxiously awaits his fate. The middle of the vessel splinters apart, and dozens of people fall into its cracks. The smokestacks plunge into the sea when their stay-cables snap, and they crush passengers swimming away from the ship.
Perhaps the most visually striking sequence is the one in which the ship’s stern-side tilts until it reaches a sheer 90-degree angle. The bronze propellors emerge from the depths, as the poor souls (including Jack and Rose) on the poop-deck scramble and race up the side of the ship. Hundreds of people grip onto any fixture they can get a hold of, but many slide down (as though on a bobsled) to their icy fates. The passengers fall off in rapid succession, hitting the ocean surface like bullets. And then, after bobbing like a piece of cork, the ship’s stern-side lowers into the ocean, sucking everyone down in its wake. The famous “Unsinkable” Molly Brown exclaims “God Almighty” as she gazes in horror upon the sight from her lifeboat.
Amid the roiling crowd of writhing, floating, screaming, crying, and thrashing people at the ocean’s surface (who all look like damned souls in the underworld), Jack and Rose find a door. This is the (in)famous door that, for decades after the film’s release, people have zealously debated about. Couldn’t Rose and Jack simply have shifted up positions so that (SPOILER ALERT) Jack didn’t have to linger in the water and freeze to death, and both could have survived? Could they not both have fit on the door? According to Cameron, no, it wouldn’t have worked, and, for the sake of the plot, “Jack needed to die.” “I’ll never let go,” Rose tearfully promises Jack as he (frozen dead) sinks below the surface.
Behind the Scenes
How did Cameron and his crew do it? James Cameron has always been at the vanguard of cinematic technology. His ultimate example of this was the epic action-adventure, Avatar (2009), in which he created the CGI world of Pandora and re-introduced 3D technology to the movie scene. For Titanic, Cameron’s crew created a 45-foot-long miniature of the ship and added digital water and smoke afterwards. He also captured extras on a motion capture stage. Cameron shot scenes inside the ship’s engine by mixing real-life footage of SS. Jeremiah O’Brien’s engines with support frames (and then shooting actors against green screen)1.
As far as the ocean goes, Cameron created an enclosed 5,000,000-U.S. gallon (19,000,000 liter) tank, in which they could tilt the set and display sinking interiors. The crew dumped 90,000 gallons (340,000 liters) of water into the set as they lowered it into the tank, to sink the “Grand Staircase.” The crew tilted the full-sized set (with 150 extras and 100 stunt performers) to capture the climactic, ship-splitting scene. Stunt performers and extras used attached wires to safely slide down the set. Cameron hired Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to help him continue his developments in digital technology, and he used a Linux-based operating system to properly create and edit all the CGI special effects.
The True Story
What about the real Titanic? How accurate was Cameron’s retelling? The RMS Titanic, a British passenger liner that White Star Line operated, set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England (headed for New York City) on April 10, 1912. Shipbuilders from the company Harland and Wolff constructed the vessel at a shipyard in Belfast. The RMS Titanic was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners that White Star Line operated. At the head of the ship’s crew was Thomas Andrews, the chief architect, and Captain Edward Smith (both depicted in the film). The first-class accommodations were designed to be quintessentially comfortable and luxurious, and they included a gymnasium, swimming pool, high-class restaurants, cafes, Turkish baths, opulent cabins, and smoking rooms. The “unsinkable” ship included advanced features for the time, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors.
The builders equipped the Titanic with 16 lifeboat davits (for a total of 48 lifeboats). The ship only carried 20 lifeboats. The Titanic was 882 feet and 9 inches (269.06 meters) long, and its maximum breadth was 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 meters). The ship was 104 feet (32 meters) from the base of the keel to the top of the bridge, she measured 46,329 GRT (gross register tonnage), 21, 831 NRT (no register tonnage), her draught was 34 feet 7 inches (10.54 meters), and she displaced 52,310 tons2,3,4. The ship contained at least 9 decks- at “Boat Deck” at the very top, the “orlop decks” at the very bottom, and Decks A-G in between (A-higher, G-lower). Three main engines- two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one centrally placed, low-pressure Parsons turbine- each drove a propeller, producing a combined total of 46,000 units of horsepower2.
Various famous passengers boarded the Titanic, including American millionaire John Jacob Astor and his wife, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Denver millionaires Margaret “Molly” Brown, writer/historian Archibald Gracie, noted architect Edward Austin Kent, French sculptor Paul Chevre, silent film actress Dorothy Gibson, and countless others.
At 11:40 P.M. on April 14, 1912, lookout Frederick Fleet alerted the ship’s bridge after spotting an iceberg (near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland)5,8. First Officer William Murdoch ordered that the crew steer the ship around the obstacle and reverse the engines; but, alas, it was too late, and the starboard side struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes beneath the waterline6. Although the iceberg didn’t puncture the hull, it dented the hull such that the ship’s seams separated and buckled, and the water rushed in. The ship couldn’t float if more than four watertight compartments flooded, and the water had filled at least five. The Titanic sank bow-first. The water spilled from compartment to compartment, and the ship’s angle gradually steepened.
As was the common seafaring practice at the time, lifeboats were usually only used to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels7. The ship could only, at maximum, fit half the number of passengers into lifeboats. The third-class passengers were essentially left to fend for themselves (many sank in the lower levels). Between 2:10-2:15 A.M. the ship’s sinking rate increased rapidly. The sea poured through open hatches and grates as the boat deck dipped underwater8. The unsupported stern rose out of the water and exposed her propellers. Due to the immense forces on the keel, the ship broke apart between the second and third funnels.
Air became trapped in the stern as the bow sank underwater, and so hundreds of people clung to the near-vertical “ship”6. The Titanic foundered at 2:20 A.M. The temperature in the water was lethally cold −2 °C (28 °F). Many passengers died within minutes (some combination of cardiac arrest, drowning, and cold incapacitation/hypothermia)5.
Although the crew sent out distress signals (via wireless, rockets, and lamp) to various other vessels- including the SS Birma, SS California (the last to have contacted Titanic before her collision), and the RMS Carpathia (which showed up at 4 A.M.)- they all either failed to arrive or arrived too late. Of those who lingered in the freezing Atlantic (after the ship foundered), lifeboats rescued only five people5. The lifeboats had room for over 500 people, and many were only filled at 60% capacity5. At least 1,517 people died in total.
Narrative Format and Real-World Parallels
I miss the days when films like Titanic swept the Oscars…films that were both artistic masterpieces and big, blockbuster spectacles (the “watercooler” types that dominated everyday conversations). The audience I saw Titanic with in theaters cheered and wept and applauded and all that good stuff. I was only 9 years old when I saw it in theaters, so the whole Jack-Rose thing pretty much soared high over my head. While, nowadays, as a 30s-some, I can appreciate a masterpiece of romance (Annie Hall, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember), that is absolutely the last thing in the world I would have cared about then.
But, even now, I’d still argue—the romance in this film is very schmaltzy and off-putting. That’s okay, though. That isn’t the ultimate point of the story. The real-life history and disaster parts of the narrative are! Everyone in theaters wept when Jack sank into the ocean (a testament to Leonardo DiCaprio’s timeless chops as an actor), but the site of hundreds (including children, older people, and even little infants) flailing helplessly (with virtually no hope of rescue), of course, strikes a much deeper chord!
The narrative format that the film uses is also very intriguing. A personal story told against the backdrop of a major historical event…one in which the major historical event intermingles with the personal story. Several years after Titanic was released, Michael Bay tried a similar narrative attempt when he produced Pearl Harbor (2001). It was much less successful. Many stories have taken this approach and many still could.
For instance, somewhere out there is the tale of a couple who suffers through a horrible divorce or loses their home the day of September 11, 2001. And, nowadays, the entirety of the Covid-19 pandemic could also follow suit. Everyone was dealing with their own unique struggles…bills, relationships, mental health, grades, mortgages, and the like…and then the virus struck. Everyone sequestered themselves in their homes as mounting numbers of afflicted patients filled up struggling and overwhelmed hospitals! And yet, all the personal “slings and arrows” that people dealt with still carried on as usual.
The other major link between Titanic and Covid-19 is, of course, the whole debacle of emergency preparedness. The Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats. Many hospitals and health centers didn’t have enough masks and ventilators. The poor delegation of life-saving equipment and the clumsy evacuation of passengers certainly mirrors a lot of the missteps that various countries- including the United States- made during the pandemic. The rough truth that usually emerges in such scenarios– the lower status someone is (economically or otherwise), the more danger they face during a crisis. This is obviously a huge problem…one that both the Titanic and Covid-19 made extremely clear.
In the case of the Titanic, ships implemented new procedures and protocols. These included how many lifeboats to include, how to evacuate passengers and in what manner and order they should do so, and who to properly contact in the case of disaster. Covid-19 was a much trickier disaster. While the disease struck people from every walk of life, those who were older people, immune-deficient, and/or economically strapped faced many more difficulties and dangers than those who weren’t. This is especially the case for people who still had to go to work in crowded, high-exposure areas. A recent intellectual put out a very fitting quote: “When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia.”
Titanic…James Cameron’s Oscar winning blockbuster…the film that captured our attention and told the gripping story of a real-life historical disaster. Titanic demonstrated that terrible emergencies await us if we are not properly prepared, those who struggle at a lower-status struggle more when various crises hit, and the story of Titanic is consistent with many stories in real-life. Conflicts that are all-consuming can consume us entirely at a personal level…that is, until a major event at the collective level eclipses them.
SOURCES
[1] VFX Shot Breakdown (DVD). 20th Century Fox. 2005.
[2] McCluskie, Tom (1998). Anatomy of the Titanic. London: PRC Publishing.
[3] Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping. Vol. II.–Steamers. London: Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. 1911. TIR–TIT – via Internet Archive.
[4] Chirnside, Mark (2004). The Olympic-class Ships: Olympic, Titanic, Britannic. Stroud, England: Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-2868-0. Archived from the original on 6 January 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
[5] Lord, Walter (2005) [1955]. A Night to Remember. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
[6] Barczewski, Stephanie (2006). Titanic: A Night Remembered. London: Hambledon Continuum.
[7] Hutchings, David F.; de Kerbrech, Richard P. (2011). RMS Titanic 1909–12 (Olympic Class): Owners’ Workshop Manual. Sparkford, Yeovil: Haynes.
[8] Halpern, Samuel; Weeks, Charles (2011). “Description of the Damage to the Ship”. In Halpern, Samuel (ed.). Report into the Loss of the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal. Stroud, UK: The History Press.
[7] Mersey, Lord (1999) [1912]. The Loss of the Titanic, 1912. The Stationery Office
[8] Ryan, Paul R. (Winter 1985–1986). “The Titanic Tale”. Oceanus. 4 (28).
