Titanic: The Final Word

When the feature film Titanic came out I was in middle school, that nerdy stage where you're sensitive to most everything.  I loved the film and started checking out books, magazines, and old movies about the Titanic from the library.  My grandparents subscribed to National Geographic so I could get the special edition book about the Titanic exhibitions (and I still have it at home).  I bought the Titanic Original soundtrack, the board game (yes, there's a board game, and it has nothing to do with the movie) and the 'Back to Titanic' soundtrack.  

Titanic (1997) Source

This wasn't the first movie/event that I had become a little obsessed about, and it certainly wasn't the last. Even when I graduated from college only a couple years ago, my parents took my husband, brother, and me to the Titanic museum in Pigeon Forge (and I have to say I was pretty giddy about it). Though I'm not still stuck on Titanic, it will always have a special place in my heart because of those memories I have of learning and connecting to the tragedy as a young, nerdy middle-schooler.  I've met a fellow Titanic-lover in my CNF class (although I think she's still very much attached to the story and is trying to explore her attachment in one of her creative essays).

A Night to Remember (1958) Source

I haven't gone to see the 1997 movie re-released in 3-D, frankly because I'm not that into 3-D movies.  My husband and I did catch about half of James Cameron's documentary The Titanic: The Final Word.  Because I'd watched the old films made about Titanic in the 1940s-50s - ones that didn't even show the boat breaking in half because they didn't believe the eye-witness accounts and hadn't yet found the wreckage underwater - I wasn't too surprised that thanks to more recent trips to the wreckage, they've figured out even more about how it sank.  James Cameron and others working on the mission now see that the depiction in the feature film is incorrect.  I think this is fascinating though - another movie made and proven to be wrong.  Though they say they've figured out exactly how it went down now, I think it's safe to say we might never truly know, or else we're giving in to the very hubris over nature that caused the tragedy in the first place.


I particularly enjoyed the last few minutes of the documentary - Cameron compared the Titanic to our society today, "it's a perfect little encapsulation of the world and all social spectrum..."  I thought it was pretty brilliant how he discussed our own 'full-speed-ahead' mindset that will always affect the steerage (the poor) the most, while the wealthy will always have access to necessities and means of survival.  I can't explain it quite as eloquently as he did so I'll just direct you to a transcript of the final two minutes of the documentary (my favorite part). And here's a short video that shows the main points of the film.