Titanic....again!
September 16th 2007 20:05
I read a book some time ago about James Cameron, the director of The Abyss, Terminator and Titanic - among other movies. It gives a fascinating insight into the determination of the man, his phenomenal hardworking nature, and his unwillingness to give way when being hounded by the producers and the people who are putting their money into his movies. This was particularly the case in the making of Titanic - a movie which I’m afraid I think is highly overrated. It has a weak script as far as the characters are concerned, and waiting around for two hours for the ship to go down (and most of the characters to get killed) is a bit like waiting for something to happen in an even worse movie: Pearl Harbour. Yet Titanic remains a movie that millions of people watch over and over again - for the love story! I find this rather incredible, as it’s not a particularly well constructed love story, and without the talents of Di Caprio and Winslet, would hardly have come off.
Anyway all that by way of introduction to something I just came across on the Net: at Branson, the Live Music Capital of the World as they say there, a museum has been built which focuses on the Titanic. The exterior is a half-sized replica of the original ship, and inside is a faithful reproduction of the grand staircase, as well as many other features of the ship. Photographs abound, and each person coming into the museum receives a boarding pass with the name of one of the original passengers (which means, presumably, they won’t get boarding passes for most of the characters in the movie!). There are
hundreds of artifacts and personal items from the actual Titanic, all of which were removed from the ship by survivors.
It’s a curious thing about the Titanic. It’s not the greatest shipping disaster in recent history, yet it remains the one that most people think of when they talk about such things. What makes it such an archetypical event in our history? Why is it that one shipwreck is constantly retold, and many others are forgotten, even though in terms of human tragedy there’s little difference? Why do we latch onto some disasters, as though they somehow represented all disasters of that type, and ignore others? I’d love to know.
Anyway all that by way of introduction to something I just came across on the Net: at Branson, the Live Music Capital of the World as they say there, a museum has been built which focuses on the Titanic. The exterior is a half-sized replica of the original ship, and inside is a faithful reproduction of the grand staircase, as well as many other features of the ship. Photographs abound, and each person coming into the museum receives a boarding pass with the name of one of the original passengers (which means, presumably, they won’t get boarding passes for most of the characters in the movie!). There are
It’s a curious thing about the Titanic. It’s not the greatest shipping disaster in recent history, yet it remains the one that most people think of when they talk about such things. What makes it such an archetypical event in our history? Why is it that one shipwreck is constantly retold, and many others are forgotten, even though in terms of human tragedy there’s little difference? Why do we latch onto some disasters, as though they somehow represented all disasters of that type, and ignore others? I’d love to know.
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