>The last thing I want to do is start a debate on the movie
“Titanic,” which is
>somewhat off-subject and has been lavishly covered in other on-line groups.
>But I cannot let this statement pass without objection. Stoicism
might not be
>a valued virtue in this country in the Age of Oprah, but I do not understand
>why More/Lightoller’s “stiff upper lip” deserves such scorn. As for “real
>history,” the new movie smears real-life characters (notably First Officer
>Murdoch) with vignettes of murder and bribery for which there is no evidence
>(it is so wonderfully easy to libel the dead), while throughout conveying a
>simplistic fairy-tale portrait of evil, repressed bourgeois and
happy, dancing
>proletarians. The movie undeniably has many virtues, and the engine-room
>scenes that you mention are among them.
>Regards, Keith Allen
>keacla1@aol.com
>

Perhaps I put my comments badly. I am not defending the poor chronology of
Cameron’s Titanic (as I noted in an earlier msg Californian isnt mentioned:
quite an ommission) and certainly agree the love story was dopey. (I do not
dismiss the possibility that a teenager might have found a better party in
steerage than in 1st class however. Not real sure I’d dismiss the class
stereotypes either: a modern American would find that aspect of 1912 an
insult to human dignity of unbearable porportion. Our ruling class has
learned much.) As a historian I expect little from the movies in terms of
chronological accuracy and am rarely disapointed.

However, there is an underlying spirit of an event or an epoch that good
fiction can capture even if it takes liberties with “the facts.” Night to
Remember took fewer liberties but I found it fundamentally bogus – something
akin to a bad propaganda movie made with no war on. I do not for ONE minute
dismiss or degrade the extraordinary courage shown by many of the officers
and men of the Titanic. No do I think that the British “stiff upper lip” is
anything to be sneered at. It was one factor among many that built – for
better or worse – a great empire. What I objected to was the earlier movie’s
portrayal of it. Kenneth Moore was given two bit lines that came across as
utterly phony: a parody of the real thing. Cameron’s portrayal of the ship’s
band, regardless of what they REALLy played, is a far better picture of the
the British spirit than anything in NIGHT TO REMEMBER. And, as much as I
hope to never compare it to the real thing, I was most convinced by the
scene at the end where the lifeboat rows about among frozen corpses floating
by the score. That was good filmmaking.

What really struck me about TITANIC was the reaction of the audiance. When I
saw it the theater was well filled, but you could have heard a pin drop at
the end of the show. People were shaken. Their reaction was VERY different
than I’ve noticed after good action movies like Air Force One, ConAir or The
Fugitive. A properly contented audiance, digesting their popcorn and
considering their money well spent, chats pleasently as they head for the
door, even if half of Los Angeles has been demolished on screen. But TITANIC
frightened people: reached them somehow. And considering the nature of the
story, I would submit, that Cameron created good history. After all, the
story does scare the hell out of you if you dwell on it.

The hard-core study of the Titanic will certainly survive Cameron’s
transgressions. Wouldn’t doubt of the various clubs devoted to its study are
doing pretty well right now. If one wants to know the story accurately and
at length (people still argue about a number of points: that’s history)
nothing can replace books and journals.

Lastly, I dont think some comments on TITANIC are out of place here. It may
end up being the most successful movie in history and will be viewed by
millions of people for the next generation. The story is based on arguably
the greatest nautical epic in modern times. Wish Cameron would make a movie
about Magellan.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930