Titanic (1997 film)

Titanic is a 1997 dramatic movie released by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox. The bulk of the plot is set aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage in 1912. The movie won 11 Academy Awards on March 23, 1998 including best picture of 1997. As of 2005, Titanic has the highest box office take in movie history. The 1997 film should not be confused with the Titanic movie made in 1953.

Historical inaccuracies

The "romantic" story is improbable as the rules of the ship ensured complete segregation of first class, second class and third class passengers. They were not merely separated for reasons of social class. Steerage class passengers did not have medical certificates to show that they were free of disease, so they had to pass through Ellis Island when they landed. This was common practice on the ocean liners of the time. Any contact between the different classes would have nullified this arrangement.

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Some contend that the film has strong anti-British elements, portraying the British officers and crew as unethical and the Americans and Irish as heroic. For example, the film was criticised for its portrayal of a historical character, the ship's First Officer, William McMaster Murdoch http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic%20memorial%20william%20murdoch.shtml http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00045O. In his home town of Dalbeattie in Scotland there is a memorial to his heroism and a charitable prize has been established in his name. In the film he is portrayed as taking a bribe, killing passengers and finally committing suicide. 20th Century Fox admitted that the baseless slurs on his character were included only as story decisions, and contributed $8,000 to the prize fund.

Related Topics:
British - Unethical - Americans - Irish - First Officer - William McMaster Murdoch - Dalbeattie - Scotland - 20th Century Fox

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Another aspect of the film, the way in which the third–class passengers were completely fenced in below decks, has been described as a myth. There is controversy on this point. It is true that lower percentage of third class passengers survived, but that could be simply because they had farther to go to get to the lifeboats. At the American Inquiry Harold Lowe, the Fifth Officer, said that all women and children, even from the "sixty-seventh" class, had an equal possibility to get into a rescue boat. There is no evidence for closed, locked gates. The quality of the accommodation in third class was only just below that in second class. The White Star line had a policy which demanded that crew members treated all their clientele with civility and respect.

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As is common, Hollywood failed to differentiate between English accents, despite the fact that many of The Titanic's crew were from Southampton. Every English character in the film has either a Cockney accent or a well-to-do London accent. There are no regional English accents in the film at all.

Related Topics:
Southampton - Cockney

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The 1958 William MacQuitty and Roy Ward Baker film A Night to Remember starring Kenneth More as Second Officer Charles Lightoller is considered by some to be a more historically accurate film, mainly for its documentary?style depictions of historical scenes, (though the 1958 film does not show that Lightoller was partly responsible for not filling all the life-boats).

Related Topics:
1958 - William MacQuitty - Roy Ward Baker - A Night to Remember - Kenneth More - Charles Lightoller - Documentary

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The radio system in use at that time was based on spark transmission and so there would have been no clean morse code SOS or CQD beeps.

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Several commentators have observed archly their conviction that Cameron must have been very familiar with the Nazi propaganda film Titanic (1943) when writing and filming his own movie of the same title. Several story aspects are in both films but not in any other Titanic version: e.g., the salt of the earth non-British Hero orders his girlfriend into the lifeboat, she complies and then watches her love disappear behind the railing as the lifeboat is lowered; a stolen jewelry subplot; a character locked up in a flooding jail cell and has to be rescued with axe; etc. Additionally, many of the scene compositions and camera angles are uncannily similar.

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A geographical error is the reference to Lake Wissota, a man?made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1917 when a power company built a dam on the Chippewa River, five years after the Titanic sank.

Related Topics:
Lake Wissota - Wisconsin - Chippewa Falls - Chippewa River

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When a single lifeboat paddled back into the crowd of frozen bodies looking for survivors, members of the crew are carrying flashlights. The writers of the film acknowledge that such technology was not available at the time, but intentionally included this anachronism to add some source of light.

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