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RMS Titanic Weekend
People must be aware this weekend signals the 100th anniversary of the 'Unsinkable' Titanic liner that was on it's way to New York from Southampton UK
I've always had an interest in nautical events and ship disaster things and they don't come much bigger than this
Over 1,500 people lost their lives this weekend 100 years ago, of the 2,200 people who were on board that night before tragedy fell, the very worst thing about this is that is so easily could of been avoided
I've seen the Cameron film of course and took an instant dislike to it as it involved a silly and unsavory love story that wasn't even evident or took place that night, it was like, let's get one of Hollywoods biggest stars and some obscure British actress, put in a silly love plot and some special effects and make some money, well stuff that
The real event however does deserve attention, I can't believe it's been 100 years exactly since that fateful night some 400 miles off Newfoundland but thought it appropriate to give this huge event in history a fitting acknowledgement, and of course to the many, many people that lost their lives and the families involved
I found a couple of clips people may enjoy
I've always had an interest in nautical events and ship disaster things and they don't come much bigger than this
Over 1,500 people lost their lives this weekend 100 years ago, of the 2,200 people who were on board that night before tragedy fell, the very worst thing about this is that is so easily could of been avoided
I've seen the Cameron film of course and took an instant dislike to it as it involved a silly and unsavory love story that wasn't even evident or took place that night, it was like, let's get one of Hollywoods biggest stars and some obscure British actress, put in a silly love plot and some special effects and make some money, well stuff that
The real event however does deserve attention, I can't believe it's been 100 years exactly since that fateful night some 400 miles off Newfoundland but thought it appropriate to give this huge event in history a fitting acknowledgement, and of course to the many, many people that lost their lives and the families involved
I found a couple of clips people may enjoy
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Comments
but, enough about the movie...
I cant believe either that it's been 100 years since this tragedy occurred.... i was born in '84, so it's not like I was there to witness the event - but I could only imagine the horror and heartache of a generation.. 1,500 people lost their lives - and your right, it could've been easily avoided - but for the sake of vanity, they decided that they didn't want to clutter the deck with the correct number of lifeboats...
but the thing that I find startling, is that there are hundreds of young teenagers, who think that the sinking of the Titanic didn't actually happen - that it was indeed, just some Hollywood movie - that to me is frightening.
What? No way!?
The Titanic (ship and movie) both have a place in my heart. She was quite the ship.
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v323/djx187/?action=view¤t=titanicwasrealyouguys.jpg"; target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/djx187/titanicwasrealyouguys.jpg"; border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
I believe they overfulfilled the legal requirements, but unfortunately most the lifeboats left less than half full
nope......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboats_of_the_RMS_Titanic
you're correct that most of the initial lifeboats launched were only half filled - but they also had too few to safely unload all 2,200 passengers.. they only had enough for half the passengers - and only 1/3 of the Titanic's maximum possible capacity.
Bruce Ismay is the one who ordered that the Titanic only carry the minimum number of lifeboats required, per regulations of the time - in order to maximize deck space, and because he legitimately thought the ship would be unsinkable.....
I am watching a documentary about it as i type this, and a gentlemen just said...
"ships had become so large so quickly, that they outpaced the regulations... most regulations said you had to have 16 lifeboats on a vessel that weighed 10,000 tons... Well of course Titanic weighed 45,000 tons, carrying far more passengers than a 10,000 ton vessel... yet she had lifeboat provisions for only a 10,000 ton ship."
Titanic had 20 lifeboats, therefore 4 over regulation. But the details don't matter, she carried way fewer lifeboats than she should have. Most of the time it takes a tragedy like this for people to wisen up or improve their knowledge (I watch too much Air Crash Investigators)
I played countless hours of that when I was younger !!
Oh my God...
I'm stunned.
How I feel now: :-&
I actually love the Titanic movie. I'm not usually a fan of love stories, but aside from that the movie is epic. And honestly I find the most emotional parts were not even of Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslett. The part with the third-class passengers- the woman reading the story to her children, tucking them into bed, and the old couple in each others arms as the corridors are filling up with water... That really lets you feel the tragedy. Not some teens that just met.
The film was technically very good for its time. I do get irritated by its over-simplification of the real events though. Interesting how it concentrated on the fact that not many third class passengers survived, but more or less ignored (aside from the death of Jack) that men we also far less likely to have survived. Also, how many people know that in reality there was a ship only a few miles away which saw the emergency beacons going up but just thought the Titanic was having a party?
Their sheer ignorance saddens me. Wonder if know that the films Pearl Harbor and JFK were also based off of real events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1943_film)
Titanic is a 1943 German film made during World War II in Berlin by Tobis Productions for UFA. The film was commissioned by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and enjoyed a brief theatrical run in occupied Europe starting in December 1943. Goebbels later banned the film, and it did not have a second run. The film used the sinking of the RMS Titanic as a setting for an attempt to discredit British and American capitalist dealings and glorify the bravery and selflessness of German men.
Plot
The film opens with a proclamation to the White Star stock holders that their stocks are currently falling. The president of White Star Line J. Bruce Ismay promises to reveal a secret during the maiden voyage of the Titanic that will change the fate of the stocks. He alone knows that the ship can break the world record in speed and that, he thinks, will raise the stock value. He and the board of the White Star plan to lower the stocks by selling even their own stocks in order to buy them back at a lower price. They plan to buy them back just before the news about the record speed of the ship will be published to the press. (In reality, this was impossible to have occurred, since at the time the real White Star Line was a wholly owned subsidiary of the International Mercantile Marine conglomerate and was not a publicly traded company.)
The issue of capitalism and the stock market plays a dominant role throughout the movie. The hero of the film is fictional German First Officer Herr Petersen (played by Hans Nielsen) on the ill-fated voyage of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic in 1912. He begs the ship's rich and snobbish owners to slow down the ship's speed, but they refuse and the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks. The passengers in first class are shown to be sleazy cowards while Petersen, his lover Sigrid Olinsky (Sybille Schmitz), and other German passengers in steerage are shown as brave and kind. Peterson manages to rescue many passengers, convince Sigrid to get into a lifeboat (in a scene which was famously echoed in the 1997 film) and saves a young girl, who was obviously left to die in her cabin by an uncaring, callous British capitalist mother. The film ends with the British Inquiry into the disaster, where Peterson testifies against Bruce Ismay, condemning his actions, but Ismay is cleared of all charges and the blame is placed squarely on the deceased Captain Smith's shoulders. The epilogue states that "the deaths of 1,500 people remains un-atoned, forever a testament of Britain's endless quest for profit."
History of the film
The film was shot on board the SS Cap Arcona, a passenger cruise ship which itself was sunk a few days before the end of World War II by the Royal Air Force on May 3, 1945, with loss of life far heavier than that on the actual Titanic. The scenes with the lifeboats were filmed on the Baltic Sea and some of the interior scenes were shot in Tobis Studios.
Titanic was the most expensive German production up until that time and endured many production difficulties, including a clash of egos, massive creative differences and general war-time frustrations. After one week of troubled shooting on the Cap Arcona, Herbert Selpin called a crisis meeting where he made unflattering comments about the Kriegsmarine officers, who were more concerned with molesting the female cast members rather than doing their job as marine consultants of the film.[1] His close friend and co-writer of the script, Walter Zerlett-Olfenius, reported him to the Gestapo and Selpin was promptly arrested and personally questioned by Joseph Goebbels, who was the driving force behind the Titanic project. Within twenty-four hours of his arrest, Herbert Selpin was found hanged in his jail cell, which was ruled a suicide.[2] The cast and crew were angry and attempted to retaliate, but were quickly silenced with fear for their own safety. The unfinished film, the production of which spiraled wildly out control, was in the end completed by Werner Klingler.
The premiere was supposed to be in early 1943, but the theatre that housed the answer print was bombed the night before the big event. The film went on to have a lacklustre premiere in Paris around Christmas of that same year, but in the end, Goebbels banned it altogether, stating that the German people, at that point going through almost nightly Allied bombing raids, were less than enthusiastic about seeing a film that portrayed mass death and panic.[3]
Titanic was re-discovered in 1949, but was quickly banned in most western countries. After the fifties, the film went back into obscurity, sometimes showing on German television. But in 1992, a censored, low quality VHS copy, was released in Germany. This version deleted the strongest propaganda scenes, which immensely watered down its controversial content. Finally, in 2005, Titanic was completely restored and, for the first time, the uncensored version was released in a special edition DVD by Kino Video.
Themes and propaganda context
Titanic makes the allegory of the liner's loss specifically about British avarice rather than, as most Titanic retellings do, about general human arrogance and presumption. This fit in with other works of anti-British propaganda of the time such as My life for Ireland and Der Fuchs von Glenarvon; however, the scenes of British and French panic and desperation undermined this effect, while scenes of steerage passengers separated by crew members and desperately searching for their loved ones through locked gates and a chain link fence bore an uncanny resemblance to what was happening in German concentration camps during that time, contributing to its ban by Goebbels.
But, seriously, it doesn't sound all that much more propagandistic than Cameron's version.
@Kerim thanks for the interesting history! I certainly didn't know THAT! :D :P
The first one happened before there was commercial internet and before there was a real media as we know it these days. I did miss that completely.
I do remember the Estonia, but reading it I was amazed about the circumstances and the deathtoll.
As to the Cameron "Titanic" I can only admit that I find it an awesome movie about a really sad moment in history. I do not mind "the hook" that JC took with Leo & Kate as a Romeo and Julia on a doomed ship. He ensured that the audience got larger for his picture, something that was proven by the dazzeling BO. I saw it then in cinema twice, once with my girlfriend and once with my Mom, my dad being a sailor did not want to see a movie about a sinking ship.
I would not dare to start a discussion with Cameron about the Titanic as he is considered to be one of the experts on the subject. His choices with the movie were commercially sound and makes him a better than average director since he seems to know what the audiences really like. (as proven with T2, Titanic & Avatar)
He did other stuff around his Titanic movie that gave more attention to details left out of the movie.
As for the theme-song, most directors would give their left-nut to get such a calling card for your vehicle. It is one of those songs that are immediately recognisable which we know from the earlier 007 movies when the music was still considered important.
Have seen quite a few Titanic documentaries these weeks, liked best Camerons' last word as well as his original documentary on the finding of the Titanic. Was really impressed by the Musical remembrance from Dublin on saturday evening on BBC2 (not everything was great but mostly it was).
Saddest is finding that some folks do not know their history and find certain movies to be an act of fantasy. I remember being at a showing of "Saving Private Ryan" with some actual survivors of the landing of the beaches in the audience. Some really weird boys were taken out of the showing, after they halted the movie, because they were really shouting weird stuff in the cinema. They didn't believe that the landing had actually happened and found it a really cool actioner with excess bloodshed. I had some sincere doubt about the quality of our education system.
But of course. Silly us to think that Cameron's version of Titantic wasn't based on a group that murdered millions of people due to someone's xenophobia.
Really?!?!, Really?!?!?!, Really?!?! :-s 8-|
Yeah saw it to. If you see 'A Night to remember' two shots of the titanic used in the film come from the Nazi Film.
Don't think we covered that here in American schools
:-??
But we spent like a week in elementary school on the Titanic. I, too, am sickened by the masses of individuals who don't know its real. I'm only 17 and I was taught it!
I'd be on careful ground if you start thinking events from history are just fictional screenplays. Dont want to make that mistake with Schindlers List - denying the holocaust is a crime in parts of Europe and in law ignorance is no defence.
As for the above "twits" - unbelievable.
Maybe I should thank some uneducated kids for that though as anyone who truly believes that The sinking of the Titanic was a fictional event and never happened 8-| , is simply an insult to the 1,500 who lost their lives on that awful night 100 years this last weekend, I couldn't believe the ignorance of some people
The very worst thing is, they truly believe it never occured.. I don't know.. :-<
In any event,
I've seen a Night to Remember, the 1950s film version, it's a massive improvement on the awful Cameron movie from 1997 and more faithful to the events of the actual night
Here's a few facts about what happened that night (April 15 1912), kids pay attention I say, I'd appreciate it if anyone took the time to read the following bit -
The Titanic would have stayed afloat if she had hit the Iceberg head on and not tried to get by on her side, a front impact would of saved the ship and all on board that night
The ship was travelling far quicker than it should of been at time of impact
Repeated warnings of Icebergs in the vicinity were rebuked and trivialized by some onboard personnel
The nearest rescue ship at time of impact was the Carpathia but was 58 miles away and four hours away, the Titanic would sink in less than two and a half hours
Of the 2,300 people on board (estimated) only 700 were saved or lived to tell
The Titanic is two miles under the surface of the water, 400 miles off Newfoundland and wasn't discovered until 1985
Any binoculars they could use were left behind in Southampton
To build the ship today would cost some $ 477,000,000
It was one of the very first ships to use the SOS distress call
The ship can never be raised from the sea bed intact
There was no unsavory or dumb love story on the ship that night a la 1997 Titanic
The Ship had been poorly designed and the rivets used were not correct or strong enough to hold back water pressure
The first man to spot the Iceberg that night survived and lived into the 1960s before taking his own life by hanging himself on a clothes line
All factual things here, RIP to the 1,500 who lost their lives that night, it must have been an awful and horrific night for all involved, too bad they had to go and trivialize it by a silly love movie with special effects and horrible romance that never even took place that night, but at least they made some money out of it, bit of a disrespect to the people who died though. They should of just stayed with the 1950s original and be done with it
Going to bed now, but I hope people learned something tonight maybe
'Did it really occur, I thought it was only a movie' etc, damn it 8-|
(thnk heavens for saved posts too, not typing all that out again)
I hear that a lot, and I think the reasoning is that it would not have ripped all those 'watertight' compartments
I believe those are true and I think one of the radio operators was so flooded with dealing with passengers telegraphs that he angrily responded to one of those reports (I can't recall the exact wording of the response).
Here is the biggest question in history - Was the Californian close enough to see Titanic's flares? And why didn't they respond? Reports say the radio operator of the Californian retired early that night after Titanic's operators angrily responded to an iceberg warning. But credit goes to Titanic's operators for working flat out and beyong their call of duty. One of them punched a passenger after he tried stealing the other operator's life jacket.
I thought they left the keys to the cabinet with the binoculars.
Yep, although a popular myth is she was the first
Two other interesting disasters around the same time are the sinking of the Lusitania, and Titanic's sister ship Britannic (a popular story floating around is that she was going to be called the Gigantic until the Titanic disaster 'sunk' that idea).
Lusitania was a passenger ship sunk by German U-Boat 20 about a year into WWI who accused her of smuggling weapons. Sunk in 18 minutes, loss of life over 1000, and only less than an hour from shore. Reports conflict on why and how she sunk that fast.
Britannic was redecorated as a hospital ship and hit a mine. One of her passengers, Violet Jessop, was a passenger on all of White Star's siblings Olympic, Titanic and Britannic when disaster struck (Olympic didn't sink but hit a smaller boat)
Damn, that's just amazing. How could people not know about the Titanic?! What do they learn in school? I learnt about the Titanic in school when I was 8 years old.
I saw the film in 3D on Saturday 14 April, exactly 100 years after it hit the iceberg. The ship didn't go under until the 15th. Seeing the film in 3D didn't really do it for me. Seeing it in 2D on the big screen again would have satisfied me equally I reckon.
RIP people of the Titanic.