Titantic: Film Chasing History

James Cameron’s Titanic was released in 1997—twelve years after the wreck had been found in the icy north Atlantic. By 2013, there had been enough empirical study on how the ship actually broke apart and went down that we could look back at the depiction in Cameron’s film as at least in part erroneous. Interestingly, Cameron himself sponsored and was actively involved with the studies that would effectively “semi-fictionalize” his own depiction. Rather than trying to protect his depiction by getting the studies to confirm what his best guess had been at the time of filming, Cameron engaged in a determined effort to get to a definitive answer as to what really happened. This in turn lead to some interesting questions.

According to Cameron's documentary in 2012, the back end of Titanic only reached 23 degrees, far less than depicted in this picture (and in the 1997 movie). Source: fxguide.

In any historical piece, the “film world” is not the same as what really happened. The sad truth is that the world of the past is forever lost once it is past. Seeing Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln (2012), I could not but think that the former president must really have been as depicted. However, much of my image of what Lincoln must have been like has come from the myriad of stories. As a child, I had seen his log cabin in Salem, Illinois, and his law office and house in Springfield, and I had watched other portrayals of the man on television. Even as I marveled at Lewis’s depiction of the man, I found the screenplay itself too idealistic. For instance, Lincoln represented large railroads as a lawyer in Illinois, and he overruled his own Secretary of the Interior in agreeing to pay the transcontinental railroads mountain rates for building track on flat land in the West. It is odd, therefore, that in trying to get votes on the anti-slavery amendment, he is depicted in the film as being so concerned that no bribes be paid. In short, Hollywood seems hardpressed to completely expunge the accumulated mythos element even when trying for historical realism.

To take advantage of having access to Titanic’s wreckage before it is completely eaten by bacteria, Cameron did not rest with what had been theorized at the time of his film-shoots. He sponsored additional studies, bringing the experts together and turning that meeting into a documentary in 2012. In doing so, he knowingly risked making his own depiction obsolete, or at least partially flawed. As shown in his documentary, he was more interested in getting as close to what really happened than protecting his depiction. The issue for him was whether to reshoot the ending. Seeing a potential series of such changes as more and more is grasped  or theories change, he decided to keep his original ending.

His decision is in line with highlighting the dramatic, even if at the expense of new knowledge. I have in mind the scene in which the back of the ship is standing vertical in the air. The two protagonists “ride” the ship down until it submerges. As of Cameron’s documentary, the studies postulated that the steepest angle was 23 degrees, with the ship splitting in half at that point. The back end sank into the water, turning over as it did so. Of course, this too must be taken as conjecture. There was no video taken at the actual scene, and the eye-witness accounts differ. The frustrating truth is that we will never have a flawless picture of what really happened. This is not to say that progress cannot be made, and Cameron should be applauded for being so determined on this task even though his depiction in the film stood to lose ground. Indeed, after watching the video depiction that Cameron made in his documentary, I view his film differently—at least the now-rather-extreme vertical position of the back end of the ship.

In his documentary, Cameron points to the hubris that when into the ship “that could not sink.” The preoccupation with size got ahead of itself. Put another way, systemic risk was ignored. Similarly, he points out, we did not see the iceberg coming in 2008 as the economy hit an unknown quantity of mortgage-backed derivatives and insurance swaps. Even after that, he goes on, we were headed right for a global-warming “iceberg” with a “rudder” too small to avoid the obstacle in time. Just today, the Huffington Post ran a headline concerning climate change, “Its Happening.” At the end of his documentary, Cameron suggests that too many people holding power are making money in the status quo for a sufficient amount of change (i.e., rudder) to occur before “it hits.” It is as though Titanic’s captain could see the iceberg far out in front yet was too invested in the ship’s course to deviate.

Even in assuming back in 1997 that Cameron captured on film what really happened (I made that assumption), there is hubris. Even the updated graphic in Cameron’s documentary in 2012 should be taken as provisional. As stated above, we will never be able to know what really happened. Whether in what we think we know about a bygone world, building a ship that cannot sink, leaving new financial instruments unregulated, or putting off legislation that would counter global warming, we as a species presume we know more than we do. We naturally get ahead of ourselves, and thus ironically risk our own progress and indeed even our very future as a species.

“The Great Gatsby” in 3D

It is difficult for us mere mortals to take a step back and view the wider trajectory that we are on. It is much easier to relate today’s innovation back to the status quo and pat ourselves on the back amid all the excitement over the new toy. I content that this is the case in cinema.

I was enthralled in viewing Avatar, the film in which James Cameron pushed the envelope on 3D technology on Pandora even as he added the rather down-to-earth element of a biologist who smokes cigarettes. Three years later, his other epic film, Titanic, would be re-released in 3D a century to the month after the actual sinking. As if a publicity stunt choreographed by Cameron himself, the Costa Concordia had conveniently hit a reef about twenty feet from an island off the coast of Tuscany three months before the re-release. “It was like a scene out of Titanic,” one passenger said once on dry land—perhaps a stone’s throw from the boat.

The question of whether a serious drama without a fictional planet or a huge accident can support an audience’s tolerance for 3D glasses was very much on the mind of Baz Luhrmann as he was filming his 3D rendition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” in 2011. According to Michael Cieply, Luhrmann’s film “will tell whether 3-D can actually serve actors as they struggle through a complex story set squarely inside the natural world.”[1] According to Cieply, the director spoke to him of using 3D to find a new intimacy in film. “How do you make it feel like you’re inside the room?” Luhrmann asked.[2] This is indeed 3D coming into a state of maturity, past the rush of thrilling vistas and coming-at-you threats. Indeed, for the viewer to feel more like he or she is “inside the room” places the technology on a longer trajectory.

“The Great Gatsby,” for instance, was first on the screen as “Gatsby,” a silent film in 1926—just a year after the novel had been published. Being in black and white and without even talking, the film could hardly give the viewers the sense of being “inside the room.” Then came the 1949 version directed by Elliott Nugent. A review in the New York Times referred to Alan Ladd’s reversion to “that stock character he usually plays” and to the “completely artificial and stiff” direction. So much for being “inside the room.” Even the 1974 version starring Robert Redford left Luhrmann wondering just who the Gatsby character is. More than 3D would presumably be needed for the viewers to feel like they are “inside the room.” Even so, 3D could help as long as the other factors, such as good screenwriting, acting, and directing, are in line.

So Luhrmann and his troupe viewed Hitchcock’s 3D version of “Dial M for Murder” (1954)—this date itself hinting that 3D is not as novel as viewers of “Avatar” might have thought. Watching “Dial M” was, according to Luhrmann, “like theater”—that is, like really being there. Ironically, 3D may proffer “realism” most where films are set like (i.e., could be) plays. Polanski’s “Carnage” is another case in point, being almost entirely set in an apartment and hallway. With such a set, a film could even be made to be viewed as virtual reality (i.e., by wearing those game head-sets). In contrast, moving from an apartment living room one minute to the top of a skyscraper the next might be a bit awkward viewed in virtual reality. In that new medium, the viewer could establish his or her own perspective to the action and even select from alternative endings (assuming repeat viewings).

In short, 3D can be viewed as “one step closer” to being “inside the room.” As such, the technology can be viewed as a temporary stop in the larger trajectory that potentially includes virtual reality—really having the sense of being inside the room, but for direct involvement with the characters and being able to move things. Contrasting “Avatar” with “Gatsby” is mere child’s play compared to this. The most significant obstacle, which may be leapt over eventually as newer technology arrives, is perhaps the price-point for 3D. In my view, it is artificially high, and too uniform.

Luhrmann’s budget of $125 million before government rebates is hardly more than conventional releases. Even if theatres charge $3 more for 3D films because of the cheap glasses and special projectors, it might be in the distributors’ interest to see to it that the films wind up costing consumers the same as a conventional one shown at a theatre. As an aside, it is odd that films with vastly different budgets have the same ticket price (which suggests windfalls for some productions, which belie claims of competitive market). In other words, a film of $125 million distributed widely could be treated as a conventional film in terms of the final pricing, and it need not be assumed that theatres would be taking a hit. Adding more to already-high ticket prices is a model that does not bode well for 3D as a way-station on the road to virtual reality. Of course, technology could leap over 3D if greed artificially choke off demand for 3D glasses. I for one am looking forward to virtual reality. Interestingly, the filmmakers shooting on the cheap with digital cameras then distributing via the internet may tell us more about how films in virtual reality might be distributed and viewed than how 3D films are being distributed and priced. People have a way of voting with their wallets (and purses), and other candidates have a way of popping up unless kept out by a pushy oligarch. So perhaps it can be said that, assuming a competitive marketplace, 3D may become a viable way-station on our way to virtual reality on Pandora.

1. Michael Cieply, “The Rich Are Different: They’re in 3-D,” The New York Times, January 17, 2012. 
2. Ibid.

Computer Technology Revolutionizing Industries: Books and Films

Crude oil was first drilled in 1859 in northwestern Pennsylvania (not in the desert of the Middle East). It was not long before oil lamps became ubiquitous, lengthening the productive day for millions beyond daylight hours. Just fifty or sixty years later, as electricity was beginning to replace the lamps, Ford’s mass-produced automobile was taking off, providing an alternative use of crude oil. For those of us alive in the early decades of the twenty-first century, electric lighting indoors and cars on paved roads have been around as long as we can remember. As a result, we tend to assume that things will go on pretty much as they “always” have. Other than for computer technology, the end of the first decade of the 21st century looks nearly indistinguishable from the last thirty or forty years of the last century. As the second decade of the 21st century began, applications based on computer technology were reaching a critical mass in terms of triggering shifts in some industries that had seemingly “always” been there.  Books, music and movies were certainly among the fastest moving, perhaps like the dramatic change in lighting and cars beginning a century and a half before with the discovery of crude oil.

The full essay is at "Computer Technology Revolutionizing Industries."