THE ART WILL GO ON:
Titanic provides seemingly endless inspiration for authors,
The great ship Titanic sunk on April 15, 1912. Within a few months, at least one book had already been published — The
Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic, a “Thrilling Account of the Sinking of the Greatest Floating Palace Ever Built.”
One hundred years later, on the anniversary of Titanic’s sinking, new books are hitting the shelves and Amazon is publishing ebooks about the disaster. In the intervening years, at least a few thousand other books were published — including cookbooks for those who wanted to replicate a first-class dinner, and perhaps the most famous book about the tragedy, A Night
to Remember, which was later turned into a movie. That may explain the titanic pile of books on my desk. They began trickling in — a reprint here, a new launch there — about a month ago.
In Canada, Indigo Books has put together an edited collection of about 15 books — about the same size as my pile — from all those available.
“It’s been picked up by consumers,” says the bookseller’s Bahram Olfati, noting that Titanic is “part of the zeitgeist. None of these will come close to making the bestseller list, but the sales were impactful enough to make it worthwhile.”
So what’s with the interest? Titanic has almost become a cliché — in a now-famous satirical headline
The Onion said of Titanic’s sinking: “World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-berg.”
You don’t need James Cameron to see the ship that couldn’t sink (but did anyway). The Titanic has sailed through a surprisingly rich diversity of movies, sometimes in starring roles but often in cameos laden with dramatic irony — in other words, we know what’s coming even if the characters don’t. Here are some of the once-grand ocean liner’s most memorable screen appearances beyond the one with Leo and Kate.
A Night to Remember (1958): It wasn’t the first or the last big production to recreate the fateful voyage but this British film remains the classiest of the lot, as well as the most historically accurate. The only major quibble is that it shows the ship break in half, which was widely assumed to be the case until the wreck was discovered intact in 1985.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964): Debbie Reynolds was at her pluckiest in the movie version of the hit musical that fictionalized the life of Margaret Brown, a bona-fide Titanic passenger. Not even a cold night on a lifeboat can sink this dame’s spirits — neither do the shrieks of a hysterical young woman who Molly subdues with a slap to the face. “That ship might be down, but not me!” says our Miss Brown.
Raise the Titanic (1981): In this Cold War-era thriller, Americans and Soviets tussle over a stash of a rare mineral that went down with the ship decades before. The Yanks’ brave gambit is to bring up the wreck (really a remodeled Greek ocean liner). A box-office flop, the movie quickly sank from view, but the massive set is still rusting in a Maltese village.
Time Bandits (1981): The heroes of Terry Gilliam’s anarchic fantasy flick — a group of timetravelling dwarf bandits and their bewildered boy companion — think they’ve landed in the lap of luxury when they arrive on deck via a rift in the space-time continuum. Alas, a cutaway shot to the ship’s name on a life preserver reveals that they won’t have long to enjoy their cigars and champagne. Indeed, they end the night bobbing in the waters of the North Atlantic before heading off to their next stop.
Ghostbusters II (1989): A spike in paranormal activity brings news that the Titanic has finally arrived in New York’s harbour. As ghosts are seen disembarking from the rusted and battered liner, a working stiff played by Cheech Marin grumbles, “Better late than never.”
Ghosts of the Abyss (2003): In his only directorial effort between Titanic and Avatar, James Cameron and a cluster of scientists investigate the ship’s underwater ruins. Cameron reached deep into his own pockets to finance the expedition and the development of the technology needed to create this IMAX 3D experience. Now that Avatar has added many more millions to his personal coffers, you’d think he could pay to raise the damn thing.