Titanic vs A Night To Remember?

- titanic vs a night to remember? -

As the phenomenon which is Titanic sweeps the globe, and with oscar-glutching Cameron modedstly and self-referentially declaring himself "king of the world", the dissenters are keeping quiet no longer. "This is visually impressive bilge", they cry, "not a patch on A Night To Remember".

The clebrated 1958 British classic counts Barry Norman as a fan, for one. Upon it's re-showing on TV when the new movie opened, he noticed he was far more moved by this old black and white picture than by Titanic, and he appears not to be alone. But isn't this just a bit of nostalgic guff? Just how do the two films compare, beyond the obvious effects budgets?

The most fundamental difference centres on exactly what question each film is answering. A Night To Remember answers the question "How did the tragedy happen?", wheras Titanic answers "What was it like to live through it?" Your take on each film will probably depend on which question interests you more.

Remember does a fine job in giving the grand sweep of the story, dillegently presenting us with all the hard facts. We are introduced to the the ship which failed to answer Titanic's distress call - The Californian - early in the day and meet most of the important historical figures. The film even opens on the boat's launch from Belfast - very thorough.

By contrast, Titanic plumps for a more visceral approach from the off. After a few grainy archive pictures, we meet Titanic - as a modern day wreck. We gain fragments of knowlege here and there from the bottom of the Atlantic from the discovered nude drawing, and of course eventually from Old Rose. Our introduction to Titanic proper comes at the Southampton launch, and we learn more of our fictional leading characters than the ship's history.

Structurally, it is the early stages where the two films differ the most. A Night To Remember is unfussy. In just 40 minutes, the iceberg is hit, and only 15 or so of those are on board the liner itself - the rest of the time is spent with some of the passenger & crew's familes at home. This gives the audience something to hold on to through the film's tangle of historical figures in the later section. The performances shine, and the build up to the collision is eerily effective, with no incidental music at all. This is a relief - when it does come in, it seems more like a score to a 20's Frankenstein movie.

By contrast, Titanic gives us a whole new hour and three quarters movie here, as the story of Jack and Rose unfolds. On the way, we do meet some of the historical figures, broadly painted with the same brush as in Night To Remember. But the romance is clevely constructed so as to familiarise us with the workings of the ship from top to bottom - right down to the boiler rooms that the couple flee through - and the modern day framing provides a chilling reminder of the imminent fate of all on board. Some have critisised the inter-class nature of the romance as unrealistic given the strict enforcement of class areas on the ship. Maybe so, but Remember is guilty too, as various minor characters break with convention throughout. Also, if a third class passenger saved the life of a member of one of the most wealthy and influential families on the ship, it would be a brave employee who dared to tow the company line...

For the next, and main, section, the films broadly run in paralell, with Titanic clearly the more impressive by way of presenting the scale of the disaster. That being said, much of ther earlier film's model work is very good, with some sequences very convincing, and others are far less so (as be expected in 1958). Both do well in showing the early stages of bonhomie, bewilderment and irritation, and the pivotal role of Andrews, the master ship builder, in diagnosing good and early what will happen. Both even use the same dialogue here - that the ship will founder is "a mathematical certainty".

However, Titanic also has its own agenda, as the continuing Jack and Rose drama is played out. With Jack (Di Caprio) framed for theft of the precious diamond, and locked down below, some of the film's most effective scenes show Rose (Winslet) wading through the waterlogged corridors alone. When the lights fail for a few heartstopping seconds, and all to be heard is Rose's terrified breathing and the ominous creaking and groaning of the ship, the viewer is placed well and truly in the heart of the action.

The balance of portrayal in Remember is skewed towards first class, with the majority of characters from this side of the tracks. Yet both films show steerage passengers locked behind gates, and some eventually breaking through, but the inherant structure of Titanic fleshes this aspect out more, as the central protagonist's fate is tied with those below decks.

Only in the ship's final moments do the historical facts differ. Remember tallies with the most senior crew member's account, with the ship gracefully sinking in one piece. Cameron's film sides with the previously ignored majority consensus, now proven by the wreck, that the ship split in two minutes before sinking, resulting in the extraordinary sequence of the rear end bobbing vertically for a short while before going down. It is perhaps fortunate for the makers of the earlier film that this effects-intensive account was ignored!

Again, the films differ once the liner is on its final two mile journey to the bottom of the ocean, and Cameron's film here wins hands down. This is the most horrific section of all - the sight of literally hundreds of helpless individuals thrashing about in sub-zero waters with the lifeboats floating out of reach is accurately gut-wrenching. By contrast, Remember's account centres on the few boats attempting rescue, with much heroism on display - only a handful of deaths are actually seen. Titanic's darker tone is not diminished by the final scenes of Jack and Rose. The two certainly look freezing, something that Remember never managed to portray, and its reporting of only six people plucked from the ocean by the lifeboats is grimly accurate.

At this point, A Night To Remember gives us the reflective monlogues of the survivors as they wait to be rescued. This really does emphasise the film's gift of hindsight, perhaps somewhat unrealistic under the circumsatnces. After the survivor's rescue by the Carpathia (more fleshed out in the 1958 film), the film finishes off with a caption telling of the improved safety measures as a result of the disaster, a fitting end to the documentary style structure.

In its final sequences, Titanic goes back to Old Rose, and we see how her life has been a full one as a result of her experience. The criticism that the film only deals with a teenage romance is not entirely fair - in context, Rose is a women who has married, has children and grandchildren. Less obvious in its presentation, it is no less legitimate or powerful - quite the reverse.

The crtitisms of A Night To Remember are, for the most part, a function of its age. It is doubtful whether the full horror of what went on could be allowed to be protrayed in 1958, and arguments over then ship's sinking were not settled until the discovery of the wreck in 1985. But moreover, these problems are less important when considering what the film set out to achieve - how did the disaster happen? The bigger picture of the ignored radio messages and distress calls is still well told.

James Cameron shot some sequences of this story, but removed them all in editing, preferring to stay unbroken (no pun intended) with the great ship. This serves his question better - what was it like? To take the audience off the ship would provide distance and perspective, two commodities not avaiable to the passengers, and would be a different movie - one that may eventually surface in true Cameron style in a mammoth Special Edition.

The film's unprecidented financial and award-garnished success has Titanic mania sweeping the world. Intriguingly, this may in part be due to the question that the film doesn't answer. Having experienced what it was like, the next logical question is - how did it happen? A Night To Remember answers that superbly. The two films do not compete - they complement each other.

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