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Films About The Sinking of the RMS Titanic
49
5.7
6.1
Country: UK
Directed by: Jon Jones
Starring: Peter McDonald, Steven Waddington, Glen Blackhall, Ruth Bradley
BACKGROUND:
For the centenary of the Titanic's sinking, a new miniseries was commissioned. Because of course. But rather than a big studio like HBO taking on a project like that (oh God I wish they did), it was made by ITV on a ham sandwich budget, with Downton Abbey scribe Julian Fellowes charged with writing it. Fellowes even decided to slam James Cameron's epic just to make himself feel better about his miniseries.
Absolutely godawful. I own and still watch the 1997 film and A Night to Remember, but I watched this miniseries once and that was it. I watched the first episode when it aired, then kind of lost interest and had to force myself to watch the rest of it a few months down the track. Incredibly cheap, with terrible CGI, forgettable characters, poor story framing... It's boring and uninvolving. Yeah it's meant to be more about the characters than the spectacle, but the acting and writing needs to be good to let that happen. I never felt like I was on the ship here. It looked like a sound stage. And it looked like CGI was being used.
I can't remember much about this shit program, so I'll let someone more informed tackle this one:
When Julian Fellowes said he wanted his new television series Titanic to be as accurate as possible, he must have known he was challenging viewers to prove otherwise.
And so it has proved, with fans enjoying pointing out a string of apparent errors and historical inaccuracies, ranging from the appearance of a car and train not introduced until years after the liner sank, to shots appearing to show the vessel sailing backwards.
Of these, the most seized-upon has been the depiction of formal dancing by the first class passengers.
From the accounts of survivors, the events of the entire voyage in each class have been painstakingly reconstructed by historians who confidently state there was no such dancing in first class.
Viewers were particularly dismayed at the depiction of Charles Lightoller - the ship's fourth most senior officer and the highest ranking to survive the tragedy - casually asking a passenger, Dorothy Gibson, for a dance.
Lightoller would have effectively been considered "on duty" for the entire voyage and making such a request would have been a scandalous breach of protocol and social etiquette – even if there had been any such dances on-board.
Fans have also pointed out that another character, Thomas Andrews, the ship's naval architect, was an Ulsterman, yet is played in the show by Stephen Campbell Moore, a London-born actor speaking with an English accent.
Other viewers have expressed surprise that in one scene, there appears to be only one stoker in one of the ship's boiler rooms, shovelling coal into the ship's furnaces, when eight people were working in that area at the time keeping Titanic's vast engines turning over.
Dr Paul Lee, one of the viewers to point this out, said: "With just that one stoker the ship wouldn't even have got out of port. It's a shame they couldn't have found a few more extras and muddied them up with coal tar just to pad out the numbers."
Dr Lee himself has written a book on the ship and said he had catalogued more than 40 "goofs" in the first episode.
These include mistakes in the layout of the vessel, the absence of Titanic's ensign on her aft flag staff while she is in port, and the clothing worn by the ship's professional musicians.
He also spotted that the positioning of some retractable windows in certain scenes suggest the vessel is actually sailing backwards across the Atlantic.
Another expert noted that the ship's telegraph – by which its speed was controlled – was shown in the reverse position while the ship was sailing forwards.
Other errors spotted include the precise locations of officers and passengers at the moment the ship collides with the iceberg, as well as the sea conditions in the aftermath, which appear to be choppy in some shots. All survivors stated the water was as smooth as glass.
There are also quibbles with the sequence in which the lifeboats are launched, the numbers of people in them and the locations from which distress rockets were fired.
Wow.
9373
7.1
7.9
Country: USA
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, David Warner, Victor Garber, Bernard Hill.
"I'm the king of the world!"
BACKGROUND:
It was the most expensive movie ever made at the time. It won 11 Oscars. Critics loved it. Audiences at the time adored it. It became the highest-grossing motion picture in history (until James Cameron's follow-up flick, Avatar, hit cinemas). What a shame it has been forced to endure such a severe backlash.
I love this movie. For me, it's the best movie about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It manages to be exciting, exhilarating, emotional and heart-wrenching. Performances are top-drawer (if you say Leo is crap in this, I will fight you), direction is exceptional, and the technical achievements are mind-blowing. It truly feels as if you're wandering the decks of the doomed ocean liner. The sinking scenes are intense and terrifying. I don't get the hate...
Tonnes of them.
To quote wiki "The romantic story is improbable, just as it is in the movie, 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."
Apparently the accents are skewiff as well. There's a flashlight used while the lifeboat at the end is searching for survivors, but no such technology existed in 1912. Some reports say that the third class passengers weren't held behind gates during the sinking (as shown in this movie), but testimonials from survivors say otherwise, so I guess this one is excused.
All this historical inaccuracy stuff is nit-picking, however. Others are welcome to disagree, but you're taking one a hell of an experience for granted.
43
6.5
5.9
Country: Canada/USA
Directed by: Robert Lieberman
Starring: Peter Gallagher, George C. Scott, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Eva Marie Saint, Tim Curry, Roger Rees
"I've mourned enough."
BACKGROUND:
Titanic was a two-part TV movie filmed in Vancouver and starring George C. Scott as Captain Smith, Marilu Henner as Molly Brown and Eva Marie Saint and Peter Gallagher as fictional characters. The CBS movie was clearly designed to exploit the hype swirling about the then-uncompleted James Cameron film which was released in 1997.
As usual, the movie shows life in First Class represented by imaginary characters Wynn Park (Peter Gallagher) and Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones). There is a representation of true life characters like Molly Brown (Marilu Henner) and Bruce Ismay (Roger Rees), too. And the ship was created using shoddy CGI...
N/A haven't seen
Ha, yeah, loads. Everything from Captain Smith saying CQD stands for "Come Quick Distress" to Tim Curry's character raping a stewardess.
I'll leave the rest to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(TV_miniseries)#Goofs
8
5.7
0
Country: UK/USA
Directed by: William Hale
Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Susan Saint James, David Warner, Ian Holm
"God went down with the Titanic"
BACKGROUND:
This is a lavish made-for-TV movie starring David Janssen as John Jacob Astor, David Warner (who played the evil and sadistic gun-toting Lovejoy in the Cameron film) as Lawrence Beesley, a second class passenger, Ian Holm as J. Bruce Ismay and Cloris Leachman portrayed Molly Brown. Filming took place off the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea; aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California; in iceberg-infested waters near Greenland and in a gigantic "floodable" studio near London.
S.O.S. Titanic was conceived as a joint venture between ABC TV and the British company EMI. The idea behind the production was to revisit the idea behind A Night To Remember, but show the whole voyage from the departure in Southampton to the rescue aboard the Carpathia. The movie doesn't focus on any one plotline, but bounces around between an array of passengers in first, second and third class.
The movie was the first color version of the story. It can be seen in two versions: A 140 minute version told in flashback fashion, and a 109 minute version, shown in straightforward fashion.
I found the storytelling device to be extremely compelling, as the movie opens with the Carpathia receiving the distress signal from the ship and trying to reach her in time. Picking up the survivors is shown, as well as the aftermath of the disaster, before it flashes back to show the events which occurred on board the Titanic prior to and during the sinking. I also like the ice motif which permeates the show, and the morse code imagery is also quite powerful and evocative. An array of talented British actors feature in this miniseries, including Ian Holm, David Warner and Helen Mirren, all of whom hit their marks commendably. However, it's just hard to get past the fact that scarcely any sets resemble the Titanic. The program was mostly filmed on the Queen Mary (though a few sets were built, including portions of the boat deck which do look great), and the layout and general design of the ship are so vastly different to the Titanic that one must seriously question why anybody thought they could get away with it - especially when the wide shots of the ship show a more accurate Titanic which doesn't resemble what we see in closer shots. Any Titanic aficionado wants to see such dramatisations to see the ship and feel like they are aboard the Titanic, but the illusion doesn't really exist here. It's weird that even iconic locations such as the stern weren't constructed for the program.
Nevertheless, some of the special effects shots remain impressive, and the model work is quite good for a television miniseries of this era. It certainly stacks up with the type of special effects glimpsed in theatrical releases in the 1970s. Parts of the miniseries do work, such as parts of the sinking sequence, but it never really takes off in a big way and it lacks the emotional impact of other retellings. S.O.S. Titanic is fine overall, but it's not one of my favourites. It's worth noting that the full 140-minute extended version is now available in remastered high definition on Blu-ray from Kino, after years of being relegated to atrocious SD streams on YouTube and such.
From Wikipedia:
- The film does correctly portray the band playing ragtime tunes on deck during the sinking. Most historians agree that the then popular style is most likely what the band would have played on deck in the dark, improvised and confusing conditions. While the exact tunes played during the sinking might never be known, the ones heard in the film are mostly Scott Joplin's works. The historically accurate music is segued into the dance number.
- John Jacob Astor and his wife Madeline actually boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg, France, not at Southampton, England as depicted in the film.
- When it is finally April 14, 1912, it says "Day 5: 12 April, 1912". This was possibly an error by the filmmakers themselves, as they were unable to correct the mistake after the movie was released.
- Violet Jessop, the only surviving female to pen an account of the sinking, is showcased here as an elderly Stewardess. Jessop, born in 1887, would have in fact been only 24-25 years old when she was employed on the Titanic.
- The lifeboats did not have to row through a thick icefield to reach the RMS Carpathia. But during the course of the four hours after the sinking and before the Carpathia arrived the lifeboats did row past several icebergs and encountered growler ice. Growler ice was photographed the next day by passengers on several ships passing the scene, one of which reportedly showed traces of red anti-fouling paint, similar to that on the Titanic.
- The distress rockets for the Titanic were actually fired one at a time, not two at a time as depicted in the film.
- The actual RMS Titanic's lifeboats were actually labeled as SS Titanic, where in the film they are simply labeled as Titanic.
- Benjamin Guggenheim's mistress was actually traveling with him aboard the RMS Titanic, he did not leave her behind in Europe.
155
7.8
7.9
Country: UK
Directed by: Roy Ward Baker
Starring: Kenneth More, Honor Blackman, David McCallum, Alec McCowan.
"Everybody up, get dressed, get your lifebelts on, at once."
BACKGROUND:
The enormous popularity of Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember and its television dramatisation convinced Irish film producer William MacQuitty that the story deserved a lavish big screen treatment. The result is considered by many to be the best film about the Titanic's sinking ever to be released. And the film focuses on the sinking, and pretty much nothing else - after showing the ship's launch, it skips straight to April 14th as night is falling. It also conveys the story mainly from the perspective of the ship's officers. The interiors were filmed mostly at Pinewood Studios near London and the authenticity of this production included 30 interior sets constructed from actual blueprints of Titanic and actors who looked like the people that they portrayed.
During my Titanic obsession in childhood, I watched this movie ad nauseum. I remember seeing it at least 50 or 100 times. It's simply an amazing movie. The special effects are at times unconvincing, granted, yet the acting is great and the historical accuracy is fascinating. The drama unfolding is also quite riveting. I've also read Lord's novel, and I must say... Roy Ward Baker's film has done it justice.
Without a doubt, A Night to Remember is the most accurate cinematic rendering of the sinking of the Titanic to date. It's pretty much a documentary in the way it tells the events of the sinking pretty much exactly how they happened, at least as far as we can theorise. Only minor alterations were made to the historical record for dramatic purposes particularly the use of "composite characters": fictional characters who embodied the characteristics of several real people representing the three classes on board the Titanic. It also doesn't show the ship splitting in half, but the splitting wasn't confirmed till 30 years after the movie was made, so this is forgivable.
87
6.2
7
Country: USA
Directed by: Jean Negulesco
Starring: Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, Audrey Dalton.
"We may be having sand for supper."
BACKGROUND:
20th Century Fox finally got around to realizing David O. Selznick's plan to give the Titanic story the full Hollywood treatment that it so richly deserved and which was long overdue. Titanic was a lavish docudrama that mixed fictional and real characters and opened in Hollywood on April 14, exactly 41 years after the disaster. The film's script won an Oscar for the screenwriters. The model of the Titanic used in this film has been completely restored and is on display at the Marine Museum in Fall River, Massachusetts.
To be frank, I didn't overly like this film. Due to the historical inaccuracies, the VERY minuscule attention to detail, and the subpar production design, it's difficult to perceive this as a Titanic movie, too. It has its moments, but the film is ultimately underwhelming.
Jesus, there are lots. It focuses on fictional characters, for starters. The interiors of the ship are inaccurate, the costumes are inaccurate... I might as well just point you to an in-depth analysis
29
6.1
6.3
Country: Germany
Directed by: Herbert Selpin
Starring: Hans Nielsen, Otto Wernicke, Ernst Fritz Fürbringer.
"You see, the 'Titanic' is not just a bunch of shares. She is a tangible asset. Tangible assets create power, and power is a means to whatever you want."
BACKGROUND:
During World War 2, the German film industry, firmly under the control of the Nazis, made a propaganda version of the Titanic disaster. It was one of the most expensive German films made until that time. The film was a pet project of Hitler confidant and powerful minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. The fact that the real disaster highlighted British incompetence and corruption appealed to Goebbels and there was considerable opportunity for dramatic license.
The Nazi censors yanked it from circulation when they discovered that German audiences were still far too sympathetic towards the British passengers despite the obvious propaganda quotient. The propaganda value also backfired as the Titanic in the film could easily have been interpreted as an allegory of the Third Reich itself.
That said, the film isn't sinfully bad. It's entertaining enough, and it's an interesting take on the Titanic disaster. But it's just a curiosity... Nothing more.
The movie is almost completely devoid of truthful facts, and they even managed to make Bruce Ismay even slimier than he was in real life. In rewriting history to show German supremacy, 1st Officer Murdoch was replaced by fictitcious German Officer Peterson, the lone voice of reason on this "ship of fools." Not to mention, the model work is the only accurate depiction of the ship. The close-up shots filmed on a different ship don't even slightly resemble the Titanic. This extends to the lifeboat formation, the deck, the bridge... There's even a searchlight atop the bridge in this version, and the lifebelts are inaccurate. Added to this, all the British characters speak in German with perfect German accents...
5
7
0
Country: UK
Directed by: Ewald André Dupont
Starring: Franklin Dyall, Madeleine Carroll, John Stuart, Ellaline Terriss.
A thunderbolt of drama impossible to describe!
BACKGROUND:
"Atlantic" was based on Ernest Raymonds play "The Berg". While not mentioned in name, the story is obviously based on Titanic. It was the first film to depict "Nearer My God, To Thee", sung by all those left onboard, much like the Fox film 24 years later. The White Star Line tried to block the production of this movie, but failed to prove it was actually the Titanic being depicted, as the ships name was "Atlantic", even though there was a WSL ship called "Atlantic" back in the 1800's that sunk with a heavy loss of life. White Star Line threatening to sue was one of many attempts by the shipping company to discourage filmmakers from dramatising the Titanic disaster.
This section is rather pointless, as the film is not officially a retelling of the Titanic disaster. It's just a modernised retelling inspired by the disaster. Seems redundant to waste my time here.
3
4.5
5.9
Country: Germany
Directed by: Mime Misu
Starring: Waldemar Hecker, Mime Misu, Otto Rippert, Ernst Rückert.
BACKGROUND:
In Nacht und Eis is an early moving picture to have depicted the sinking of Titanic. It was released quite soon after the ship sank. The German-made film is only thirty-five minutes in length, but it was three times longer than most films of 1912. The film, long thought lost, was recently discovered, and portions can be seen in the documentary Beyond Titanic.
In Nacht und Eis did take some liberties with history (as most Titanic themed movies do) showing exploding boilers, flame shooting out of the funnels, and the passengers singing hymns en masse. On the whole, it's not very accurate.
There are also two mini-series which depicted the disaster, and have been listed on here as such.
A lot of information and photos were sourced from: www.jimusnr.com
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